To honor Dallas’ George Keaton, finish his work on Martyrs Park, Trinity lynching marker

To all of us lamenting the debt we can never repay to Dr. George Keaton Jr., the historian and Remembering Black Dallas founder who passed away Dec. 6, I’m sure of what his response would be.

“Get to work trying” — followed by that gentle laugh that softened his toughest words.

Keaton did so much to bring a deeper understanding of our city’s Black history and its place in today’s hard conversations on racial justice.

Dallas saw the fruits of his labor year after year, most recently the Equal Justice Initiative marker commemorating the 1910 downtown mob lynching of Allen Brooks and the dedication of the public art honoring Anderson Bonner, who after his 1865 emancipation, became a leading local businessman and landowner.

What few of you saw was the time required of Keaton to cause those right things to happen — the tedious behind-the-scenes hounding of City Hall and other often-unmovable institutions.

This week we get the opportunity to honor Keaton as his remains will lie in state in Fair Park’s Hall of State Thursday and he is remembered in a celebration of life Saturday.

Having had the privilege of documenting so much of his work, I know George would prefer I use this column not to look back but to challenge us all to finish the job.

At the top of the Keaton “to-do” list was the long-promised Martyrs Park memorial to victims of racial violence and the placement of the second Equal Justice Initiative marker, this one for William Taylor.

Even as he relished the large diverse crowd on hand to celebrate the September dedication of the Bonner-inspired public art in North Dallas, George told me he feared Martyrs Park and the Taylor marker had fallen off City Hall’s radar.

Keaton led the way to secure the markers honoring Brooks and Taylor from the Equal Justice Initiative, whose National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., is a shrine to victims of lynching.

The local group evolved into the Dallas County Justice Initiative, with civic leader Ed Gray at its helm since last year. Gray and Keaton oversaw the November 2021 dedication of the city’s first permanent and public acknowledgment of what happened to Brooks at Main and Akard streets more than 112 years ago.

Accused of a crime and awaiting his first appearance before the judge, Brooks was kidnapped, murdered and hanged for spectator amusement.

For a city that too often pretends the shameful episodes in our history didn’t happen, the commemoration of Brooks’ death was a significant moment in Dallas’ reckoning with the violence wrought by racism.

Still waiting for installation is the Equal Justice Initiative marker for Taylor, lynched Sept. 12, 1884, by a mob of young men and boys after a supposed assault of a white woman.

Because the exact spot of Taylor’s death near the Trinity River is unknown, Keaton and Gray long lobbied to have the marker installed at Trinity Overlook Park, alongside the Commerce Street bridge’s west end.

Multiple entities have a hand in that spot — the city, the federal Corps of Engineers and the Trinity River Conservancy.

“They have not provided a roadblock, but neither have they given us a road map to get the marker placed,” Gray told me.

Developments to bring a memorial to victims of racial violence to Martyrs Park are more hopeful — although that’s a relative term given that this effort has been in the works for almost five years.

Benjamin Espino, assistant director of the Office of Arts and Culture, said the memorial should be in place in April and the city aims for an August dedication.

The work, “Shadow Lines,” is a tribute to the memory of victims of lynching and racial violence in Dallas, with references to specific victims between 1853-1920.

Re:site, a collaboration between artists Shane Allbritton and Norman Lee, is responsible for the work, which will include a poem related to race and memory by former Dallas resident and poet laureate of Virginia Tim Seibles.

Renderings show a large semicircular wall of weathering steel around a circular plaza marked by a tall shadow-casting spire. Vertical cuts pervade the curved wall, symbolizing lives cut short and communities dissected by violence.

Keaton was a member of the working group, appointed at the City Council’s request in April 2018, to pick a site for such a monument. The group’s choice was historically significant Martyrs Park.

This half-acre of green space near the Sixth Floor Museum was named Martyrs Park in 1990 to commemorate the 1860 lynching of three men — Patrick Jenkins, Cato Miller and Samuel Smith.

They were hanged after specious accusations concerning a downtown fire, and their deaths were part of an infamous reign of terror during which enslaved individuals were rounded up and tortured.

A Texas Historical Commission marker commemorating those lynchings, secured by Keaton’s Remembering Black Dallas organization, will be placed in Martyrs Park before next year’s dedication.

When I walked across the pocket park Friday, everything looked as lousy as it did when I first toured it with Keaton in February 2021.

The park is a triangular half-acre wedge of land mostly invisible to speeding drivers trying to navigate between the Triple Underpass and the northbound access ramp to I-35E.

Right now, it’s a raw space littered with trash and frequented by homeless individuals who pitch their tents amid its tree-lined back boundary.

Mark Lamster of The Dallas Morning News and a pair of prominent architects recently put forth an ambitious proposal that, in part, would transform and unite Dealey Plaza, the Triple Underpass and Martyrs Park.

(Count me among those who don’t want to see Elm Street go away. Maybe the “Xs” that perennially have marked the spot where President Kennedy was gunned down are gruesome, but so is that history.)

Even for those who love the architects’ vision, it’s hard to imagine it in a city that’s had difficulties getting DART to let it even renovate the Elm Street pedestrian walkway that would take visitors to Martyrs Park.

For now, I’m focused on an accessible, cleaned-up Martyrs Park by August.

Trent Williams, a senior program manager in the Park Department, told me his team is designing a simple meadow environment with a single curving concrete path that will take visitors to the artwork, which will be about 100 feet from the street.

“We want to facilitate the power of that piece by not creating a lot of clutter to compete with it,” Williams said.

The bigger problem remains walkability from the only available parking — a challenge even for those who can walk the quarter-mile or so from the Sixth Floor Museum area.

That route also requires going through the often-filthy and dark pedestrian tunnel alongside Elm Street.

Williams said his staff continues to work with DART in hopes of getting the required permission for renovations and installation of lighting in the tunnel. They’ve been in talks for months, and most recently DART asked for a formal request application.

Perhaps that logjam can be sorted out when the Office of Arts and Culture brings all the stakeholders together in January. Gray, who has taken an increasing role in recent months, said he needs to hear a lot more before he’s confident that things are on track.

Keaton let me know in early November that he had “a few health issues” but continued to send me his concerns about Martyrs Park progress.

Only a few weeks ago did I realize how gravely ill he was.

Now I replay Keaton’s last voicemail, and I hear his words about “keep doing what you’re doing” in a new light. My heart remains heavy over this most consequential loss of a man who taught me so much.

I will repay that debt in small measure by making sure Martyrs Park, the William Taylor marker and all the other worthy work Keaton began will get across the finish line.