Ride. Celebrate. Repeat.
Mark the arrival of the Silver Line at one of our station celebrations!
Join the fun as we launch the Silver Line with food, festivities and surprises at every stop!
Saturday, October 25 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Plus, enjoy FREE rides systemwide so you can check out every station celebration!
There’s more! DART is offering FREE rides on the Silver Line October 25 – November 8. Community
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Bishop Arts parking
Sculpted by Manuel Sarmiento. Photography by Lauren Allen.
Neville Crowell Jason Cuccia Jason Saucedo Kathy Hewitt Jeremy Moore
HOW OAK CLIFF SCHOOLS SCORED
TEA released 2024 and 2025 A-F Accountability Ratings this summer
Story by VICTORIA HERNANDEZ
The Texas Education Agency recently released A-F Accountability Ratings for public school systems and campuses across the state to provide transparency and accurate information in regard to education.
The 2024-2025 ratings were released with the delayed 2023-2024 ratings made available to school systems following the resolution of legal proceedings that prevented their release prior to a July 3 judgment. These ratings were made public for the first time on Aug. 15.
According to a press release from TEA, 1,208 districts and 9,084 campuses were rated for 2024-2025, with Dallas Independent School District earning a ‘B’ rating overall. The district earned a ‘C’ rating at 79 for the 2023-2024 school year, up from the previously released rating of 76 for the two school years prior, according to the Change Over Time data.
The majority of the schools in our neighborhood received a ‘B’ rating, with only one school, a part of the feeder system of Oak Cliff high schools, receiving a ‘F.’ That school, Boude Storey Middle School, continues to operate into the new school year.
Oak Cliff schools on this list
received 12 ‘A’s, 27 ‘B’s, 13 ‘C’s, three ‘D’s and the one ‘F’.
“These results reflect the unwavering commitment of our educators, students and families. None of this happens without them,” Superintendent Stephanie S. Elizalde said in a Dallas ISD News Hub article. “While there is still work to be done, these results are a clear sign that we are moving in the right direction, and we will not stop until every school is achieving at a high level. It’s what our kids deserve, and it’s the legacy we are committed to build for every student.”
Overall performance details show that Dallas ISD is improving, growing in the categories of student achievement (which measures students’ STAAR success, graduation rate and preparedness after high school), school progress (how students perform over time in comparison to other similar districts) and closing the gaps (which shows how well a district is performing in regard to equity among student groups). The student achievement category remained a ‘C,’ only raising three points to 76, and the school progress and closing the gaps categories are in the ‘B’ rating at 83 and 82, respectively.
Albert C. Black Jr. STEAM Academy: A
Anson Jones Elementary: C
Arturo Salazar Elementary: B
Barbara Jordan Elementary: C
Bishop Arts STEAM Academy: B
Boude Storey Middle School: F
Cedar Crest Elementary School: A
Celestino Mauricio Soto Jr. Elementary: A
Clara Oliver Elementary: B
Clinton P. Russell Elementary: A
Daniel Webster Elementary: D
David W. Carter High School: C
Dr. Frederick Douglass Todd Sr. Middle School: D
Felix G. Botello Personalized Learning Elementary: A
Franklin D. Roosevelt High School: B
George Peabody Elementary: B
Golden Rule: B
Golden Rule Charter School: C
H.I. Holland Elementary at Lisbon: D
Hall Personalized Learning Academy at Oak Cliff: B
Hector P. Garcia Middle School: A
J. P. Starks Elementary School: B
James Bowie Elementary: B
James S. Hogg New Tech Center: C
Jimmie Tyler Brashear Elementary: B
John F. Peeler Elementary: B
John Lewis Social Justice Academy at O.W. Holmes Middle School: C
John Neely Bryan Elementary School: B
John W. Carpenter Elementary: C
Justin F Kimball High School: C
KIPP Oak Cliff Academy: B
L.O. Donald Elementary: B
L.V. Stockard Middle School: C
Leila P. Cowart Elementary: B
Leslie A. Stemmons Elementary: B
Lida Hooe Elementary: C
Life School Oak Cliff: B
Louise Wolff Kahn Elementary: B
Margaret B. Henderson Elementary: A
Maria Moreno STEAM Academy: B
Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary: A
Moisés E. Molina High School: B
Nancy J. Cochran Elementary: B
Otto M. Fridia Elementary: B
Raul Quintanilla Sr. Middle School STEAM Academy: C
Rosemont Primary School - Chris V Semos Building: A
Rosemont School: A
Rosie Sorrells Education and Social Services High School: A
South Oak Cliff High School: B
Stevens Park Elementary: C
Sunset High School: B
T.W. Browne Middle School: C
Texans Can Academy - Oak Cliff: C
Thomas L. Marsalis Elementary STEAM Academy: B
Thomas Tolbert Elementary: C
Trinity Basin Preparatory - Dallas: C
Uplift Pinnacle Prep Ps: C
W.E. Greiner Exploratory Arts Academy: B
W.H. Adamson High School: A
Whitney M. Young Jr. Elementary: A
Winnetka Elementary: B
Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Middle School: B
FOOD DIDN’T CHOOSE ME. I CHOSE FOOD.
South Oak
Cliff graduate continues to serve the community and the state as a whole
Story by VICTORIA HERNANDEZ | Photography by AMANI SODIQ
Decades of State Fair of Texas memorabilia surround Melanie Linnear, including her very first ticket from 1983. You would think she spent her whole life in the state with her love for the Fair, but it wasn’t until the fall of 1980 that she settled down in Oak Cliff.
“I came from a suburban school, more like a rural suburb (in Shreveport),” she says. “And then I transfer into South Oak Cliff (SOC), where I go to a school that’s predominantly Black … it was more like a cultural transition for me.”
Entering a school system where kids grew up together for their entire lives, it took quite some time for Linnear to get acclimated. Despite the struggle, she made varsity cheer going into her junior year and has been SOC’s biggest cheerleader ever since.
As a member of the South Oak Cliff Alumni Association, Linnear says she is part of the one of the most well-known graduating classes of the school, the Class of ’83, because the group continues to be involved in our area through monthly gatherings, like the roller rink night she attended in August.
“SOC as a whole, our alumni association, we’re more. We work together, the alumni, we come together. We do things for the school, we give back,” she says.
This school year, each SOC alumni class donated $100 from their alumni fund to help students enter the new semester. In previous years, such as when the boys went to state, the ’83 grads got together to feed the band, the football team and the cheerleaders before they hit the road.
“We always say, ‘Once a golden bear, always a golden bear,’” she says.
And she lives that out every chance she can get. Since about 2011, Linnear has hosted and attended several events for SOC alums, including alumni picnics that have included up to 700 former students.
“Even though some of us no longer live in the community, we’ve learned to come together as by-products of the community,” she says.
She even passes down the tradition. Her daughter graduated from South Oak Cliff also as a varsity cheerleader. When she cheered at SOC, Linnear coached the varsity cheerleading squad even after her daughter graduated from the high school.
“For me, it was my legacy,” Linnear says.
Linnear still lives in Oak Cliff, along with her mother and her sister. Her time at South Oak Cliff gave her the opportunity to participate in INROADS, which enrolled minority students to prepare them for college with a focus in business. Through the program, she did
an internship with Republic Bank, which is known as Bank of America today.
That internship led her to be hired full time to work at Republic Bank while attending community college part time. Then, she got recruited to work for the State Fair of Texas in 1989, and has now worked with the Fair for over 35 years.
“We’ve grown, we’ve evolved, but when I started here at the State Fair of Texas, I was recruited because at the time the State Fair did not have a diverse staff. And so I came in as the first African-American woman,” she says.
The State Fair of Texas staff was about 27 people when she started and has grown to 64 today. An year-round venture, she says she’s done it all for the Fair from tape measuring and marking up concrete to calculating how rides spin. Her position today is as senior vice president of concessions for food and beverage, where she determines the menu for those coming into town throughout fair season.
“The biggest part of what I’ve done has been food and beverage,” she says. “With food and beverage, it’s just why people come to the Fair. It’s the number one reason people go to fairs … it’s all about the food.”
Linnear does more than just hold a title in the food department. She continues her education, earning a leadership certificate through the Texas Association of Fairs and Events in conjunction with the Texas Agri-Life Extension Program at Texas A&M University and implementing the Big Tex Business Masterclass, a program that educates and helps to incorporate minority vendors as participants within fairs, festivals and events.
“We are really, really proud of what we’ve accomplished, the things we have done for food and beverage, the revenue produced and everything,” she says.
A project she has been a part of includes the introduction of the Big Tex Choice Awards that honors categories of local vendors that will come to feed the Fair. Before she leaves her position to “retire,” a jump she hopes to make before turning 67 to open a local tea house, she aspires to bring in foods from all over the world to the Fair.
“I’m already working on next year, what my vision is for how to get that product here, but more international street foods,” she says. “I want to bring new, different, something that people would otherwise not eat.”
As for this year’s State Fair of Texas, Linnear says she continues to focus on not only Texas’ annual event, but the industry as a whole working with young professionals to keep the Fair season growing and growing for years to come.
3 PIECES OF LEGISLATION AFFECTING OUR SCHOOLS THIS SCHOOL YEAR
Story by ALYSSA HIGH
CELL PHONES
Texas House Bill 1481 was passed this legislative session, requiring all s chool systems to adopt and implement a policy prohibiting the use of personal communication devices by students on school property during the school day.
The law took effect on June 20, with school systems having until Sept. 18 to have a written policy in place.
What does the law specifically require?
Students cannot use personal communication devices on school property during the school day. This includes:
• C ell phones
• Tablets
• Smartwatches
• Lapt ops (not district-assigned)
• AirPods/headphones
• Smart glas ses
Districts can either prohibit students from bringing devices to campus or designate a method to “securely store the devices during the school day,” according to the Texas Education Agency. School districts across the state are handling this in different ways. While neighboring districts like Plano Independent School District require students to put phones in their backpacks during the school day, Dallas ISD is following the most common solution — implementing Yondr pouches.
What are Yondr pouches?
The district started the cellphone-free policy at the beginning of the school year, with elementary school students’ devices stored by teachers and secondary students receiving Yondr pouches. Each student is assigned a pouch, which locks when their phone is placed in it at the beginning of the school day. At the end of the day, students have access to a magnetic device to unlock the pouches.
What
if
I need to contact my student?
Students are required to use the school’s front office or request assistance from a staff member in case of emergency, according to Dallas ISD. Exceptions are given to students who have a documented medical need by a qualified physician or an individualized education program (IEP) or Section 504 plan requiring the use of a device. (i.e., needing continuous access to a cell phone that is connected to a glucose monitor for diabetic students).
What happens if students are caught on their phones?
The bill provides specific requirements for discipline. After the first offense, a parent/guardian can pick up the device without a fee, followed by a $5 increase in fee for additional offenses (no more than $15). After the second time, students can be sent to Disciplinary Alternative Education Placement.
TEN COMMANDMENTS POSTERS
Senate Bill 10 was passed this legislative session, requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments.
While the bill is currently being challenged in court by the ACLU of Texas on behalf of several families and school systems, school districts that did not join in on the injunction, including Dallas ISD, must comply. Those that did, including Austin ISD, Houston ISD and Plano ISD, are not required to comply while litigation is pending.
The new educational code does not require all districts to purchase said posters. If posters that fit the requirements are purchased or donated, however, districts are required to accept them and put them up in classrooms, with no exceptions.
What does the law specifically require?
Every public school classroom is required to have a display of the Ten Commandments in either a durable poster or a frame that is:
• In a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom
• At least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall
• Written with the specific words/version specified in the bill ( King James Version )
The new educational code does not require all districts to purchase said posters. If posters that fit the requirements are purchased or donated, however, districts are required to accept them and put them up in classrooms, with no exceptions.
LIBRARY MATERIALS
Senate Bill 13, effective Sept. 1, amended the educational code to require schools to provide parental access to the catalog of available library materials at each school library in the district or school, allow said parent to create a list of materials their child is not permitted to check out and provide access to a list of materials that said child has checked out.
The school board must also approve all materials donated or procured by the school library,
The bill also required the board of trustees of each school district to establish a school library advisory council if 10% of the parents of the students enrolled in the district or at least 50 total parents petition the school board for the creation of such a council.
What would a library advisory council do?
The law now requires that school districts consider the recommendations of the council before adding or removing materials from the school library catalog. Members would also make recommendations for policies for implementing library materials and processing changes to library materials. The council must meet at least twice a year.
MORE THAN CUT, PASTE AND C O L O R
Dallas ISD celebrates it’s fourth state distinction award for arts education
Meet two of our Oak Cliff art educators
Story by VICTORIA HERNANDEZ | Photography by AMANI SODIQ
Y O l A n D a B U r T o N
Science. Technology. Engineering. Mathematics. The acronym STEM has taken over the school system, but even with a major focus on the “hard” subjects, Dallas Independent School District’s “soft” subjects are flourishing.
For the fourth year, Texas Art Education Association awarded our schools a District of Distinction Award for arts education. Two of our Oak Cliff school educators are exemplifying that distinction through their classroom dedication.
Yolanda Burton, the art teacher at David W. Carter High School, says that she often sees the community and schools think of art as a smaller program, something of a placeholder for students that need a class.
“Some campuses will diminish the programs because of that, as I’ve even heard administrators have, not at my campus but other campuses before, call it ‘cut, paste and color’ and so they devalue the arts,” she says. “Not
understanding that the arts have such a tremendous impact on the growth of students.”
Burton emphasizes that having classes like art open up the brain to a new way of learning that transfers into other subjects and can help students in their future careers, even if they are not growing up to be artists.
“Design thinking is one of the biggest things that they use in industry today, whether it’s an engineer, whether it’s a nurse, whether it’s doctors,” she says.
“Let’s say they go into medical science and they need to be able to look at models and look at the human body. They have an understanding of it because those portals opened up in the brain early.”
Burton has worked as an educator for decades, originally earning a degree in elementary education after graduating from Dallas ISD.
Outside of the classroom, she is an artist with a focus on nature and humanity, creating in both 2D and 3D
aL i C e S E g U r A
media. She earned a certificate to teach art in 2002 and even before she was the official art teacher, hosted an art club for students in her previous schools.
Now she has been at Carter High School as an art teacher for a decade, where the program has changed drastically over time.
“Before I came to Carter High School, we weren’t seeing them … the participation at that campus wasn’t as high as some of the other campuses in terms of competitions and opportunities for students,” she says.
Under her leadership, the students have gone from just two art courses to four levels along with jewelry and ceramics programs.
Today, Burton says they have 100% support for both student and teacher participation in organizations, making supplies and competitions accessible to students and community events that get everyone in Oak Cliff involved in art education.
“All of that has led to us becoming that district of distinction. It has happened all over in campuses throughout the district and we can really work together to show up in the competitions and show up in the community,” she says.
That spirit of collaboration with the community reigns true throughout the neighborhood schools. Just over 10 miles away, Rosemont Primary School’s art classroom is holding one of the upcoming community projects. A rainbow mobile the height of Dirk Nowitzki hangs from the ceiling made up of recycled materials prepared for the Oak Cliff Art Walk in October.
Alice Segura, an art teacher originally from Naperville, Illinois, outside of Chicago, sits beside it with charcoal-stained finger tips. She says art education has been her safe space since her youth.
“I do have a learning disability, and so I struggled a lot in my other classes,” she says. “And art was the one place that I was on level with everybody else and didn’t need help.”
Segura says that when she got to high school there was a big push to study foreign languages, something that became difficult for her.
“The way my brain works, it’s very difficult for me to learn that second language,” she says. “And so finally, my parents were like, ‘You don’t have to stay in the class. You can do something else.’ So I went to art, and in high school, I was kind of like, ‘Oh, wait, this is where I can succeed,
and this can be my second language for myself.’”
During her student teaching, she had the opportunity to literally use art as language, demonstrating a lesson for the first day of class without a single word of instruction, a tradition the teacher whose classroom she joined does every year for middle school students. Students simply watched her movements shown out from the projector to communicate as she put together an origami crane.
Growing up outside of Chicago, one of her earliest art class memories is the library system allowing people to check out master artworks in frames. To involve parents, the school had a program that encouraged parents to come into the classroom once a month and teach kids about the borrowed artwork.
Her dad did it for Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night , playing the song “Vincent” by Don McLean, and her mom sent in cookies as her class did a project. Moments like this inspired Segura to grow up and teach art.
“I just love seeing the kids be successful,” she says. “I love seeing them problem solve, be creative… art education and doing art made me feel like I could do something, and I wanted other kids to feel that way. That they can take that ability and become something, do something, have a job.”
Like the support she received growing up for her art education, Segura says she has received support for the arts here in Oak Cliff.
“I’m so proud that we are getting this distinction, because our district does do so much for the arts,” she says.
From support to enter TAEA’s Junior Visual Arts Scholastic Event to collaborations with the Dallas Museum of Art or the Nasher Sculpture Center, there are so many school districts that don’t get to experience an art museum, she says.
“Art in school is so important for our kids … those people that can be creative, have creative problem solving skills are the ones that are going to be more successful and have better opportunities for them,” Segura says.
I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT MEAT!
Vegan Food House continues to deliver education and flavor that skeptics even enjoy
Story by VICTORIA HERNANDEZ | Photography by KATHY TRAN
The fried lasagna ($16.50) drizzled with pesto, stuffed with house ricotta, sits atop a bowl of savory “meat” sauce.
WALKING WITHIN THE WINDING ROADS OF THE BISHOP ARTS DISTRICT
, the teal blue bungalow with large “VFH” letters draws you in. The starkly dark wooden interior has a cozy but casual aesthetic with beautiful art hung on the walls providing not only ease in ordering from your table but ease for all dietary restrictions. Since 2019, Elizabeth Anderson, 49, has been running Vegan Food House. She has a background in the service industry, having formerly owned a bar in Deep Ellum during her early 20s and worked in the hospitality industry for six years.
For over a decade she has been living the vegan lifestyle, having been a vegetarian since her college days in 1995.
“I think that I’ve never enjoyed meat the way other people do,” she says. “If it had a bone in it, I wasn’t going to eat it, even as a child.”
She says that she always thought of the animal cruelty aspect when it came to eating. When looking at cows in the back of a truck being transported, it brought her to tears.
“I just thought this whole ride, they’re standing up, packed in that thing, and they are going to slaughter.”
Anderson says she also thought about committing fully to veganism for health reasons.
“I was really concerned about what we were going to teach our son about this planet that we were bringing him into,” she says. “And overall from the water shortages that used to be mainly from cows … just thinking about the whole planet and really wanting to leave it a better place for him, and doing what we could to be part of the solution and not the problem.”
Prior to the more modern trendiness of healthy living, veganism and vegetarianism had several
Elizabeth Anderson, creator of Vegan Food House, sits within the teal bungalow in the Bishop Arts District.
stigmas shared by the public that marginalizes individuals who choose to pursue ethical practices in their diets. This led to limited options, and that’s where Vegan Food House fills the void.
“You really couldn’t go anywhere that had a vegan menu that was just a mainstream restaurant,” she says. “And so I think it’s pretty cool now that other restaurants do it, but I know that you’re running a risk of getting non-vegan food in your food crossover.”
What makes Vegan Food House different is there is no chance of that crossover, no nonvegan chefs that just don’t care like you care. The restaurant focuses on trying out different vegetables for flavor instead of imitation when it comes to their food, that way no harmful preservatives are on the plate.
And people often don’t even believe it. Anderson says that she’ll often get the jokes, “I like real this, and I like real that,” but when the skeptics come out to try her creations, they often assume there has been some mistake.
“I have people calling up to the restaurant swearing the oyster mushroom we fried as chicken is real chicken. They always think the shrimp is real,” she says.
Anderson shares that others have gone as far as to leave Google reviews that they were given real cheese in their macaroni.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. We don’t have anything dairy or meat-related, even in our restaurants, (we) don’t even allow people to bring it in,” she says.
Rather than enjoying the quote-unquote “real,” Vegan Food House provides a large selection of all-vegan versions of wings, po’boys, burgers, tacos and nachos.
“Forever I’m going to love the Big Fish Po Boy ($18). I just love that sandwich because I love po’boys anyway, and it’s just so fresh,” Anderson says.
Other favorites of hers are the grilled Eggplant Parmigiana Spaghetti ($18) and the Veggie Plate with toast ($17.50), which includes spinach or kale, corn, smashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, pinto beans, and gravy that is “full of flavor.”
Not only does Vegan Food House focus on providing the knowledge that vegan food can be flavorful, but one of the biggest accomplishments Anderson shared is being able to pay her staff of 10 a living wage.
“Even when margins have been really tight, we’ve been able to take care of the people who work for us,” she says.
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The Fried Vegan Shrimp Zydeco Salad ($17) blends together mixed greens with tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and house onion strings. The salad is then topped with vegan shrimp, vegan cheese and vegan bacon.
SETTLING IN TO OUR NEW HOME
George Peabody Elementary School continues to add finishing touches to the 1-year-old campus
Story by VICTORIA HERNANDEZ
Photography by TANNER GARZA
WALKING UP TO THE GEORGE PEABODY ELE -
MENTARY
SCHOOL
off of Jefferson Boulevard and South Westmoreland Road, children are scattered on the main playground. Underneath the tan shade, kids run in and out of the obstacles in their khakis paired with a polo on a summer afternoon.
Now complete with its own parking lot — rather than having staff walk from parking at a church down the street — and a bright front office with seating for visitors instead of squeezing parents into the school foyer, Peabody is a far cry from the beige brick box built in the 1950s.
“When it rained, we cringed,” Principal Sherri Rogers-Hall says. “Because we knew that it was a very strong possibility that it would rain inside the building.”
Additionally, students were out in portable buildings due to the lack of capacity for all grade levels. The third and fourth grade classrooms were joined by a portable gym, an odd accent to a Dallas suburban school that even the superintendent didn’t realize was there.
“I remember when Dr. Hinojosa came and walked the school just to visit. He did a visit, walked around, saw the portable gym, and he was like, ‘You still have one of those?’” she says. “It had become so normal to me it didn’t dawn on me that it was strange.”
The 2025-26 school year is a few months in, and even though it’s been one full year in the two-story building, Rogers-Hall is quick to correct that the school is still so new.
The update was long overdue, and after a community push following approval of a $3.5 billion bond in 2020 (the largest bond in state history at the time), the meetings began to gain input for the future of the Peabody building.
That’s where Pfluger Architects, a firm dedicated to designing schools, comes in. Christian Owens worked as the director of design for the Peabody project. Sitting in on meetings around the community, one theme became clear: the concept of home.
“We heard a lot about home, feeling, welcoming, warming, creating an environment that inspires,” he says. “If I’m a visitor to a house, I want to welcome you in, (we enter) into the living room
and let’s have a conversation. And so that really drove kind of the inspiration of design is this porch idea, right? The first approach to your home, let’s sit on the porch and let’s talk and really, where this site was located, and the school was located, it was adjacent to a lot of the characteristics that we heard.”
The new building remains on the same plot as the last campus, in the middle of the neighborhood. Since opening for class during the last school year, the campus is still working on adding the final touches.
“You know, there might be a socket that needs electricity, or there are things that are still under warranty that need to be fixed, the elevator for example,” she says. “So we’ve always had access to everything. It’s just that we’re trying to get everything working as it should.”
Even with some electricity troubles, Rogers-Hall says that you don’t even need the lights on at times.
“I mean, you can just open the blinds and be fine,” she says. “So to me, that makes it even more welcoming.”
Other aspects of the design that help make the community welcome is the large mural of the Dallas skyline in the school’s purple and gold, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to the park on the “porch” and pops of color found in the hallways. On the stairs, college and university names and colors lead up to the second story.
Throughout the hallways, there are pockets where students can group up to have a flexible and modern learning experience outside of the four walls of the classroom.
“The classroom that you were designated to with that teacher, that’s no longer the case,” Owens says. “Educators, we tried to give them as many diverse opportunities spatially, to create opportunities for them to work with a small group of students or for students to work
together on projects. And so the collaboration areas that are outside the classroom are there to where if I’m an educator, I can divide students in the groups to learn together, kids can learn from each other.”
Another modern aspect to the building is the maker space, where learning takes place through hands-on projects.
“It’s no longer about looking at a presentation or getting a lecture. I can quickly go to learning through a project, learning with my peers,” he says. “And so the elementary is designed to create as much diverse opportunity through space as possible.”
This new type of learning for Peabody students and staff has been well received.
“We have everything,” Rogers-Hall says. “The classrooms are very spacious, they’re bright … Pre-K through second grade classrooms have restrooms inside of the classrooms. So, I mean, it’s just better altogether. Just more accessible for everyone.”
The outside of the new building with the floor-to-ceiling window looking out at the campus flag poll (left). One of the hallway collaboration zones includes chairs and books for kids to use when doing breakout group projects (above).
THE DALLAS LIBERATION CENTER, located in Elmwood, was established this past International Women’s Day in March. The center provides a missing third space in Oak Cliff to connect without having to spend money.
“The liberation center is part of a larger project hoping to educate people on politics, especially with a focus on local events, like local issues and things that are kind of going on in the community,” says Marissa Rodriguez, manager of the center.
Rodriguez is also a co-founder of The People’s Art Collective, a Dallas-based, worker-led group that works as a separate entity from the center but often in collaboration for a variety of efforts. Her and co-founder Jasmine Flores modeled both the center and collective after the work done at The People’s Forum in New York City to have more of a political and activist focus for the group.
“We feel like art is a really powerful tool,” Rodriguez says. “And we wanted that to kind of have its own space and own component.”
TPAC often hosts events at the Dallas Liberation Center, using wall space for galleries and teaching workshops. Even though they are separate projects, they’re very much a natural fit, Rodriguez says.
The collective stems from another organization, the DFW/ Denton branch of The Party for Socialism and Liberation, which held an event called “Make Bad Art” to bring folks together for the purpose of community and learning new skills without expectations. Flores formerly represented PSL DFW before shifting to only organizing through The People’s Art Collective and took inspiration for the event from the work of Artists Against Apartheid.
“We had a little jewelry workshop going. People were just making marks on paper, just coloring, creating, just doing anything, without the pressures that so much of us feel when it comes to making art, that it has to be good, that you have to be like a perfect artist, or you have to be a very academic artist,” Rodriguez says.
The reaction and turnout from that event inspired her to make something more permanent, an organized body that could facilitate opportunities like that event on a regular basis.
Raquelle Jac, a Collective member, says she views the community learning aspect of TPAC as really important
and beautiful for creating a space for art and education that doesn’t have the “academic expectation” or “elitist type thing” that art school has.
“The art world can be largely detached from the political reality and like the class reality of just the world and areas that we’re in,” she says. “It’s a great thing to have a group that grounds itself in the political and class reality of what’s happening because art is a reflection of the human condition and it’s important to be mindful of what’s going on around you and everything.”
One way in which The People’s Art Collective remains grounded in its surroundings is by educating the community.
Previous events have included a collaboration with the DFW Harm Reduction Education Access Movement and PSL DFW, where speakers presented on subjects ranging from overdoses, the origins and necessity of harm reduction and the history of the war on drugs.
“I spoke on medication for opioid use disorder, which is a medication that I personally take,” Jac says. “And I just went into the barriers to care and how difficult it is to access that medication ... especially Texas in particular has many, many barriers to care, to seek help for opioid use disorder, any sort of substance dependency, and there’s a whole lot of old school stigma surrounding that.”
Providing free naloxone for all participants, DHREAM held a demonstration on how to administer naloxone/ Narcan, a life saving medicine for overdose, to help community members in need. TPAC hosted a visual art showcase exploring themes of harm reduction, incarceration, loss, substance dependency and healthcare.
Other events TPAC has recently worked on include an Art Build for Palestine where community members had the opportunity to create for the Palestine Art Auction last month that went toward benefitting the Middle East Children’s Alliance.
For the future, TPAC hopes to keep using art to educate on topics they view as essential to the community and the world at large.
Rodriguez says they plan to continue to ground art and politics in the reality of today, speaking to a working class perspective for how they plan to move forward throughout their first year.
The People’s Art Collective brings the community together with a purpose
Story by VICTORIA HERNANDEZ | Photography by YUVIE STYLES
Raquelle Jac (left) and Marissa Rodriguez (right) in front of a gallery of art. The drawings and prints surround a poster advertising their last event, the Palestine Art Auction that took place Sept. 20.
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HAUNTED OR HOAX?
UNCOVERING THE GHOSTS
OF OAK CLIFF’S PAST
Story by VICTORIA HERNANDEZ
As the air gets colder and the leaves start to crunch beneath your feet, there are many Oak Cliff haunts you may want to explore to get into the fall spirit. Maybe sneaking a peek at the haunted Suddarth Mansion, hoping to witness the black mist figure of a woman at The Texas Theatre, or walking the trail of Coombs Creek where underneath the wooden railroad track the ghostly specter of a girl riding her bicycle.
Mike Rhyner, Oak Cliff native and host of the podcast Your Dark Companion, knew of the Suddarth Mansion that lays at South Hampton and Camp Wisdom Roads growing up.
“It was said to be haunted, and there were people who said that they can see the silhouette of a woman in the window who was sitting there with a shotgun or rifle
or something like that, a weapon of some kind,” he says. “And there were said to be strange noises coming from there. And the general consensus that everybody came to was, ‘Yes, that house is haunted.’ As far as I know it still stands today.”
Some other unique Oak Cliff ghost stories can no longer be seen within the former city borders.
What was once on the Miller Plantation, close to the Trinity River within Oak Cliff, was the Millermore Mansion.
Belonging to William Brown Miller, a slave owner and ferry businessman, the estate was constructed prior to the Civil War as a Greek revival home. With tall white columns that frame the entrance, the center balcony once overlooked what is today South Oak Cliff along Bonnie View Road.
Now located at the Dallas Heritage Village in Old City Park, the Millermore Mansion preserves its past life and a piece of Oak Cliff. The mansion sparked the move of over 30 historic buildings when a restraining order kept Texas Wrecking and Salvage from demolishing the building in 1966.
Some individuals claim that the ghost of William Brown Miller’s second wife, Minerva Barnes Miller, lives in the upstairs bedroom. Other oddities that occur in the former Oak Cliff residence include dramatic temperature shifts and objects moving in the mansion by themselves when no one is looking.
Although Rhyner says he has not heard of The Millermore Mansion, another haunted house he knew of was one located in Stephen’s Park, which has since been torn down.
“It’s said that there was a woman who lived there by herself, an old woman, and really the only substantiation that I ever got was that she lived there by herself, and she would sit there in the front window, and you would hear strange noises coming from there,” he says.
With the nickname “Granny’s House,” the home on Plymouth Road often had kids and teenagers go over and end up being chased away or in some sort of trouble.
“Reputation was that one year, some
trick-or-treaters went up there, and this old woman who was almost skeletal-like came there, came to answer the door, and scared everybody off,” he says. “So it got the reputation as being haunted. But that’s really it. I mean, there wasn’t a whole lot to that, although I do remember what the house looked like, and if someone was going to set a movie or a TV show or something in a haunted house, this would have done the trick. It had the look and it had the vibe.”
Also in relation to Stephen’s Park is the intersection of Colorado Boulevard and Hampton Road, where a former osteopathic hospital once sat. Although Rhyner says he personally has not heard this story, in an article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published in October 1989 a man who formerly worked as a medic at the hospital shared his story of “the Ghost Doctor of Dallas.”
In the summer of 1983, he recalled talk from nurses of a ghost on the second floor of the hospital that was a former doctor who had died by suicide. One night, the medic received a patient who had shot himself and after several minutes was pronounced dead.
The medic and a fellow nurse later “turned and looked through the glass and saw a physician with a stethoscope around his neck,” which would’ve been common for the hospital, but the two realized that the doctor was consoling and talking to the patient he “had just brought in, the one with the gun shot.”
The medic then witnessed the two deceased mysteriously pass through a doorway they were too wide for and go up the stairwell, not realizing what he really witnessed until afterwards.
In the article, he is quoted saying that both the man and the doctor had been “distraught over family problems, money problems” and “both had shot themselves with handguns, both had shot themselves in the head and both had shot themselves in their offices” — lists of similarities that seemed to have drawn the two spirits together.
Although these stories have been passed down for generations, proof is becoming increasingly difficult because of relocation and times gone on.
“I mean, it was nothing more than just, kids’ hearsay more than anything else you know,” Rhyner says. “We were teenagers, and we were just all wanting to make something out of nothing if we possibly could.”
Many still agree that even with haunts fading away, our Oak Cliff neighborhood continues to give off that spooky season vibe.
We worked with Bart during one of the hottest housing markets in recent history. Bart stuck with us through several offer cycles, and each new house he found was better than the last. His background in architecture and construction is a huge plus. He always has a flashlight in the car and is ready to crawl down below a house. You won’t be disappointed with his skills and work ethic. Thanks Bart for everything!
-Maggie M.
BART THRASHER Realtor® bartthrasher@dpmre.com 469.583.4819
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