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  • About Us
    • Staff & Board
    • Employment
    • Press
  • Visit
    • Group Tour Packages
    • Walking Tours
    • Gift Shop
    • Newsletter Sign-Up
  • On Exhibit
  • Events
    • Candlelight Tours
    • Lone Star Stomp
    • Lectures
    • Texian Market Days
  • Education
    • Field Trips >
      • Field Trip Interest Form
      • Pre- and Post-Visit Activities
    • Fort Bend Connection
    • Texian Time Machine
    • HerStory
    • Costume Rentals
    • Blog
  • Facility Rentals
  • JOIN + GIVE
    • Membership
    • Donate
    • Volunteer >
      • Volunteer Application
  • Fort Bend Connection

Blog

A number of activities and topics of interest are included in the blog posts below.  For educational curriculum enhancers on Texas history, visit the Fort Bend Connection page. 

Walter Moses Burton: From Slave to Texas Senate

2/6/2017

1 Comment

 
Walter Moses Burton was brought to Texas as a slave from North Carolina in 1850 at the age of 21. While a slave, he was taught how to read and write by his master, which was prohibited in most Southern states.

After the Civil War, he purchased several large plots from his former owner, making the freedman one of the wealthiest and most influential blacks in Fort Bend County.

He became involved in politics as early as 1869, when he was elected sheriff and tax collector of Fort Bend County. In 1873, Burton won a seat in the Texas Senate, where he served for seven years. In the Senate, he championed the education of blacks; one of the many bills he helped push through was one that called for the establishment of Prairie View Normal School (now Prairie View A&M University).

He remained active in state and local politics until his death in 1913.
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1 Comment
Beatrice Davis
2/8/2017 05:19:05 am

Slave from North Carolina

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    Funding has been provided to the Fort Bend History Association from Humanities Texas and the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020.
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