African American Heritage: Old Southside & the East Side

Black Fort Worth built its own institutions in the decades after emancipation — schools, churches, and a high school whose name still carries weight across the city. This driving tour gathers the landmarks of that history on the East Side and the old South Side: I.M. Terrell, the only public high school for Black students in Fort Worth for generations; the AME, Methodist, and Baptist congregations whose handsome brick sanctuaries anchored their neighborhoods; and the schools named for educators like James E. Guinn who pushed past the limits of a segregated city. Several of these buildings were designed by leading architects — including William Sidney Pittman, a son-in-law of Booker T. Washington — and several are Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks. Together they map a community that, denied access to so much, made its own places of worship, learning, and leadership.