Description:
Sometimes, history isn't what it appears to be. For instance, in the early 1920s, a thriving Southern Black community was literally voted out of existence by local white citizens. The North Texas city of Denton, which was sometimes described as a "Ku Klux Box," was also home to the Quakertown neighborhood. There, Black Texans worked hard to overcome the legacy of slavery, build financial success and family stability, educate their children, and worship God as they saw fit. And they did it all right in the middle of town. A model of "racial uplift" for over forty years, the community was eventually targeted by their white neighbors.
Rather than using the torches and nooses often associated with the Jim Crow era, Denton's white supremacists perpetrated a devastating act of civic violence. Cloaking themselves in the legitimacy associated with city government, institutions of higher learning, fraternal orders, and civic improvement groups, they were able to cover their tracks while they planned a large-scale racist dispossession. Then, in 1920, they got access to the most destructive weapon they'd deploy--the vote for women.
Quickly, the very existence of Quakertown was put on the (whites-only) ballot, disguised as a beautification measure. By a narrow margin, the Black community was slated for destruction in 1921. Once the community removal was complete, Denton's white community used the language of democracy and majority rule to cover up the whole thing. This is the story of Black success amid the challenges of Jim Crow Texas, the way that white supremacists were able to manipulate democratic ideals to oppress their neighbors, and the legacy a deformed social memory left behind.
Review Quotes:
"Progress Denied offers a thorough, compelling, and deeply unsettling history of racial violence in North Texas. Through detailed archival research, Teague reveals the many ways violence--both obscene and ordinary--was deployed to undermine Black families' economic stability and collective progress. Centering on Denton, Texas, Teague examines how the constant threat of physical violence, combined with ostensibly race-neutral policies, facilitated the forced removal of a thriving Black middle-class community known as Quakertown. Through close analysis of local actors and institutions, Progress Denied demonstrates how racial domination operated through interconnected systems of extralegal brutality and publicly organized political and civic exclusion--revealing institutionalized racism not as an aberration but as a governing logic of the region."--William Scarborough, author of Gendered Places: The Landscape of Local Gender Norms Across the United States
"I have not encountered historical treatments of Quakertown, and certainly none that elevate Black counternarratives about the community while showing how white public memory came to hold such a prominent place in the town's public spaces. Considering the existing literature in the field, this book will add much-needed context to what little we've known about the Quakertown story thus far and serve as a fruitful basis for extended discussions about historical memory in Texas."--Delaina Price, assistant professor of history, University of Texas at Arlington
"In Progress Denied, Hollie A. Teague passionately asserts, 'The onus is on us to have the eyes that see and the ears that hear the truth.' She deftly uses the story of Quakertown to remind the reader 'democracy is tricky.' Her skillful weaving of individual narratives and broader historical context allows the reader to understand how a thriving Black community allowed itself to be pushed out of existence so its people could survive. This story is a worthy foil to the Tulsa Race Massacre, illustrating how the same ends have been reached using different methods. Teague connects long-standing state and local organizations to the white supremacism at their roots. She thereby asks the reader to question their own beliefs about foundations underlying US society and democracy."--Monica Cubberly, professor of history at Collin College