Shankleville Community
Burkeville, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named for Jim and Winnie Shankle, known as first Newton County blacks to buy land and become local leaders after gaining freedom by emancipation. Both were born in slavery: Jim in 1811, Winnie in 1814. After Winnie and her three children were sold to a Texan, Jim ran away from his Mississippi owner. He traveled by night, foraged for food, swam streams (including the Mississippi River), walking out of sight the 400 miles to East Texas. At dusk one day he found Winnie beside her master's spring (800 ft. W). After slipping out food for several days, Winnie told her master, who arranged to buy Jim. The couple worked side by side, bringing up Winnie's children and six of their own: Wash Rollins, Tobe Perkins, Mary McBride, George, Henry, Houston, John, Harriet (Odom), B. M. (Lewis). In 1867, they began buying land, and with associate, Steve McBride, eventually owned over 4,000 acres. In their neighborhood were prosperous farms, churches, a cotton gin, grist mills, sawmills, schools-- including McBride College (1883-1909), built by Steve McBride. Jim and Winnie Shankle are buried in Jim Shankle Cemetery (600 Ft. SW). A great-grandson, A. T. Odom, has been guardian of this heritage. Annual homecomings have been held since 1941.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Jim and Winnie Shankle, both born into slavery, became the first Black landowners and community leaders in Newton County after emancipation—but their story begins with an act of extraordinary devotion. Separated when Winnie and her children were sold to a Texan, Jim escaped his Mississippi owner and traveled 400 miles by night, swimming rivers, to find her. Freed and reunited, the couple and their allies eventually amassed over 4,000 acres, anchoring a thriving Black community of farms, churches, mills, and even McBride College (1883–1909).
Why it matters
Shankleville stands as a powerful monument to African American self-determination during Reconstruction, when freedpeople built landowning communities and institutions of their own in the face of enormous odds.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Newton County sits in the far southeastern corner of Texas, on the edge of the Piney Woods along the Louisiana border. Before the Civil War this was cotton and timber country, and much of the labor that cleared its land and worked its fields was done by enslaved people, many brought from older Southern states as Anglo-American settlement pushed west into Texas.
Emancipation changed everything, but freedom arrived with almost nothing attached. Most freedpeople in the South owned no land, no tools, and no savings, and they faced a hostile postwar order. Owning land was the great dream of the era because it meant independence: the ability to feed your family without working for a former enslaver.
Few achieved it on any scale. That is the backdrop against which Shankleville stands out. In the years after the war, a handful of Black families in Newton County began buying land and building a community of their own, complete with the farms, churches, mills, and schools that made it self-sustaining.
People & events
Jim Shankle was born into slavery in 1811, and Winnie in 1814. Their story turns on a separation that was cruelly common under slavery: Winnie and her three children were sold to a Texan, carried far from Jim, who remained enslaved in Mississippi. Most families broken apart this way never saw one another again.
Jim refused to accept that. He ran away and made his way toward Texas on foot, moving by night, foraging for food, and swimming the streams in his path, including the Mississippi River itself. He walked roughly 400 miles, staying out of sight the whole way. Then, at dusk one day, he found Winnie at her master's spring, a short distance from where this marker stands. For several days she slipped him food in secret. Finally she told her master, who arranged to buy Jim, and the couple were reunited.
Together they raised Winnie's children and six of their own. After freedom came, they began buying land in 1867, and working with an associate, Steve McBride, they eventually controlled more than 4,000 acres. Around them grew prosperous farms, churches, a cotton gin, grist mills, sawmills, and schools, among them McBride College, which Steve McBride built and which operated from 1883 to 1909. Jim and Winnie rest in the Jim Shankle Cemetery nearby. Their great-grandson A. T. Odom kept watch over the family's legacy, and descendants have gathered for annual homecomings since 1941.
Its place in the American story
Shankleville is a vivid example of one of the most important and least celebrated achievements of the Reconstruction era: freedpeople building independent communities from the ground up. Across the South, Black families bought land, founded churches, and started schools, often with remarkably little outside help. These freedom communities proved what emancipated people could do when given even a small opening.
The Shankles' story also reveals slavery's human cost in a way statistics cannot. The sale of Winnie and her children was ordinary under slavery, a routine business transaction that tore a family apart. Jim's 400-mile journey is a reminder that enslaved people resisted those separations with every resource they had, and that family bonds survived despite a system built to break them.
Finally, McBride College points to the hunger for education that defined the freedom generation. People who had been denied literacy by law built schools for their children and grandchildren almost as soon as they could. The annual homecomings, held for more than eighty years, show how deeply descendants still value that inheritance.
If you visit
Shankleville lies in the quiet, wooded country of Newton County, near Burkeville and not far from the Sabine River and the Louisiana line. Expect tall pines, rural roads, and a strong sense of a place that has been home to the same families for generations.
The marker points to two nearby spots: the spring where Jim found Winnie, a short distance to the west, and the Jim Shankle Cemetery a little to the southwest. Stand by the marker and try to imagine that moment at dusk at the end of a 400-mile walk. If you visit the cemetery, treat it as what it is, an active, cherished family burial ground, and be respectful of graves and private land.
This stop pairs well with an East Texas road trip through the Piney Woods and the Sabine River country. It is a place for reflection more than sightseeing, and it is especially meaningful to share with children as a true story of love, courage, and building something lasting out of freedom.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Jim Shankle
- · Winnie Shankle
- · Steve McBride
- · A. T. Odom
Related events
- · Emancipation
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Stephen Alexander McBride
Burkeville vicinity, TX
Born into slavery in Texas in 1834, Stephen McBride helped found Shankleville after emancipation, buying land in northern Newton County with Jim Shankle to build a self-sustaining African-American community of homes, churches, and businesses. McBride himself ran a cotton gin, store, blacksmith shop, and several mills. His most lasting gift was McBride College, opened in 1883 by a man who could neither read nor write yet prized education above all for the young.
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