Al Lipscomb

Lipscomb was born in a southeast Dallas neighborhood and grew up in a home built by family members. In 2002, he described how, as a child, he often witnessed his grandfather having to get off the sidewalk whenever a white person passed, and take off his hat to pay respect. Lipscomb was also the frequent target of racially-motivated violence from other children.[7]

These events helped mold Lipscomb into a civil rights advocate, he said. His mother, Lucille Jeffrey, was an organizer for Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty who also greatly influenced him. [8]

Lipscomb graduated from Lincoln High, working part-time as a busboy at the Adolphus Hotel during high school. He joined the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943 during World War II, serving in California with the military police. After being discharged, he remained in California and said he "got involved in drugs." Lipscomb was arrested for selling heroin and was incarcerated for ten months of a one-year jail sentence. [9] Lipscomb said he planned to return to Dallas sooner after being discharged from the Army since it was “home,” but he got caught up in “a nightmare.” [10]

In the early 1950s, he moved back to Dallas, where he waited tables in restaurants. He met his future wife, Lovie Lipscomb, when they worked for the same hotel. He eventually became the headwaiter at the executive dining room of First National Bank. Among the restaurant’s patrons was wealthy oilman H.L. Hunt, who would only request water and a phone since he brought his lunch in a sack. Hunt would sometimes work on a novel there, and he tipped the waiters well, Lipscomb said. [11]

In 1966, Lipscomb, often sporting an Afro and bell bottoms, became a neighborhood organizer for the Dallas Community Action Agency, a nonprofit organization founded to work in the War on Poverty. Previously, he volunteered some with projects to challenge segregation launched by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, attending protests to open up drugstore counters and other facilities to black people. He also organized with Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and co-founded the Dallas chapter. In addition, he founded a clearinghouse for community problems, the South Dallas Information Center, and claimed to be the first person to be arrested and thrown out of Dallas City Hall.[12]

A major issue of the time was trying to stop developers from buying out black homeowners at unfair prices for a proposed expansion of the State Fair of Texas in Fair Park. In 1969, Lipscomb, the SCLC’s Rev. Peter Johnson and other community activists organized out of Mount Olive Lutheran Church. They were able to negotiate with then-Mayor J. Erik Jonsson for more favorable home buyout prices after threatening to stage a large demonstration during the nationally-televised Cotton Bowl Parade.

In forcing a meeting with the mayor, the group had to endure bomb threats to the point that the police chief went to the church basement where the activists prepared for the protest and told them it wasn’t safe to stay there. Rev. Johnson said he drew a line across the church basement floor and told everyone present that they were free to leave with no hard feelings. Anyone willing to brave the threats and more was asked to cross the line. "The first person to walk across that line was Albert Lipscomb,” Johnson said. The mayor soon caved and agreed to the meeting. [13]

In 1971, Lipscomb became Dallas’ first black candidate for mayor, finishing third in a field of seven. He ran for council and some other offices several more times before he was elected to the Dallas City Council in 1984. [14] [15]

In 1971, he also became the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit to challenge the City Council’s method of electing members all at large. He and others argued in court that the system effectively discriminated against minorities and had resulted in very few non-white council members. U.S. District Judge Eldon Mahon’s opinion, issued in January 1975, stated that the all at-large system was unconstitutional because it was “intentionally adopted and maintained to dilute the voting strength of African-Americans…. When all members of the City Council are elected at-large, the significance of this pattern of blacks carrying their own areas and yet losing on a citywide basis is that black voters of Dallas do have less opportunity than do the white voters to elect candidates of their choice.” [16]

Lipscomb won several more elections and became mayor pro tem in 1991, then left the council in 1993 due to a term-limit rule. Two years later, he won another election to the council and remained until he resigned in 2000 amidst a scandal over alleged improper payments by the owner of a taxi cab company. [17]

Economic development in South Dallas was among the issues Lipscomb worked on during his council terms. He co-sponsored a community-based crime prevention program and was outspoken about police shootings of minorities and minority hiring policies. [18]

In 1999, Lipscomb and taxi cab company owner Floyd Richards were indicted on federal bribery charges. Richards was accused of making about $94,000 in illegal payments to Lipscomb and a son-in-law, Roderick L. Dudley, from 1984 to 1993. The indictment alleged that Lipscomb then strongly lobbied to approve city ordinances that aided Richards’ businesses, effectively undercutting smaller competitors. [19]

Lipscomb and his attorneys denied the charges. An attorney for Richards also denied giving money as “bribes with intent to improperly influence or reward” Lipscomb, but he said any payments were considered “aid and assistance” to Lipscomb. “The list of people and companies that have provided aid and assistance to Mr. Lipscomb would read like a who's who of Dallas,” attorney Reed Prospere said. [20]

Lipscomb was a longtime member of St. Mark's Baptist Church in southeast Dallas, where he was a deacon and sang in the choir. He was a board member and leader of numerous community organizations besides the SCLC, including the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, Dallas Legal Services and the Progressive Voters League. [42]

Lipscomb and his wife, Lovie, had eight children, four from Lovie's previous marriage. [43]

The Texas Peace Officers Association, a black police officer organization, named Lipscomb “Man of the Year” in 1980. [44] D Magazine listed him as one of “50 People Who Made Dallas” in a 1991 feature, calling him “the Jackie Robinson of Dallas city government.” Lipscomb was “capable of passionate argument, unintentionally comic rhetoric and honeyed homilies from the Bible, but few doubt his commitment to social justice,” the magazine wrote. [45]

Lipscomb also received honors from the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center and a civil rights center. [46] In 2015, the city of Dallas renamed part of Grand Avenue to Al Lipscomb Way. The State Fair Classic annual football game was named after him from 1990 until 2000. [47]

After battling diabetes and other health problems, Lipscomb died in 2011 at the age of 86. Longtime friend Eddie Sewell called him his hero. “He was my Malcolm X. He was my Nelson Mandela. He was my Martin Luther King.” [48] Fellow council member Diane Ragsdale noted that he “was one of the strong warriors and soldiers early on, and sometimes he was out there by himself…. You must have people like Al Lipscomb to push people forward.” [49] His wife, Lovie, passed away in 2017. [50]