`Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Doo-doo-dee-doo-dee-ooh-doo-dee-ooh-doo . . .”
Strains of the score from the hit movie “The Sting” plink from a player piano in your mind as you view the Scott Joplin mural adorning a wall at 3rd and Main Streets in downtown Texarkana, Texas.
Joplin, the composer called the Father of Ragtime Music, is arguably Texarkana’s most famous native son. His rival for that distinction is Dallas billionaire Ross Perot — and, in fact, the Perot Theater is not far from the Joplin mural.
The Texarkana Historical Museum at 219 State Line Ave. features a permanent Scott Joplin exhibit. It includes the square grand piano on which Joplin is reputed to have learned to play, along with sheet music, recordings and other Joplin memorabilia.
The museum, which is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday, recently held a Scott Joplin portrait contest, and the entries were displayed. For more information about material relating to African-Americans of the region, call 903-793-4831.
It is fitting that an African-American-oriented tour of Texas should commence with Texarkana, which dubs itself the “Gateway to the Southwest.” It must be pointed out, however, that such a tour should occur in conjunction with a trip for some other purpose. Most Texas cities have not yet devoted as much attention as Texarkana has to the African-American elements of their heritage.
If, for example, you happen to be in Marshall, it would be worthwhile to drop by the campus of historic Wiley College. Wiley is the alma mater of civil rights leader James Farmer, whose father was a prominent faculty member there. When Wiley opened in 1873, it was the first black college chartered by the state of Texas.
To hop deep into the heart of African-American Texas, you should definitely journey to the Beaumont-Port Arthur area along the southeast coast. African-Americans have profoundly flavored the music, art and diet of the region. Beaumont’s home county of Jefferson is 32 percent African-American, the highest such racial concentration in the state.
The main campus of Lamar University in Beaumont is on Martin Luther King Parkway in the southeastern part of the city. The Babe Zaharias Museum, which houses Beaumont’s visitor information center, is also located on that street.
In Beaumont, the most festive event for African-Americans is Juneteenth (June 19), the day in 1865 when Gen. Gordon Granger delivered the belated news of the Emancipation Proclamation to Texas slaves in Galveston. City-sponsored events blend gospel, rhythm and blues, and zydeco music. Cajun and creole food, including the rice and pork sausage mixture called “boudin,” is plentiful.
Houston boasts the mother of all Juneteenth celebrations. It’s a two-part event. The first part consists of the Juneteenth USA Gospel Festival and the Juneteenth Blues Festival at Miller Outdoor Theater on the weekend preceding Juneteenth. The second part, which occurs on the nearest weekend to the actual emancipation announcement date, is a National Emancipation Association-sponsored Juneteenth Freedom Festival at the same location.
African-Americans will find two Houston museums particularly interesting — The Menil Collection, at 1515 Sul Ross in the Museum District, and the Contemporary Arts Museum, at 5216 Montrose Blvd.
Currently through Oct. 11, the Menil is featuring “In and Out: Native, Folk and Self-Taught Artists,” an exhibit gleaned from its permanent collection.
Moving northward, any Afro-Texas tour must pause in the state capital to visit the George Washington Carver Museum. It occupies a 1927-vintage, 1,800-square-foot frame building that once served as the Austin Public Library.
Established in 1979, the museum, at 1165 Angelina St., was the first neighborhood black history museum opened in Texas.
One of the real gems of the Afro-Texas tour is farther north in Dallas. The Museum of African-American Life and Culture, at 1620 1st Ave. in Fair Park, was established in 1974. It offers African art and sculpture in addition to exhibits pertaining to African-American history.
The building makes a symbolic architectural statement. It is designed to resemble an African cross.
Thirty miles west in Ft. Worth, jazz aficionados can usually find something to savor at the Caravan of Dreams, a combination nightclub, museum, botanical garden and little theater at 3112 Houston St. near Sundance Square. Huge murals in the nightclub portray the evolution of jazz from the arrival of its early stages via slaves to its eventual acceptance as an important musical genre.
Ft. Worth’s Jubilee Theater, at 506 Main St. in Sundance Square, is another Afro-Texas jewel. The black ensemble offers polished productions of mainly musical comedy. Many of its programs are original works.
Ft. Worth, of course, is noted for its cattle culture heritage. African-American cowboys figured prominently in its history. They are represented symbolically by a large bronze statue in the Stockyards tourist area depicting fabled black cowboy Bill Pickett bulldogging a longhorn steer.
Heading west out of Ft. Worth, the seeker of Texas’ African-American historical and cultural treasures should make a brief stop in Weatherford to visit the City Greenwood Cemetery. In that historic burial place, you will find the graves of famous cattleman Oliver Loving and his African-American sidekick, Bose Ikard. The black cowboy rode with Loving and Charles Goodnight on many perilous trail drives.
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San Angelo owes its existence to Ft. Concho, one of several military posts in West Texas staffed in large measure by buffalo soldiers, troops of the African-American 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry.
The men of those units engaged in heavy fighting against the Apaches, Comanches and other hostile tribes during the pacification campaigns of the Old West.
San Angelinos have been restoring the fort for nearly 40 years. Located between Burgess Street and Avenues C and D, Ft. Concho has become one the area’s most popular tourist attractions.
A special exhibit in the fort’s visitor center honors the buffalo soldiers, who constructed most of its original buildings. Local buffalo soldier re-enactors also put on demonstrations at the fort.
Among other existing West Texas forts where buffalo soldiers were posted are Ft. Davis National Historic Site in the Big Bend area, Ft. Stockton in the city of the same name that grew up around it, Ft. Richardson State Historic Site near Jacksboro and Ft. Clark in Brackettville.
Ft. Clark was the primary post of the heroic detachment of Seminole Negro Indian Scouts. The scouts were African-Americans whose ancestors originally intermarried with the Seminole Indians in Florida. They escaped to Texas and Mexico when the Seminoles were forced to migrate to the Indian territories in Oklahoma.
No Afro-Texas tour could conclude without a stop in San Antonio. One of the venues that must be visited in the Alamo city is the Institute of Texan Cultures in HemisFair Park. It includes a variety of exhibits pertaining to 26 Texas ethnic and cultural groups, including African-Americans.
And in case you drop by Sea World while in San Antonio, it would be well to take note of a life-size figure on the Famous Texans Walk — a statue of (“doo doo dee doo dee doo . . .”) Scott Joplin.