Hall of Negro Life

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Hall of Negro Life, out there at Fair Park in Dallas County. Now, let's go back to the Great Depression, a hard time by any measure, when the federal government decided one way to put people to work was to build something worth celebrating. Texas was turning one hundred years independent from Mexico, and somebody had to host the party.

Dallas got the nod. The task of remaking a fifty-year-old fairground called Fair Park into a modern exposition fell to a Dallas architect named George Dahl. Dahl, born in 1894, would live all the way to 1987, and he had a hand in roughly fifty structures for that Texas Centennial Exposition.

Fifty buildings; and one of them was unlike any other. But here's the thing. Before George Dahl ever put pencil to paper on that particular building, two men had already done the heavy lifting in Washington.

Antonio Maceo Smith and Maynard H. Jackson, both leaders in Dallas's African American community, worked tirelessly to secure federal funding for what would become the Hall of Negro Life. That's the kind of work that doesn't always make the headlines but makes everything else possible.

To run the hall, they selected Jesse O. Thomas as general manager. Now, Thomas was no stranger to this kind of work; he had served as Southern Field Director for the National Urban League, and he was a protege of Booker T.

Washington himself. Antonio Maceo Smith stepped in as assistant general manager. What they built together was something.

Nearly fourteen thousand square feet of exhibit space. Nine thousand square feet of wall space. Six classifications of exhibits: education, fine arts, health, agriculture, mechanical arts, and business.

Nearly four hundred exhibits arrived from thirty-two states. Texas led them all with seventy-six. The federal government chipped in an additional seventy-eight exhibits of its own.

And people came. Four hundred thousand of them, over the course of the fair, walked through those doors to see the accomplishments and deeds of the African American community on full display. Then the exposition ended.

The Exposition Corporation of Dallas took over the fairgrounds, intending to carry things forward the next year as the Pan American Exposition. And in that transition, they chose to demolish two of the exhibit buildings. The Hall of Negro Life was one of them.

Out of all those fifty structures, that one did not survive. For the short time it stood, it had told a story the country needed to hear. Four hundred thousand people heard it.

And it's worth remembering that someone had to fight just to build the room where that story could be told.

What the marker says

One of the federal work programs enacted during the Great Depression was the construction of a Texas Centennial Exposition to celebrate 100 years of independence from Mexico. The city of Dallas was awarded the honor of hosting the statewide exposition site. The task of remaking the fifty-year-old Fair Park into a modern exposition fell to Dallas architect George Dahl (1894-1987). Of the approximately 50 structures designed by Dahl and his staff, one was built to showcase the accomplishments of the African American community: the Hall of Negro Life. Before Dahl was involved, federal funding for the hall was secured by the tireless work of Antonio Maceo Smith (1903-1977) and Maynard H. Jackson (1894-1953), two leaders of the Dallas African American community. Jesse O. Thomas (1885-1972), once Southern Field Director for the National Urban League and a protege of Booker T. Washington, was selected as the general manager of the building. Smith served as assistant general manager. The building contained nearly 14,000 square feet of exhibit space and 9,000 square feet of wall space. The hall featured exhibits under six classifications: education, fine arts, health, agriculture, mechanical arts and business. Nearly 400 exhibits from 32 states were shown, with Texas' 76 exhibits representing the most from any state. The federal government supplied an additional 78 exhibits. Total attendance to the Hall of Negro Life over the course of the fair was 400,000. At the end of the Texas Centennial celebration, the Exposition Corporation of Dallas took over the fairgrounds with the intention of continuing the next year as the Pan American Exposition. The Hall of Negro Life was one of only two exhibit buildings demolished. For the short time it stood, the Hall of Negro Life celebrated the numerous accomplishments and deeds of the African American community in America. (2021)