Names of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X and John Lewis are known to everyone nationwide, young and old. But here in Texas, much of the progress toward equality was spearheaded by an unassuming woman in old South Dallas. Juanita Jewel Craft helped change the face of race relations in Dallas and beyond.
Juanita Craft isn’t the household name that the men are, but she should be. Born in 1902, in Round Rock, by 1925 Craft, as her friends called her, was living in Dallas. She earned a teaching certificate from Samuel Huston College, but worked as a maid at the Adolphus Hotel. In 1935, she joined the NAACP and found her life’s work. As the membership chair of the Dallas branch, she hid the membership rolls to protect her fellow members from those who would have used the rolls to harass those fighting for change. She assisted in organizing 182 branches of the NAACP and worked hard to ensure that African-Americans paid their poll tax and secured their rights to vote. She herself had been the first African-American woman to vote in Dallas County. She was surrogate mother to the young members of the Dallas branch, advising them on life choices and choosing the right brides and husbands, as they struggled to integrate lunch counters, schools and the State Fair. She would later be elected to the Dallas City Council for two terms.
Mrs. Craft owned a small house, on Warren St., near Fair Park, but she lived in the guest house out back, running the main house as a boarding house for young men who are leaders in today’s NAACP. She welcomed important figures like MLK and LBJ to her house, when they came to talk to her about her work. But she also welcomed the neighbor kids. The girl who lived next door, named her daughter Juanita, for her, and called her Neet. “Mrs. Craft met a lot of people and had a lot of photographs. On one wall of her sitting room, she had a picture of herself with JFK standing behind her. On the opposite wall was a picture of Neet,” Patricia Perez recalled.
Patricia was one of those youth who spent countless hours at the Craft house. “That was my house of power. You just felt it being around her. She showed us in word and deed. She was militant, but quiet. She knew what wasn’t right and knew it could be changed. She had all these community connections, and she used them to enhance our lives. I felt empowered and special when I was with her.”
Bob Lydia was one of those young men who received advice from Mrs. Craft. “I rented a room from her. She’d give me and the other young guys advice on which girls to avoid. Craft was like a mother. She was also artistic. She’d buy wooden boxes and turn them into decoupage purses. She wouldn’t accept any help making them, but she did take the leaves we’d bring her to use. She’d sit on her bed and put in all the screws and nails. She could sew anything. She kept a garden and canned and made jams and jellies. She was very frugal. She wanted to teach us young people how to behave and be respectful. If you wanted something done, all you had to do was sit down with her, and she’d figure out a way. She didn’t have to scream and holler. I thought I was too young, but Craft decided I should be the first vice president for the Young Adult Council of the Dallas NAACP, and she made it happen.”
In 1977, Mrs. Craft was interviewed for the Black Women’s Oral History Project held at Harvard University. In the interview she discussed the hardships of growing up Black in the pre-Civil Rights era. Her mother died in 1935 from tuberculosis, because there was no state hospital for Black people. But she never let hardship stop her. And her reach extended far beyond South Dallas, or even Texas. She worked with Eleanor Roosevelt and other national leaders on important issues, and rallied support for Thurgood Marshall as he litigated cases eliminating whites-only primary elections and “separate but equal” education.
She was 73 when she was first elected to the Dallas City Council, where she served from 1975-1979. “When she won, she said, ‘I showed ’em!’ And a few other words,” Bob Lydia remembered. She died in 1985, leaving behind a better Texas for all of us. Her house on Warren St. is now a Civil Rights museum.
Sources:
1. https://www.nps.gov/people/jjcraft.htm.
2. https://dallasculture.org/cultural-venues/juanita-craft-house/.
3. https://www.womenintexashistory.org/biographies/juanita-craft/.
4. https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:45168259$1i.
5. Personal interviews with Bob Lydia and Patricia Perez.
Written by Adam Walker
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