Before Juneteenth, a Black neighborhood in Plano was on its way to becoming one of the city’s most vibrant communities.
Why it matters: Formerly enslaved people Andy Drake and Mose Stimpson established the community — later named after abolitionist Frederick Douglass — as a Black enclave in the early 1860s .
- Even as other Collin County communities faced violence during Reconstruction , the Douglass community hosted cotillions, established several churches and looked out for each other. They also got along with their white neighbors.
Flashback: Collin County voted against secession while the city of Plano voted to join the Confederacy.
- After the Civil War, more families settled in the Douglass community, which became predominantly Black by the late 1800s.
- Douglass Elementary School opened in 1896 for Black students.
State of play: …..