For the first time, the true story of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" is told in full, revealing a host of new insights and perspectives on one of America's most popular stories. For generations, the Yellow Rose of Texas has been one of America's most popular western myths, growing larger over time and little resembling the truth of what happened on April 21, 1836, at the battle of San Jacinto, where a new Texas Republic won its independence. The woman who has been popularly connected to the story was an ordinary but also quite remarkable free black woman from the North, Emily D. West. This work reconstructs her experience, places it in full context and explores the evolution of a most fanciful myth.
A journalist searches for the truth behind the traditional folk song, and a free black woman’s role in the Texas Revolution. The legend of the Yellow Rose of Texas holds an indisputable place in Lone Star culture, tethered to a familiar song that has served as a Civil War marching tune, a pop chart staple, and a halftime anthem. Almost two centuries of Texas mythmaking successfully muddled fact with fable in song, and the true story of Emily D. West remains mired in dispute and unrecognizable beneath the tales that grew up around it. The complete truth may never be recovered, but in this book Lora-Marie Bernard seeks an honest account honoring the grit and determination that brought a free black woman from the abolitionist riots of Connecticut to the thick of a bloody Texas revolution. A Lone Star native who grew up immersed in the Yellow Rose legend, Bernard also traces other stories that legend has obscured, including the connection between Emily D. West and plans for a free black colony in Texas. Includes illustrations
The legend of the Yellow Rose of Texas holds an indisputable place in Lone Star culture, tethered to a familiar song that has served as a Civil War marching tune, a pop chart staple and a halftime anthem. The true story of Emily D. West remains mired in dispute and unrecognizable beneath the manipulative tales that grew up around it. Author Lora-Marie Bernard seeks an honest account honoring the grit and determination that brought a free black woman from the abolitionst riots of Connecticut to the thick of a bloody Texas revolution.
Yellow Rose of Texas: The Myth of Emily Morgan tells the fact based story of the African-American woman who inspired the world famous folk song. In this graphic novel the adventures of Emily Morgan reveal the Texas war for independence through the eyes of a black woman who survived the Alamo and played an important part in winning the war. While the story of Texas is told with attention to historical detail, the story of Emily is elevated to a romantic myth.
For years, historians have talked about two women connected to the Yellow Rose of Texas legend: Emily West, the beautiful mulatto servant who allegedly distracted Mexican general Santa Anna to help win the Texas Revolution; and Emily West de Zavala, the rich white woman who employed her.But were there really two like-named women, one white and one black, so close to the San Jacinto battlefield in April 1836?Making Myth of Emily takes an unorthodox look behind this enduring legend and details how the Yellow Rose of Texas myth resulted from determined efforts to hide the racial identity of Emily West de Zavala. In compelling detail, Myth shows that Emily, the wife of Texas ? interim vice-president, was beautiful, cultured, well-traveled, wealthy?and black.Emily?s story, painstakingly recreated from thousands of historical documents and family records, reveals the need for more diverse interpretations of Texas? vast anecdotal past.
A collection of over 250 documents, fifty biographical sketches, and a timeline that served as the basis for Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph. When Black Texas Women: 150 Years of Trial and Triumph was published in 1995, it was acclaimed as the first comprehensive history of black women’s struggles and achievements. This companion volume contains the original source materials that Ruthe Winegarten uncovered during her extensive research. Like a time capsule of black women’s history, A Sourcebook includes petitions from free women of color, lawsuits, slave testimonies, wills, plantation journals, club minutes, autobiographies, ads, congressional reports, contracts, prison records, college catalogues, newspaper clippings, protest letters, and much more. In addition to the documents, a biographical section highlights the lives of women from various walks of life. The book concludes with a timeline that begins in 1777 and reaches to 1992. This wealth of original material will be a treasure trove for scholars and general readers interested in the emerging field of black women’s history. “One of its kind. This book is very much needed because of the scarcity of material on Black women’s history in Texas, or Black women’s history in general.” —Linda Reed, Associate Professor of History and Director, African American Studies Program, University of Houston “Though readers of conscience are aware of the abuses endured by Black women, no fiction or interpretation in nonfiction can have the impact of original sources.” —Review of Texas Books
Explores the resounding musical performances of Mexican American women such as Chelo Silva, Eva Ybarra, Eva Garza, and Selena within Tejano/Chicano music
“Enriches and complicates African American and women’s history by connecting threads of race, gender, class, and region.” —Darlene Clark Hine, John A. Hannah Professor of History, Michigan State University Winner of the Liz Carpenter Award from the Texas State Historical Association Women of all colors have shaped families, communities, institutions, and societies throughout history, but only in recent decades have their contributions been widely recognized, described, and celebrated. This book presents the first comprehensive history of Black Texas women, a previously neglected group whose 150 years of continued struggle and some successes against the oppression of racism and sexism deserve to be better known and understood. Beginning with slave and free women of color during the Texas colonial period and concluding with contemporary women who serve in the Texas legislature and the United States Congress, Ruthe Winegarten organizes her history both chronologically and topically. Her narrative sparkles with the life stories of individual women and their contributions to the work force, education, religion, the club movement, community building, politics, civil rights, and culture. The product of extensive archival and oral research and illustrated with over 200 photographs, this groundbreaking work will be equally appealing to general readers and to scholars of women’s history, black history, American studies, and Texas history. “Occasionally a book comes along that is monumental in scope, overwhelming in amount of research, and so powerful in its impact as to be categorized at once as a lasting contribution to our knowledge of humankind. Black Texas Women is one of those rare books.” —The Journal of American History
Black Women's Activism is the first book-length study of African American women's historical romances. This book examines romances written from 1989 to the present, and discusses their black heroines' resistance at particular moments in history - from the colonization movement to the Texas oil boom. Socio-historical perspectives, a womanist agenda, and an African-centered outlook inform the readings of female characters in the narratives of Francine Craft, Gay G. Gunn, Shirley Hailstock, Beverly Jenkins, and Anita Richmond Bunkley. Broadening the scope of the historical romance genre, and expanding the canon of African American literature, this book provides a more comprehensive image of the black female character and addresses gender issues previously unexplored in black fiction. This text should be used by librarians, historians, literary critics, writers, college- and graduate-level students, teachers, and romance readers.
