Hiding History

In July, Bills, Hollie-Jawaid, and her brother Leo went into a store in Slocum, which is still an unincorporated community. The store was full of white farmers and cowboys.

“When we walked in — crickets,” she recalled. “They looked at us like we were subhuman. When [the cowboys] left, the cashier asked what we were doing there.”

The white store clerk appeared truly concerned and pulled Hollie-Jawaid and her brother aside.

“You all look like nice people — please be careful,” Hollie-Jawaid said the woman told her. “Watch these white cowboys here. Folks around here just don’t like black people.”

Both Bills and Hollie-Jawaid said Anderson County Historical Commission chair Jimmy Odom has been openly hostile toward the marker effort.

“When I submitted the application, he said he didn’t think I was capable of writing it” because she was African-American, Hollie-Jawaid said. “He asked who was helping me, calling me ‘little girl.’ It was very demeaning.”

Odom, she recalled, asked her why she was upsetting the community and told her she was going to “upset our coloreds” who were “very happy down here.”

Odom told Fort Worth Weekly he has been unfairly depicted by Bills and Hollie-Jawaid. The marker application, he said, was full of mistakes and lacked clarity. It was then-commission chair Norris White who decided last October to postpone consideration of the application, Odom said.

“They thought we would [rubber] stamp this, but we have to make sure the application is adequate for the marker,” he said. “It was not clear as to what they actually wanted. If you asked what they wanted you couldn’t find it in the application. Did they want it just recognized? It wasn’t clear to us. You don’t guesswork a history marker.”

Frustrated, Bills and Hollie-Jawaid went directly to the state commission. Last month the Slocum Massacre marker received a score of 98 out of 100 for historical relevancy and accuracy and was approved by the Texas Historical Commission.

In a joint statement to the Weekly, the Anderson County Historical Commission said it had forwarded the application to state officials within the time required, despite several mistakes in it.

The state commission approval hasn’t settled matters for some Anderson County officials. On a recent Texas Public Radio program, County Commissioner Greg Chapin said he hasn’t seen enough evidence to warrant the marker. And, he added, if it is put up, someone in the community will probably destroy it.

“I think it would go up one day and go down the next,” he said. “And be thrown in the river.”

“Why would you say something like that?” Hollie-Jawaid said. “That’s inciting someone to do that. If he says that on the record, what kind of conversation does he have off the record? Those conversations are what [African Americans] in Slocum fear.”

The marker wouldn’t be the first dedicated to an African-American in the area. In 2013, the Anderson County Historical Commission dedicated a marker to Timothy Smith, the son of a runaway slave who became a prominent community leader and advocate for equal voting rights in the area.

The commission has been wrongfully accused of delaying and obstructing the Slocum marker process, Odom said.

“If you think I’m a racist, you couldn’t be further wrong,” he said. “I know the wrong from the right.”

Several hurdles still lie ahead for the Slocum marker, which is slated for installation sometime this year. After requesting the largest size marker possible (27 by 42 inches), Hollie-Jawaid received approval for the smallest marker (18 by 28 inches). She still hasn’t been told why. The county is supposed to pay for the marker, but Odom hasn’t responded to Hollie-Jawaid’s inquiries on the subject.

Bills and Hollie-Jawaid believe the Anderson County Historical Commission will delay the process past a crucial March 19 deadline. A missed deadline could mean another year of delays and possibly other obstructions.

The Slocum Massacre isn’t just an African-American story, it’s an American story, Hollie-Jawaid said.

“This is about justice,” she said. “I can’t breathe life back into my ancestors who were killed, but I can reclaim their legacy. I intend to reclaim that for their children and their children’s children. I feel like my family’s hard work, the legacy they wanted to leave for later generations was taken, and I just want to reclaim that on behalf of Jack Hollie.”