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Monday, November 8, 1999
Then and now: A diversity timeline
Associated Press
1839
Henry Lawrence Kinney opens a trading post on the bluff that is now a part of downtown.
1849
The first slaves arrive in the Corpus Christi area.
1852
Corpus Christi officially becomes a city.
1865
Juneteenth celebrates the announcement to Texas slaves that they had been freed. The announcement came on Galveston Island on June 19, 1865, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Sam Moore, who was a blacksmith prior to the Civil War, spreads the news of freedom to many slaves on ranches near Corpus Christi after news of President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation reaches the area.
1868
The 14th Amendment was ratified, making all American-born blacks citizens.
1869
The 15th Amendment was ratified. It states that the right to vote will not be denied or abridged because of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; however, women are are excluded.
1873
Because of anti-Semitism, Davis Hirsch, the founder of the Corpus Christi National Bank and the first school board president, is not allowed to bury his wife in Corpus Christi. The burial took place in Gonzales.
1874
St. Matthew Baptist Church, the oldest surviving black church in Corpus Christi, is founded after a split with the Freedmans Congregational Church. The first members meet in a building that was where the Caller-Times now stands on N. Lower Broadway.
1875
Capt. Richard King, founder of the King Ranch, donates land that became the Hebrew Rest Cemetery where Laredo Street and the Crosstown Expressway intersect.
1877
Solomon Coles, an educated former slave from Virginia, moves to Corpus Christi as pastor of Freedom Congregational Church.
1889
The Herman Poenisch family buys land that is now Arcadia Village, Portairs, Southmoorland and Fairview additions for $3 an acre.
William Warner is the first black to seek elected office by running for constable.
1893
Black students move to a four-room building in what is now north Corpus Christi. Solomon Coles is the principal of that school, which evolved into Solomon Coles High School.
1896
In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” facilities for Anglos and blacks were constitutional. The ruling marked the start of the Jim Crow era, legalizing segregation.
1909
The Corpus Christi Independent School District is created by the Legislature.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is officially founded, with the H. Boyd Hall Chapter of the NAACP established in Corpus Christi in the early 40s.
1910
Dudley Smith becomes the first local black mail carrier.
1917
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Buchanan v. Warley that states could not restrict and officially segregate blacks into residential districts.
1920
The 19th Amendment grants women the right to vote.
1921
The Ku Klux Klan makes its presence known in Corpus Christi, harassing blacks and the anti-Klan Nueces County sheriff.
1922
City Council adopts an ordinance outlawing parades by two or more masked people.
1925
Congress creates the U.S. Border Patrol.
1927
In Nixon v. Herndon, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Texas law that prevented blacks from voting in Democratic party’s "white" primaries.
1929
Corpus Christi High School, later renamed Roy Miller High School, is built.
The League of United Latin American Citizens is formed in Corpus Christi. LULAC later became a national organization focused on educating and protecting Hispanics from discrimination.
1930
The first repatriation programs began. Between 300,000 and 500,000 Mexicans, many who were U.S. citizens, were returned to Mexico for the next five years.
1932
Sidney Wolf accepts an offer from 70 Jews in Corpus Christi to be their rabbi for a three-month trial period. He stayed 50 years.
1934
The first joint Thanksgiving Day services with congregations from Temple Beth El and Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd are held.
1936
The Greek Orthodox Church in Corpus Christi begins when a group of people form a committee.
The Rev. Henry Clay Dilworth Jr., pastor of Calvary First Baptist Church, moves to Corpus Christi. Dilworth laid the foundation for a new black neighborhood in Corpus Christi during segregation.
1939
Edmund E. Mireles comes to Corpus Christi and the next year, started teaching Spanish in grade school. Known as the father of bilingual education, he started a preschool program for non-English-speaking children in 1956.
1941
U.S. enters World War II. During the war blacks working at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi are confined to kitchen jobs and in a ground ordnance squadron that handles ammunition and weapons.
D.N. Leathers Center Housing Project begins in north Corpus Christi. The project is named for D. N. Leathers, the founder of the city’s Negro Business League.
1942
Bernice Leonard, who was black, establishes the city’s first licensed day care center, Mary McLeod Bethune Day Nursery. The day care center primarily served low-income families. Leonard’s husband, Carlyle, became the first manager of the D. N. Leathers Housing Project.
Warren Crecy, who was black, enlists in the Army and goes on to become one of South Texas’s most decorated officers.
1943
The first meetings for an orthodox Jewish congregation are held.
1944
The B’nai Israel synagogue is constructed at 1514 Brownlee Boulevard.
The Corpus Christi Planning Commission hears a report that Census Tract 4 (Washington and Coles neighborhoods) is filling up and recommends that blacks soon be allowed to move into Census Tract 5 (Hillcrest).
1947
113 black students enroll in Solomon Coles Junior College, which is part of Corpus Christi Junior College.
The American GI Forum, founded by Dr. Hector P. Garcia, is formed in Corpus Christi, in part as a response to a Three Rivers funeral home’s denial to bury a Mexican-American
soldier killed in the Pac-ific during World War II.
1948
For the first time, Corpus Christi blacks are allowed to buy homes beyond Kennedy Street. As blacks move into Hillcrest, whites move out, flip-flopping the census counts there over the next 20 years.
1950
The first services are held at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church.
1951
Del Mar College creates its women’s athletics department and becomes the first college in the United States to coach co-ed tennis teams.
Pete Hernàndez is convicted of murdering another Hispanic. In 1954 his conviction was successfully appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that Hispanics were excluded from serving on juries in Texas, making it impossible for them to gain a fair trial before a jury of their peers.
1952
The Del Mar Junior College Board of Trustees votes unanimously to allow black students to enroll, two years before the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education. Seven blacks enroll.
Solomon Coles Junior College closes.
1953
The Jewish Community Council and the Jewish Community Center are founded.
The U.S. Immigration Service arrests and deports more than 3.8 million people of Mexican descent during "Operation Wetback" which continued until 1958. Many of the people deported were U.S. citizens.
1954
The U.S. Supreme Court rules public school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education.
Wilbur C. Orum is admitted to federal law practice. He is believed to be the first black attorney in Corpus Christi.
1955
Corpus Christi schools desegregate.
L.R. Jones becomes the first black firefighter in the city. He was said to have accepted the job because he could not obtain a teaching position in the city, even with a master’s degree.
1962
Cesar Estrada Chavez, a migrant worker, organized wine-grape pickers in California to the form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee.
Local theaters integrate. Previously, blacks were only allowed in theaters on certain days or were required to sit in the balcony.
1963
Henry J. Williams becomes the first black physician allowed in the Nueces County Medical Society. Williams was also a civil rights leader and NAACP chairman.
Blacks lead a protest march at City Hall demanding the city establish a Human Relations Commission and pass an ordinance banning discrimination in public accommodations. Both demands were met by 1964.
1964
The City Council passes an ordinance prohibiting discrimination in places of public accommodation. The ordinance also makes the Human Relations Committee permanent.
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act and President Johnson signed the bill. The act prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, creed, race or ethnic background. It also establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The last of the segregated bowling lanes in Corpus Christi become integrated.
Welder Brown is the first black to be elected to a school board position in South Texas, the West Oso school board.
West Oso students and teachers are racially integrated.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed.
1965
The Voting Rights Act is passed.
Officer Forest Alexander, who was black, becomes the first officer to serve outside of Corpus Christi’s black neighborhoods.
1966
The Most Rev. Thomas J. Drury, Bishop of Corpus Christi, and a group of Catholic priests and nuns attend services at Temple Beth El. It is the first visit to a temple or synagogue in Corpus Christi by a large group of Catholics.
Welder Brown is selected as the first black president of the West Oso school board.
1968
Carlos Truan successfully runs for the Texas House.
Jose Cisneros and 25 other Hispanic and black members of the United Steelworkers Union charge in a lawsuit that CCISD is unconstitutionally segregated. The Cisneros case and a Houston desegregation lawsuit were the first major U.S. cases to recognize Mexican-Americans as an ethnic group distinct from Anglos.
School administrators refuse Miller High School students’ request to fly the school flag at half staff in honor of the slain Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community leaders of different ethnic backgrounds organized a citywide memorial service in an attempt to deter rioting on the city’s Northside. Mourners from throughout the community attend, except the City Council.
1969
Josè Angel Gutièrrez forms La Raza Unida (The United People) in Crystal City.
1970
U.S. District Court Judge Woodrow Seals of Houston rules that CCISD had been operating an ethnically segregated school system. Seals orders CCISD to implement by the 1971-72 school year a desegregation plan that would bus about 15,000 students. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black stays the busing order until the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court can rule on the case.
1971
C.F. Wimbish is promoted to police lieutenant, the first black to obtain the rank. He gained the rank of commander before his retirement.
Mattie Wagner becomes the first black Nueces County deputy district clerk and is assigned to the 28th District Court. The Rev. Harold T. Branch is elected as the first black to sit on the City Council since 1889.
1972
The appeals court orders a new desegregation plan be drafted for CCISD, using busing only as a last resort. The court orders the immediate integration of about 1,000 black students.
Ramsey Muñiz, a Corpus Christi lawyer and former Baylor University football player, announces his bid for governor of Texas in 1972 as a candidate of La Raza Unida.
1973
The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the CCISD’s appeal in the Cisneros desegregation lawsuit. CCISD is ordered to proceed with a desegregation plan.
1974
Congress passes the Equal Educational Opportunity Act, which made bilingual education available in public schools, and the Voting Rights Act amendments, which made a permanent national ban on literacy tests and bilingual ballots required.
1977
Irma Rangel of Kingsville is elected as the first Hispanic woman in the Legislature.
Solomon Ortiz of Robstown is the first Hispanic elected as Nueces County sheriff.
Capt. Richard Williams becomes the first black to head a major Navy shore command when he is appointed base commander of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.
1978
CCISD requests an end to court-ordered busing, saying it is no longer necessary.
1981
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and others successfully sue the city to restructure the previous all at-large election system.
Herbert Hawkins Jr., the first black Texan to graduate from Notre Dame Law School, is the second black elected to the City Council.
1982
U.S. District Judge Hayden Head Jr. approves an agreement drafted by the plaintiffs in the Cisneros desegregation lawsuit and CCISD as an alternative to forced busing. The agreement creates special emphasis elementary school programs and majority-to-minority transfers.
The Metropolitan Community Church of Corpus Christi is founded, the first local congregation to have a primary outreach to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Christians.
Solomon Ortiz is elected to his first term as representative of the 27th Congressional District.
1983
The 5-3-1 at-large election system is adopted by the city. The new election system was the result of a federal lawsuit filed against the city because many believed the all at-large system "diluted" Hispanic and black voting power in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
1984
The Rev. Elliott Grant is the first black to sit as president of the CCISD board.
Dr. Hector P. Garcia is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.
Carlos Valdez is the first Hispanic elected Nueces County attorney.
1990
The first Intertribal Association of Texas Powwow is held at Heritage Park.
1991
The CCISD board, with the blessing of the plaintiffs in the Cisneros case, vote to ask the court for a three-year monitoring period at the end of which court supervision for the district’s desegregation efforts would end. It was granted in 1992.
1992
Carlos Valdez is the first Hispanic elected Nueces County district attorney.
1993
Members of the Islamic Society of South Texas begin gathering for worship in a building on Holly Road. Before finding the building Muslims prayed on their own or gathered at each other’s homes.
Carl Lewis becomes Nueces County’s first black county attorney.
1994
Judge Hayden W. Head Jr. upholds the Corpus Christi election system, ruling that it is constitutional and does not discriminate against Hispanics or blacks.
Former County Commissioner Richard Borchard of Robstown, who was the first Hispanic elected to serve as county judge locally, takes the position a month early after the resignation of Robert Barnes.
The Jewish Community Council building is gutted by fire caused by two Molotov cocktails thrown through a window.
1995
At least three dozen gravestones in a local Jewish cemetery are defaced with swastikas.
Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla Perez is fatally shot in Corpus Christi. Some controversy follows as city officials try to determine how best to honor her.
1996
Dr. Hector P. Garcia dies.
Pete Alvarez is named the first Hispanic police chief of Corpus Christi.
1997
Alex Garcia Jr. and Arnold Gonzales Sr. are the first Hispanics to win Corpus Christi City Council at-large seats. Along with Betty Jean Longoria, John Longoria and Jaime Capelo, they make up the first Hispanic majority on the council in the city’s history.
Construction of a new mosque on McArdle Road begins.
1998
Businesswoman Beverly Winters becomes the first black elected to Del Mar College Board of Regents.
District Judge Hilda Tagle, a Robstown native, is appointed to the U.S. District Court making her the first Hispanic female federal judge in Texas.
The first Gay Pride parade is held on Shoreline Boulevard.
1999
A fence that segregated the Waldheim Cemetery in Tynan is torn down.
Mary Helen Salazar is named the first female president of LULAC Council No. 1 in Corpus Christi.
State Highway 44 is named the Cesar Chavez Memorial Parkway. Where it connects to Agnes Street in the city limits, the roadway is designated in honor of Chavez but still is named Agnes Street.
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