Allen Brooks, Victim of a 1910 Lynching, Is Remembered in Dallas

Allen Brooks, a Dallas handyman accused of raping a small girl, was awaiting the opening of his proceedings connected March 3, 1910, erstwhile a mob stormed the courtroom.

As The Dallas Morning News reported the adjacent day, Brooks, who was Black, had a enactment tied astir his cervix and was pulled from the second-story model of the courthouse. His assemblage was past dragged respective blocks to the Elks Arch, a ample landmark successful downtown Dallas. Brooks was strung up connected a telephone rod and lynched connected the country of Main and Akard Streets.

“While the attorneys were preparing the motion, a mob entered the courtroom and killed the defendant,” Judge Robert Seay wrote successful the tribunal record. “Case dismissed.”

The arch was dismantled little than a twelvemonth later, but now, a caller landmark has been erected wherever it erstwhile stood. In a ceremonial connected Saturday astatine the tract of Brooks’s lynching, the Dallas County Justice Initiative unveiled a humanities marker acknowledging the transgression that occurred 111 years ago. Local advocates accidental the marker is the archetypal memorial of its benignant for a lynching unfortunate successful Dallas County.

“Everybody knows J.F.K. was assassinated present successful Dallas, we person nary occupation recognizing that portion of history,” George Keaton Jr., enforcement manager of the nonprofit enactment Remembering Black Dallas, said successful a caller interview. “But erstwhile it comes to our radical of color, the sins and the wrongdoings that achromatic America has done to our people, they bash not privation to beryllium known.”

According to Christopher J. Dowdy, main world serviceman astatine Paul Quinn College successful Dallas, Brooks had been fixing a furnace successful the location of a achromatic household connected Feb. 27, 1910, erstwhile the family’s 3-year-old daughter, Mary Ethel Beuvens, went missing. Brooks, who was believed to beryllium 59 years old, was recovered with the toddler little than 4 hours later. For his probe project, “Dallas Untold,” Dr. Dowdy combined the sensationalized section articles from the clip with tribunal records to supply a textured relationship of what happened to Brooks.

After the antheral and the kid were examined by doctors, Brooks was charged with rape. Dr. Keaton said determination was nary impervious of that transgression and the kid had nary injuries.

An estimated 5,000 radical witnessed the lynching astatine Elks Arch, a three-story white, bluish and purple operation that marked the main entranceway to the city, according to Dr. Dowdy. Its achromatic metallic was inscribed with the sanction of each region successful Texas.

The Dallas County Justice Initiative, which is besides led by Dr. Keaton, worked to unafraid backing for the marker from the Community Remembrance Project of the Equal Justice Initiative, which “collaborates with communities to memorialize documented victims of radical violence.”

“One of the large tragedies is that determination are galore lynchings that we’ll ne'er cognize thing about, due to the fact that determination was conscionable nary mode to papers them,” Bryan Stevenson, the enforcement manager of the Equal Justice Initiative, said successful an interview. “And truthful this marker for Allen Brooks represents what happened to him, but it besides represents what happened to thousands of different people, galore of whose names we’ll ne'er know.”

Next month, the Dallas County Justice Initiative plans to clasp a 2nd ceremonial honoring Reuben Johnson, who was lynched successful 1874.

“Most Americans cognize precise small astir this past erstwhile it is truthful cardinal to the American story,” Mr. Stevenson said.

While the 2 humanities markers volition correspond lone a tiny fraction of the radical unit that took spot successful a authorities wherever astatine slightest 335 lynchings of African Americans occurred, Dr. Keaton said, they’re much than helium could person imagined 20 years ago.

“This means a batch to me,” Dr. Keaton said. “It means that Dallas has moved forward.”