On Juneteenth

by Annette Gordon-Reed

Montgomery County, of which Conroe was the county seat during my childhood, was known for being particularly harsh for Black people. Just to mention the more publicized examples, in 1885, twenty years after the end of the Civil War, in the town of Montgomery, just seven miles from Conroe, Bennett Jackson, a young Black man, was lynched after being charged with breaking into a home and assaulting a White woman and her children. That Jackson would be lynched was well known ahead of time, as it turned into a public celebration for White citizens in the area. Men, women, and children gathered and had a picnic to watch. The Houston Post reported on the spectacle, explaining that White residents wanted to send a message to Black people who were considered to be acting in too forward a manner. The message went not only to Blacks, but to Whites, telling them what they could do to Blacks without fear. This knowledge operated along a continuum, from lynching down to nonlethal displays of disrespect without consequence. After the events in nearby Montgomery, Conroe was the site of other notorious incidents that raised the town’s profile on the question of race. In 1922, a Black man, Joe Winters, was burned alive at the stake on the courthouse square after a teenaged girl accused him of rape. And in 1940 there was the case of Texas v. White, which garnered much attention and was the subject of a Supreme Court opinion. Bob White had come to Livingston, Texas, the town where I was born,...