Osjetea Briggs
Palestine, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Native American photographer, artist and writer Osjetea Briggs was born on December 14, 1917, to Simeon Singleton Briggs (1877-1974) and Docia Augusta (Gant) Briggs (1894-1969) in Groesbeck, Limestone County, Texas. Following her high school education, Osjetea moved to Houston where she worked as a film re-toucher until she took an unpaid job as the associate editor of The Houstonian newspaper. Throughout the 1940s, she traveled the world as a photographer but moved to Palestine in the 1950s and opened her own photography studio. Her photographs captured downtown Palestine and local residents, as well as Palestine community groups. In 1954, she helped found and advise the Anderson County Council of Honor, a male-dominated organization that honored local citizens across eleven East Texas counties for their community service, a position she held for 40 years. In the early 1960s, she founded, edited and published her own weekly newspaper, the Elkhart Eagle and won awards for articles in the Grapeland Messenger and the Groesbeck Journal. Her column "Walk in my Moccasins" in the Elkhart Eagle won outstanding recognition for covering the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. In 1992, Osjetea's book, Walk in my Moccasins, was published, a 305-page compilation of her newspaper stories and experiences. In addition to her writing and photography career, Osjetea was a member the Anderson County Democratic Executive Committee and a delegate to the Texas Democratic Convention. Briggs' continuous dedication to her community and heritage benefitted Palestine as well as the greater State of the Texas. She died on April 7, 2002, and is buried near Groesbeck. (2017)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in 1917 near Groesbeck, Osjetea Briggs became a Native American photographer, journalist and author who documented downtown Palestine and its people from the studio she opened there in the 1950s. She founded and edited her own weekly, the Elkhart Eagle, whose column "Walk in My Moccasins" won recognition — and later a 1992 book of the same name — and she advised the Anderson County Council of Honor for four decades. Active in Democratic politics, she served her East Texas community until her death in 2002.
Why it matters
Briggs's long career as a Native American woman running her own newspaper and studio broke through gender and racial barriers in mid-century Texas journalism and preserved a visual record of her community.
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