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Cedar Crest neighborhood has been home to generations of local Black leaders in Dallas

In the 1960s and ’70s when David Small was growing up, the Cedar Crest neighborhood was an “oasis” for many Black residents, he recalled.

One of a limited number of places in Dallas where African Americans could purchase homes, Cedar Crest quickly grew into a close-knit community.

As Small drove down the street recently, he pointed to each home, naming who once lived there. He grew up surrounded by local leaders, he said. There was the house of the lawyer who tried the case to desegregate Dallas schools. Over there lived a schoolteacher who was the first Black person to move into the then-white neighborhood and was fired for it. They were among the many people in Cedar Crest who were essential to Dallas’ history as a whole.

“The stereotype on TV that you see of the unwed Black mom and everybody struggling — that was certainly not the case,” Small said. “These were full families with mom and dad. Everybody was a professional and owned businesses. For us growing up, that was just the way it was.”

The neighborhood has been through many phases over the years. Small still lives there, only a few minutes away from his 88-year-old mother, who lives in the same house that she was in when he was born.

When Black people began to move in during the late 1950s and early ’60s, they took out 30-year mortgages. As older residents began to pass away, houses went up for sale.

Though much of the community is made up of the original families who came when Black residents first planted roots in the area, Small said that within the last five or six years the neighborhood began to change.

“It is now being gentrified and a lot of white people are moving in,” Small said. “Young people that want to buy a house and are looking for a deal are moving over here and redoing all these houses.”

Though the community was a sanctuary in residents’ eyes, it was not immune to discrimination.

The first house Small’s parents moved into in the neighborhood was directly across from the elementary school, which was then named after a Confederate general and was renamed Cedar Crest Elementary only three years ago.

Small’s brother, Marcus Small, was not allowed to attend despite living only a stone’s throw from the school because it was for whites only. He had to go to a different school, and even that school’s directory in 1962 was segregated, with the first half being the white students and faculty and the second half being Black

“I still freak on that every time I pass this house,” Small said. “It is literally across the street. My dad was just pulled out of school to fight in the Army for two years, and he still couldn’t take his kid to school across the street.

Still, the community nurtured success. Small said in the 1970s and ’80s, practically all of the judges and doctors that were African-American in Dallas had ties to these few blocks of Cedar Crest.

“We are very, very, very proud of this neighborhood,” Small said. “We just took it for granted, and it was no big deal.”

Small said he didn’t realize the blessing it was to live there until he was older. He and his brother began collecting the history of the neighborhood with the goal to one day tell its story through a film. Though his brother passed away eight years ago, Small has stayed in the neighborhood and continues to be passionate about preserving the history in their community. The neighborhood contains a story of Black excellence.

“There is a lot of economic and political strength in the Black community, and it still exists,” Small said.

Cedar Crest neighborhood facts

Origins: The Cedar Crest neighborhood had primarily wealthy white residents until the 1950s, when Black professionals began to move in and fight for desegregation of the local schools and community.

Notable residents: Dr. Emmett J. Conrad, physician, civil leader, first African-American elected to DISD Board of Trustees & Texas State Board of Education; Crawford Bernard Bunkley Jr., African-American Dallas attorney and civil rights activist involved in the Supreme Court case Borders vs. Rippy (1955), which sought to desegregate Black public schools; Louis Bedford, the first African-American judge in Dallas County (1966); Rufus Cornelius Hickman, famed civil rights photographer; Robert Lee “Bullet Bob” Hayes, Dallas Cowboys player and the only man to win both an Olympic Gold Medal and & Super Bowl championship ring

Notable landmarks: Pan-African Connection Bookstore, Art Gallery & Resource Center, 4466 S. Marsalis Ave.; Cedar Crest Golf Course, 1800 Southerland Ave., formerly Cedar Crest Country Club, site of the 1927 PGA Championship.

Today: Though many original Black families still reside in Cedar Crest, there has been an influx of new younger, white residents searching for affordable homes in recent years.

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