March 9, 2026 - On February 18, 2026, the Timpson Area Genealogical and Heritage Society, (TAGHS), hosted a presentation that challenged the comfortable and often incomplete narratives of the past. Entitled "Our Stories Matter, Our History Lives On," the session featured researcher Delbert Jackson, who brought with him a collection of books, keepsakes, and a lifetime of unearthed truths that promised to reshape the audience's understanding of their own community.
The event was more than just a genealogical report; it was a profound act of restorative history. Jackson, with his wife, Rose in attendance, stood before a room of local residents and historians to present a narrative that bridged the gap between documented records and the lived, often painful, experiences of the African American community in Shelby County.
The Secret Beginnings of a Historian
Jackson’s journey into the depths of local history was born not in a library, but from a startling personal revelation that occurred when he was just five years old. Growing up in Center, Texas, Jackson lived under the assumption that Ira Jackson, the man he called "Dad," was his biological father. This perception was shattered when a man named Marian "Winky" McClelland approached him one day while he was playing near his grandmother's house.
"Son, do you know who I am?" the man asked. When the young Jackson replied that his father was at work, the man told him, "No, I'm your father... You got a whole family in Shelbyville that you don't know about." Jackson’s mother later confirmed the truth, revealing that his upbringing had been shrouded in a family secret. This childhood discovery sparked a lifelong quest for identity that eventually expanded into a mission to uncover the buried histories of all Black families in Shelby County.
The Poster and the Hanging Tree
A pivotal moment in Jackson’s research occurred at the Pine Grove nursing home in Center. While visiting Ira Jackson, the man who had raised him, Delbert noticed a historical poster of Shelby County hanging on the wall. As a researcher, his eyes immediately gravitated toward familiar names. He found his great-grandfather, Sam McCowin, listed on the poster, but the designation was jarring: he was identified as a Confederate soldier.
Studying the poster further, Jackson realized that the visual history presented to the public was selective. The poster featured the infamous "hanging tree" and referenced the lynching of Joe Shields, a white man from the Timpson area who was reportedly killed for selling other people’s property. Jackson noted that while Shields was pictured, the many other Black individuals who had been lynched in Shelby County were conspicuously absent from this official visual record.
This disparity between the celebrated Confederate symbols and the ignored tragedies of the Black community became a focal point of Jackson’s advocacy. He described the profound "disrespect" he felt when, years later, he witnessed blue ribbons and butterfly releases occurring at the site of the old hanging tree on the square in Center to commemorate Confederate History Month. "I didn't want the children to be confused," Jackson explained, recounting his efforts to persuade county officials to place a restorative marker at the site to accurately reflect its history.
Despite facing significant "pushback" from local officials who deemed the proposed language "inflammatory," Jackson refused to let the matter rest. He eventually collaborated with an organization in Montgomery, Alabama, to place a restorative marker within the Black community to educate residents on the narrative of what had happened on the square. He continues to push for formal recognition on the courthouse square itself, noting that "truth crushed to earth always rises."
The Cold Case of Leonard McCowin
The weight of history became even more personal as Jackson detailed the tragic death of his relative, Leonard McCowin. McCowin was a veteran of World War II who returned to Shelby County after serving his country abroad. Within only six months of his return, he was killed on the courthouse square in Center.
According to family memory and records documented by the NAACP, a marshal named Bryan McCullum stopped McCowin as he was walking home carrying a rifle. Despite the marshal confirming the weapon was unloaded, he allegedly struck McCowin across the head with the rifle, breaking his neck. At the time, the legal system offered no recourse; officers were largely immune from prosecution for homicides committed in the line of duty.
However, Jackson revealed that this decades-old injustice is finally being addressed. The case has been reopened as part of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2008. Jackson is now working with restorative justice organizations and lawyers from across the country to ensure that the sacrifice and suffering of Black veterans like McCowin are acknowledged. He noted the profound irony of soldiers who "were fighting for democracy in other lands" only to be "denied of the rights that they were fighting for overseas" upon their return home.
The Five Men Who Founded Center
One of the most provocative revelations of the presentation involved the very founding of Center as the county seat. The official history, recorded on courthouse markers, credits white residents like Sam Weaver and R. L. Parker with moving the county records from Shelbyville to the location then known as "White Cottage."
Jackson’s research, however, tells a different story—one that places Black men at the center of the action. He asserts that five Black men, including his great-grandfather and a relative named Ocie Cartwright, were the ones who actually moved the records. These men reportedly cut a path through the brush in the middle of the night to deliver the records to what would become Center, yet their names remain absent from the official markers on the square.
Jackson further complicated the narrative of Sam McCowin. While the historical poster at the nursing home claimed McCowin was a Confederate soldier, Jackson discovered through military records that he was actually a Union soldier from the 91st Indiana regiment. It is likely McCowin arrived in Texas with the troops who brought the Emancipation Proclamation to the state. This erasure of Union service in favor of a Confederate narrative served as a stark example of how history can be manipulated to fit a specific cultural agenda.
Tragic Arrangements: The Law of Partus Sequitur Ventrem
Jackson spent a significant portion of his presentation explaining the legal frameworks that enabled centuries of systemic inequality. He spoke of the "peculiar institution" of slavery in the Americas and the specific laws designed to ensure its permanence. One such law was partus sequitur ventrem, a doctrine originating in colonial Virginia which decreed that the status of a child followed that of the mother.
This "tragic arrangement" meant that children born to enslaved women were automatically classified as property, even if their fathers were white or the slaveholders themselves. Jackson argued that this law fundamentally shaped American society, ensuring that the wealth generated by forced labor remained within a specific racial and legal class.
To illustrate these legal entanglements, Jackson cited the case of Jane Alexina Morrison (Morrison v. White) from 1848. Alexina was a woman with blue eyes and "white-textured hair" who was being held in jail to prevent her re-enslavement. She sued for her freedom, claiming she was white. Moses Morrison, a Texas Ranger and member of Stephen F. Austin’s "Old 300," served as a witness in the case. Jackson discovered a chilling personal connection to this history: his own grandfather had been "given away" as a wedding gift to the same family involved in the Jane Alexina Morrison case.
He also discussed the case of Cartwright v. Cartwright, which demonstrated how enslaved people were treated as livestock during divorce and property disputes. He recounted the story of Williford Cartright, who fathered children with both his wife, Pink, and an enslaved woman named Jane. When the couple divorced, the court divided the "livestock"—including the children—as property. These cases, Jackson argued, prove that "America was never truly segregated" because of the intimate, often exploitative legal and social bonds that existed between the races.
The "Trust Denied" of Houston’s Medical Center
Jackson’s investigation into the intersection of race and wealth extended beyond Shelby County to the history of the Houston Medical Center. He detailed the life of George Henry Herman, a wealthy real estate magnate who lived on the land where Houston's City Hall now stands. Herman reportedly had a son, George Herman Getchell, with his Black housekeeper.
When Herman died, he left a significant portion of his wealth to Getchell and intended for a charity hospital to be built in the Black community of "Freedman's Town." However, city founders allegedly plotted to move the hospital to its current location near Rice University to enrich their own land. To undermine Getchell’s opposition, they exposed his racial identity—he had been "passing" as white and had married into a white family. Following a tragic series of events, the money was diverted into the Herman Trust, which funded the modern medical center. Jackson pointed to this story, documented in an article titled "A Trust Denied," as a prime example of how economic disparity was systematically maintained.
The Africa Community and the Future of Preservation
The presentation concluded with a forward-looking segment featuring Kristi McClelland, a cousin of Mr. Jackson and a descendant of the Africa Community in Shelby County. McClelland spoke about the ongoing efforts to secure a Texas Historical Commission marker for the Africa Community, an area rich in history and resilience.
She highlighted the importance of the Webb School, a primer school that served the Africa community and was attended by her grandmother. McClelland is currently working to document local cemeteries and pick up the mantle of historical preservation from her late mother and uncles. She mentioned her collaboration with community members like Milton James White to restore burial grounds and ensure the stories of these settlements are not lost to time.
"Our stories matter," Jackson reiterated as the presentation drew to a close. He emphasized that understanding the past is the only way to navigate the future. While some facts may be deflected or forgotten, their effect on the present remains. By unearthing these buried narratives, Jackson offered the TAGHS audience an opportunity to see their county not as a collection of separate histories, but as a single, complex, and deeply integrated story.
The Timpson Area Genealogical and Heritage Society meets at 2PM on the third Wednesday of each month in the meeting room of the Timpson Public Library on the corner of Austin and Bremond Streets in downtown Timpson. The TAGHS library is located within the Timpson Public Library and is open and staffed from 9AM until 5PM weekdays except Tuesday. Telephone 936-254-2966 and ask for the Genealogy Library.
