Today in our History August 6, 1985 - Juanita Craft (born Juanita Jewel Shanks died.

GM – LIF – Today’s American Champion was an American activist and politician. Craft was an activist in the civil rights movement and also served as a member of the Dallas City Council in Texas.

Today in our History August 6, 1985 - Juanita Craft (born Juanita Jewel Shanks died.

Juanita Jewel Shanks was a pivotal local, state, and regional organizer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) during the campaign for racial justice in Texas as she confronted the state’s segregationist practices from the 1930s to the 1980s. Shanks, the only child of educators David Sylvestus and Eliza Balfour Shanks, was born on February 9, 1902, in Round Rock, Texas. Both her parents taught school, and her father would later become a principal.

The young Shanks went to Austin’s segregated Anderson High School, but after a couple of years, her mother Eliza Shanks fell ill with tuberculosis and Juanita accompanied her to San Angelo state sanitarium. They were refused admission because of their race and this experience of pleading with hospital officials to care for her mother and living in a tent during the rainy season near the hospital for months was one of the seminal experiences Juanita Shanks carried with her throughout her life.

Eliza Shanks died in 1918, and the sixteen-year-old Juanita Shanks joined her father in Columbus, Texas and, later graduated high school in 1919. Juanita Shanks moved to Prairie View and studied sewing and millinery at Prairie View Industrial School (now University) but returned to Austin and graduated from Samuel Huston College (now Huston-Tillotson University) where she received her teaching certificate. She briefly taught in 1921, but—that same year—left the profession to marry an old boyfriend, Charles Floyd Langham, who was a tailor in Galveston.

In 1935, Shanks joined the Dallas branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) beginning a fifty-year “career” in civil rights work. At this time, the local branch, under the dynamic new leadership of A. Maceo Smith and Rev. Maynard Jackson Sr., began a campaign to organize and register black voters through the Democratic Progressive Voters League.

In 1937, Shanks married Johnnie Edward Craft, a salesman and gambler. He provided the now Juanita Craft with some financial stability, allowing her to concentrate exclusively on her civil rights work. Racial tension was particularly high in Dallas at this time and the George F. Porter episode of 1938 intensified black concerns about the city. Porter, once president of the Wiley College Branch in Dallas and later branch NAACP secretary, attempted to exercise his right to serve on a jury.

When asked to leave a Dallas courtroom, he refused to be dismissed. Two men then grabbed him and threw him out of the courtroom and down a flight of stairs. Porter sustained a blow to the head which left him blind. The perpetrators of this crime were never arrested. This incident drew national NAACP attention when the Association’s main attorney, Thurgood Marshall, decided to investigate this situation.

He met with the judge concerning this case, and after leaving the appointment Marshall was chased to his car by a gun-toting police chief, and only the presence of a Texas Ranger prevented any harm to befall him. Craft met Marshall when he was in Dallas for this meeting, and they developed a friendship and collaboration which lasted for decades.

By 1946, the Dallas branch of the NAACP had 7,000 members and was the third largest chapter in the country thanks largely to Craft’s efforts. Her success in Dallas brought her to the attention of the statewide NAACP and in 1946 she assumed the position of state NAACP organizer. Craft, in partnership with Houstonian Lulu B. White, director of state branches, traveled through Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. They fostered the creation of 182 new branches of the Association.

Craft also helped desegregate schools. One of Craft’s youth council members, Joe L. Atkins, sought admission at North Texas State College in Denton, Texas (now University of North Texas) in 1955, but he was denied admission. Although Atkins met admissions standards, Vice President of Academic Affairs Arthur Sampley sent a letter to him refusing his admittance: Atkins was black, and school policy admitted African Americans to only their doctoral program.

Craft encouraged him to file suit; Joe Atkins and his father were aided by NAACP counsel with U. Simpson Tate as their attorney and Robert L. Carter and Thurgood Marshall as co-counsel. While the case was in the courts, Atkins became one of the first African American students to enter Texas Western in El Paso (now University of Texas at El Paso). Atkins won his suit in 1956, but never attended North Texas State because he found a home at Texas Western.

By 1974, the city of Dallas also recognized her civic contributions when it named the Juanita Jewel Craft Park and Recreation Center in her honor. A year later in 1975, Craft ran for elective office for the first time, running for the vacated District 6 seat on the Dallas City Council. She won the contest at the age of 73 in a raucous campaign against the Republican candidate, Elsie Faye Heggins.

Craft easily won a full term in 1976 and remained on the Council until 1978. During her tenure, she worked on a number of issues, including a major drug and alcohol reduction program, subsidized housing, historic preservation, strengthening code enforcement and environmental ordinances, and animal control.

Juanita Jewel Shanks Craft died on August 6, 1985, in the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas surrounded by friends. Her final words were “I have made a difference.” The eighty-three-year-old was memorialized at the Hall of State at the Texas State Fairgrounds she had once picketed. Her service was attended by numerous dignitaries, including former US Senator Ralph Yarborough, Texas Governor Mark White, State Treasurer Ann Richards, and State Attorney General Jim Mattox.

President Jimmy Carter, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and Senator Lloyd Bentsen all sent condolences to be read during the service. President Carter described her as “national treasure,” while Justice Marshall wrote that “what the NAACP accomplished in Texas could not have transpired without her.”

Craft was cremated and buried next to her father, mother, and husband in Austin’s Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.

Craft received several prestigious awards, including the much prized Linz award in 1969, the NAACP Golden Heritage Life Membership Award in 1978, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award for public service in 1984. The City of Dallas later named a United States Post Office in her honor.

Juanita Craft left her home to the Juanita Craft Foundation, and in 1992, the Foundation gifted it to the city of Dallas. The facility is now known as the Craft Civil Rights House and Memorial Garden and is on the National Register of Historic Landmarks. The Craft home operates as a historic museum and community center and is open to tours. As such, it memorializes Craft’s legacy of community and civic participation.

The Juanita Craft Foundation, established at her request in 1985, serves to sustain her legacy through programs, public history exhibitions, and sponsored research. Research more about this great American Champion and share with, your babies. Make it a champion day!