Transcript of Norris Wright Cuney

This is Texas Originals. From Humanities Texas, for the advancement of heritage, culture, and education.

African American leader Norris Wright Cuney forged a remarkable career in post-Civil War Texas. Born into slavery in 1846, he nonetheless studied law and became a civic and political force in the years following Reconstruction.

Cuney was the child of Adeline Stuart, a slave on a Hempstead plantation, and Stuart's owner, Philip Minor Cuney. At thirteen, Cuney's father freed him and sent him north for education.

Following the Civil War, Cuney returned to Texas, to the bustling port city of Galveston, then Texas's most cosmopolitan city. There, he steadily gained experience and political sway. Over the course of his career, he served as city alderman, collector of customs, and school inspector for Galveston County. In 1886 he was named the Republican Party's national committeeman from Texas.

Cuney used his education, political connections, and wealth to improve the lives of Texas's former slaves. He worked to establish and fund schools and colleges for black Texans and opposed segregation in public schools. He also helped organize and lead the African American Masons. In the 1880s, he helped black laborers loading cotton on the Galveston docks form their own union and fight for equal pay.

Cuney died in 1898, but is still remembered in Galveston, where the city's Wright Cuney Park stands as a monument to this extraordinary civic leader.

More information about Norris Wright Cuney and other Texas Originals is available at Texasoriginals.org. This program is produced by KUHF Houston Public Radio and Humanities Texas, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.