Mrs. Evelyn G. Williams Speaks at Museum's Black History Observance
Longview, TX—On Thursday, February 5, 2009, Mrs. Evelyn Garrett Williams spoke at the Gregg County Historical Museum in observance of Black History Month. Mrs. Williams was asked to reflect on the many changes she’s seen in her 85 years. The information below is from the Longview News Journal, written by Jamaal E. O’Neal.
For more than a half century, Mrs. Evelyn Garrett Williams worked and lived in the shadows of segregation and discrimination in Longview. Riding in the back of the bus, going to segregated schools, sitting the balconies at the movie theatres and being forced to enter at the back of the Gregg County Courthouse – it’s a vivid period, which, at the age of 85, Williams has not forgotten.
“Things were different then,” Williams said.
“People had their place, knew their boundaries, but thank God, it didn’t stay that way.”
Williams, a historian at St. Mark CME Church, Longview, TX, reminisced about growing up Black in Longview with a handful of other residents at the Gregg County Historical Museum. Her speech is part of the museum’s salute to Black History Month. One of 13 brothers and sisters, Williams has called South Longview home all her life and can remember when much of the area was rural.
“We lived on Green Street, but back then it was called Route 3,” Williams recalled. My father, Jack Garrett, bought a farm on the road, and we had 110 acres. We later bought 86 acres down on Lilly Road, which was a mud road back then.”
Williams said her family nearly lost their farm after a local white banker refused to take her father’s last payment for the property. “I remember how he paced the floor. Oh, how he worried. We could have lost everything, but luckily we were able to pay the mortgage with another bank.”
It wouldn’t be the last time her family and others would experience bigotry in Longview. The Klu Klux Klan was on the rise in Longview after World War I, and poll taxes—high taxes Blacks had to pay to vote—also were increasing.
After the death of her father in 1943, an editor at the Longview Journal refused to publish her father’s obituary because he was Black. “I called up there and asked him why,” Williams said. “He told me they didn’t print Black obituaries, and he had thrown it in the trash.”
Williams said all people should remember how people of color were treated in the past so society learns never to revert to discriminatory practices. “This is part of our history,” Williams said. “It’s painful, but I think it helps us progress. I’ve let it go, but I’ll never forget. I think we’ve come a long way in East Texas, but there is still much work to do.”
Mrs. Williams is the widow of Sam Williams and mother of four, Carolyn (Houston), Garrett (Shreveport, LA), Cedric and Tracey (Longview), and grandmother of nine, Carol (Dallas), Kasha, Cedric Jr., Frenchmon, Shelby and Daniel (Longview), Garrett, Jr. (Tampa, FL), Frederick (Grambling, LA) and Kirbye (Northwestern University in Louisiana).
Submitted by daughter, Carolyn Williams, Metropolitan CME Church, Houston, TX.