Written by Ben Cox – A group of local historians has taken it upon themselves to document the lives and businesses of the black residents of Brownwood.
Frank Hilton and Clay Riley, along with Carl Bodiford, Keith Barrick, Hank Hunter and Michael Kelly have been working for the last few months to complete a series of notebooks filled with information about the black community that has been lost over time.
11 volumes so far have been compiled and are available for viewing at the Brownwood Genealogical Library, across from the courthouse. Hilton and Riley say that while the volumes will never be complete, they will not stop adding to them.
“It’s an ongoing project, we are going to add more books as people in the community become aware of it” says Hilton. “I added seven families today, as a matter of fact.”
The group is asking for anyone in Brownwood or the surrounding area that has information about the early black residents of Brownwood to please come forward to have their stories documented and their scrap books scanned for preservation. “We have got a lot of research left to do, and hopefully some people in the community will remember things and come share them with us.”
Eleven volumes, available at the Brownwood Genealogical Library, documenting the history of black families and businesses in Brownwood
Hilton says he was “looking for a project after I had hip surgery in January” and working with Riley filled that bill. “We needed to try to get, in one place here at the Genealogy History Library, all the history related to the Black community that we could find.”
Starting with three notebooks of information previously compiled by Hilton, as well as what Riley had compiled over a 20 year period, the group has been adding information they have unearthed over the last six months.
Riley says his inspiration for gathering this information was a story he read in the early 90’s about a man who was “worried about the black cemetery he tended being lost or forgotten after he passed away.” When Riley got around to looking into the cemetery, the final resting place of several slaves brought to the area, had indeed been lost.
That is something he intends to rectify. Both he and Hilton are scanning old files at the library to find the original story and relocate the cemetery.
The pair, along with the help of others, have also documented the history of Camp Bowie, have digitized several decades of documents from the County courthouse, and completed other projects about the history of Brownwood. “We’re a couple of old history buffs” says Riley.
If residents are in possession of scrapbooks, family history, or anything else related to the black community’s history in Brownwood, they are urged to bring it to the Genealogical Library so it may be scanned and documented for generations to come. The library can be contacted through its website, by calling 325-646-6006, or stopping by 213 S. Broadway, across from the courthouse.
