When prominent African Americans came to strictly racially-segregated Dallas in the 1950s, they frequently stayed in the home of Juanita Craft, a local NAACP leader, because no white hotel would house them.
The Juanita Craft House in the Fair Park area Wheatley Place neighborhood of Dallas received a state historic marker at the home that reads as follows:
"Juanita Jewel (Shanks) Craft (1902-1985) was born in Round Rock and attended schools there and in Austin before earning certificates from Prairie View and Samuel Huston Colleges. She joined the Dallas Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1935 and became a pivotal NAACP civil rights organizer, children’s advocate, public servant and humanitarian. From 1950 until her death, she lived here, hosting nationally-known politicians and civil rights leaders, including Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins. In the 1950s, artists such as Duke Ellington and Marian Anderson stayed in her home when touring Jim Crow Dallas.
This craftsman-style bungalow was built in 1925 in Wheatley Place Addition, just south of Wheatley Place, one of Dallas’ first residential subdivisions developed exclusively for African American families. This area has been home to a remarkable community of educators, political reformers, musicians, artists and entrepreneurs. This house was a nexus for community mobilizations, social justice activism and political campaigns on local, state and national levels. As advisor to the South Dallas NAACP Youth Council, Juanita Craft shaped generations of youth from this house and on annual summer trips across the nation. Her backyard was the setting for countless barbeques bringing citizens from all communities together to address the issues of the day. The ability to surmount cultural, ethnic and social barriers and gather people together on the common field of their humanity was Juanita Craft’s special gift.
One of Dallas’ most beloved public figures, she bequeathed this home and an extensive historical estate to the public, so that future generations could come to understand the importance of service to community and nation.
Recorded - Texas Historic Landmark - 2010
Marker is property of the State of Texas
Supplemental plaque, below: "I had no children, so I adopted the world." -- Juanita Craft
The news article of the damage to the house reads as follows: (
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"'It's just devastation': Dallas' landmark Juanita Craft home severely damaged by burst pipe
Written by
Robert Wilonsky, City Columnist
Published June 1, 2018
"I just feel sad," Marilyn Clark was saying as she carted keepsakes from the waterlogged house that once belonged to one of Dallas's greatest civil-rights activists. Before I stepped in, I could smell standing water -- the reek of disaster.
Clark was here just days ago giving a tour to members of the National Organization of Women who wanted to see the Fair Park residence of Juanita Jewel Craft, the first black woman to vote in Dallas County. Clark returned Thursday morning to find the house in ruin -- its ceilings collapsed, its hardwood floors buckled by a flood in the attic that has wreaked untold havoc on the 88-year-old bungalow.
"So, so sad," said Clark, the activist and educator who works at the South Dallas Cultural Center. "Oh my goodness."
Just a week ago I sat in the living room of this house and listened as historians, preservationists and politicians discussed efforts to renovate the home. A week ago former state Rep. Harryette Ehrhardt told my 14-year-old son what Craft had done here and the famous people who visited her -- presidents named Carter and Johnson, a future Supreme Court justice named Marshall, a musician named Duke, a minister named King.
A week ago supporters of the home were in no hurry to raise the money, an estimated $100,000, because, at the time, Juanita Craft's house on Warren Street wasn't in immediate danger of ruin. A week ago, all the state and local landmark needed was a new roof, a new foundation and a bit of polish.
Now much of the in-between is ruined by a flood that occurred over the holiday weekend, when a pipe burst in the fire-sprinkler system in the attic.
City officials say it happened between Saturday's tour and Tuesday morning, when the damage was discovered. The attic filled with water until the ceilings in three rooms -- the kitchen, a second bedroom and the back room -- gave way.
Now a renovation once estimated at $100,000 will run much higher. And the house, already seldom visited, will be off-limits for the foreseeable future.
"It's pretty horrifying," said Cannon Flowers, the cultural affairs commissioner who is spearheading the rehab. "But until we started this project, I don't think anyone has paid any attention to the house in three, four years."
A week ago I thought it was a shame the city hasn't taken better care of the house, made it into a destination rather than an obligation to which it attends whenever the grass needs mowing or some group books a tour. But I couldn't get too outraged, because at least the home remained standing and the air-conditioning worked and the lights came on when you snapped the switch.
At least the Craft House was whole.
Today, "it's just devastation," Clark said Thursday. "It's just insane."
The Craft House is among 23 city-owned venues under the Office of Cultural Affairs, and one of eight the department actually manages, along with the Majestic Theater, the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center and the South Dallas Cultural Center. Seven of those facilities get almost $15 million of the city's annual $1.3 billion general fund budget. The Craft House doesn't receive a cent except for whatever it can wring out of what David Fisher, the OCA's second-in-command, refers to as "our omnibus facilities fund."
That's because its operations have been given to the South Dallas Cultural Center, which sits outside the locked gates of Fair Park and is open but a few days a week. The center's staff gives tours when they're requested, while the Park and Recreation Department is supposed to mow the memorial garden. From the looks of the overgrown backyard, that hasn't happened in a while.
What happened at the Craft House this week isn't unique to that landmark: OCA director Jennifer Scripps said a toilet overflowed at the Majestic a few days ago, and that it would have been catastrophic had a security guard not discovered it at 1 a.m.
"It's always something," said Scripps, who has spent two years cleaning up the mess her predecessors left behind. "The Craft House drew the short end of the stick on this one. It's never a good time for anything like this to happen to any of our city facilities, but we certainly are proceeding apace with making this a gem for the city."
The city council has been warned for years that the bill was coming due on the city's cultural facilities. And they committed millions in the bond package to fix up some of them, but not the Craft House. Its sudden ruin stems from years of similar neglect.
"I have been the crazy guy in the desert railing about this for years," said G. Chandler Vaughan, the managing trustee of The Juanita Craft Foundation. "And now the chickens have come home to roost."
Marilyn Clark was supposed to open the house Saturday for the swearing-in ceremony of the Dallas NAACP Youth Council, which Craft was once deeply involved -- so much so, its members were once called Craft's Kids.
"Now, there is no way in hell they can do it here," Clark said. She looked despondent. She sounded furious.
Clark paused, then reconsidered.
"Maybe we should bring them here to see the devastation."