Rufus Cornelius Hickman
Mineola, Wood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
African American photographer, Rufus Cornelius Hickman (1918-2007), photographed African American life in Dallas in the Jim Crow and Civil Rights Movement eras. His mother, Cora Hickman, ran a popular African American social spot called Bar 20 at this site in the 20th century. Born in 1918 in Mineola, Texas, Hickman attended Tillotson College, later Huston-Tillotson University, and then enlisted in the army in 1942. While stationed in Saipan, Japan, Hickman learned photography and became an army photographer. After World War II, Hickman enrolled in the Southwest School of Photography and Mortuary Science under the G.I. Bill. After graduating, Hickman worked for several newspapers, including The Dallas Express and the Kansas City Call. Hickman began his professional career as a photographer with the Dallas Star-Post. He photographed African American's everyday life and significant moments in the Civil Rights Movement in the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area between 1945 and 1970. He photographed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Youth Council's protest of the Texas State Fair in 1955. After Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka (1954), the Supreme Court decision that declared segregated schools unconstitutional, the NAACP enlisted Hickman to document the inequalities between white and Black schools in Texas. In 1956, Hickman captured the failed desegregation of the Mansfield schools. While white Texans attempted to harm Hickman, he managed to photograph the mock-lynching of effigies of African American students in Mansfield. Because of Hickman's photographic work, he captured several decades of DFW African Americans' struggles, successes and everyday life, highlighting their humanity and documenting their history. 2017. .
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Rufus Cornelius Hickman was born in Mineola in 1918 and learned photography while serving as an Army photographer in the Pacific during World War II. Settling in Dallas, he spent decades documenting African American life under Jim Crow and the unfolding Civil Rights Movement — from the NAACP Youth Council's 1955 protest of the segregated State Fair to the violent 1956 resistance to desegregation in Mansfield. His images recorded both the everyday humanity and the hard struggles of Black Texans.
Why it matters
Hickman's camera preserved a Black view of segregation and civil rights in Texas that the mainstream press often ignored, making him an essential witness to the era.
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Themes & tags
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