The front page for Black Denton County.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

Founded 1906

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Founded 1908

Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.

Founded 1911

Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.

Founded 1911

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

Founded 1913

Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.

Founded 1914

Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.

Founded 1920

Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc.

Founded 1922

Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Inc.

Founded 1963

Quakertown Park

The park built on the neighborhood — first called City Park, then Civic Center Park — was renamed Quakertown Park in 2006. A Texas Historical Commission marker stands at the site, at 700 Oakland St.

Quakertown House & the Museum

Built in 1904 at 607 Bell Ave. in Quakertown, the house was sold to the city in 1922 and moved to Solomon Hill, then moved again in 2004 to Denton County Historical Park. It is now home to the Denton County African American Museum, 317 W. Mulberry St.

The Woods House

A second surviving Quakertown home, built around 1890 by the Woods family, was moved to Denton County Historical Park in 2018. Its recreated rooms tell the Woods family story.

TWU Quakertown Memorial

Unveiled October 20, 2026 on Texas Woman’s University’s east campus trail system: residents’ names etched in stone around an engraved map of 1920 Denton, with homes and businesses marked.

Quakertown, USA

The 2026 documentary by Denton natives King Hollis and Lindell Singleton premiered at the Denton Black Film Festival in January 2026, to two sold-out audiences, and aired on KERA on June 19, 2026 — Juneteenth.

The Building Today

The Namesake

Frederick Douglas Moore (1875–1953) — principal 1915–1953. More on him under Notable Figures below, and in Fred Moore Park, where a Denton County Historical Commission marker was placed in his honor in 2018.

Pilot Point — the St. John’s & Oakdale Community

In 1880, Lewis Whitlow led 65 freedmen and women by train from Chambers County, Alabama, to Texas. Part of the group founded the Oakdale community near the county line — the start of what UNT calls the largest freedmen’s community in Denton County. Southeast of Pilot Point, St. John’s Baptist Church served as church, one-room school, and social center; the community peaked in 1900 and was gone by 1930. Only St. John’s Cemetery survives — first known burial 1882, more than 400 believed buried there, certified a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2023. A cemetery association formed in 2025 to protect it.

Sanger — Galilee & Kammie Mae Patten Park

Black families came to Sanger in the early 1890s and built a community that has endured — anchored by Galilee Missionary Baptist Church (1909). Galilee member Kammie Mae Patten (1919–2006) wanted the children of Sanger’s Black neighborhood to have a place to play; the city named Kammie Mae Patten City Park for her, built in the early 1990s out of that concern.

Frisco — Hamilton Chapel, a Barber, a Community

Hamilton Chapel Baptist Church, founded in 1914 by Pastor Jack Hamilton, was Frisco’s first Black church; its 1924 building at First & Ash doubled on weekdays as Hamilton School, teaching grades K–8 until desegregation in 1964. Teacher Portia Ross Taylor taught there 34 years — Frisco ISD named an elementary school for her. Jim Gordon opened Frisco’s first barbershop on Main Street in 1902 and later served on the city council. And from the early 1900s to the late 1950s, the Black farming community of Lolaville stood at what is now Highway 121 and Preston Road, cleared for road expansion and, finally, Stonebriar Centre.

A note on geography: Frisco straddles Denton and Collin Counties, and the sources for these sites don’t say which side of the county line each one sits on. We present them as Frisco history — not yet confirmed as Denton County sites.

Little Elm — Three Cemeteries on Lloyd Road

The Harrington, Cassady, and Clark Cemeteries — three separate, historically African American burial grounds — sit together off FM 720. Jacob Cassady bought his 30-acre plot in 1872; in 1876, formerly enslaved men George Clark and Zack Rawlings bought 80 acres and deeded half an acre to the county for a public school and a graveyard. In 1953 the Army Corps of Engineers moved the Cassady and Clark grounds beside Harrington ahead of the Garza–Little Elm Dam. All three were designated Historic Texas Cemeteries in 2011, and their Texas Historical Commission marker was dedicated May 2, 2015.

1875–1953 • Educator

Frederick Douglas Moore

Principal of Denton’s Black school from 1915 to 1953. Largely self-taught after the 9th grade — he taught his own mother, born into slavery, to read — he studied at Prairie View, Fisk, and Columbia, taught arithmetic and Latin, ran adult education classes, and pressed the city for paved roads, cemeteries, and parks in Black neighborhoods. Fred Moore Park was dedicated in his honor in 1948, and the high school took his name.

1875–1955 • Denton’s First Black Doctor

Dr. Edwin Donerson Moten

Trained at Hampton Institute and Leonard Medical College, where he graduated third in his class. From his home on Bell Avenue in Quakertown, he served the community for nearly 13 years as Denton’s only Black doctor, and he organized a city meeting to fight the 1921 bond. His papers and medical instruments are archived today at the Denton County African American Museum.

d. 1913 • First Principal

Henry C. Bell

First principal of the Fred Douglass School, serving until his death in 1913, and Grand Master of Quakertown’s Colored Odd Fellows Lodge. He was succeeded by J. T. McDonald, then by Fred Moore in 1915.

Pastor • St. Emmanuel

Rev. J. A. Ayers

Pastor of the Second Baptist Church of Quakertown — today’s St. Emmanuel — under whom the church building was constructed. The Texas Historical Commission marker records that he was vocal in opposing the forced relocation, and reportedly left town and the church because of threats.

Founder • Pilot Point

Lewis Whitlow

Formerly enslaved in Chambers County, Alabama. He led the building of County Line Baptist Church’s first chapel in 1874, and in 1880 led 65 freedmen and women by train from Alabama to Texas — the journey that founded the Oakdale community and the greater Pilot Point freedmen’s community.

Memory-Keepers • Organizers

Alma Clark & Betty Kimble

In 1965 the two co-founded the Denton Christian Women’s Interracial Fellowship, working on race relations, voter registration, and school integration. Both are Quakertown family: Clark preserved her husband Rev. Willie Clark’s Quakertown stories and photographs, and Kimble is a descendant of Quakertown residents. Together they serve as co-documentarians of TWU’s Quakertown Stories project.

Political First • 1964

Othella Hill

In the 1964 primary, Othella Hill was elected chair of the Denton County Democratic Executive Committee — fielded by the Denton Women’s Interracial Fellowship at a time when, as the Fellowship’s history puts it, Black residents “weren’t on the school board or the city council.”

First Black Mayor of Denton • 2020

Gerard Hudspeth

Born and raised in Denton, Hudspeth served two terms representing District 1 on the City Council and was Mayor Pro Tem in 2019 before his election as mayor in 2020 — the first African American to hold the office. He was re-elected in 2022 and 2024.

UNT Pioneers • 1956

Abner Haynes & Leon King

In 1956, Haynes and King became the first Black student-athletes to play for a predominantly white four-year university in Texas, at North Texas State — today’s UNT. Haynes grew up in Denton through seventh grade; their undefeated freshman season opened the door for the Black athletes who followed, including “Mean Joe” Greene.

UNT’s First Black Undergraduate • 1956

Irma E. L. Sephas

Of Fort Worth, Sephas enrolled at North Texas State College in February 1956, after a federal injunction barred race-based admissions — the school’s first African American undergraduate student. The first Black student at any level was doctoral student A. Tennyson Miller, in 1954.

1919–2012 • Blues Legend

Tom “Pops” Carter

Born on the Red River in Louisiana, Carter moved to Denton in 1969 for a construction job and became a mainstay of the Fry Street music scene for four decades, mentoring two generations of Denton musicians. He formed Pops Carter and the Funkmonsters in 1990, at age 70 — and June 5 is Pops Carter Day in Denton.

Blues Festival Co-Founder

John Baines

An accountant who became chairman of the Denton Black Chamber of Commerce in 1997 and co-founded the Denton Blues Festival that year — the festival still held each September in Quakertown Park.

NAACP • Preservation

Willie Hudspeth

Longtime president of the Denton County NAACP and a UNT alumnus. Hudspeth was among the first to press for preservation of St. John’s Cemetery near Pilot Point, leading volunteer cleanups and petitioning the Commissioners Court until the county set aside $20,000 for restoration in 2016.

Denton Black Film Festival Founders

Harry Eaddy, Cheylon Brown & Mesha George

Eaddy, president of the Denton African American Scholarship Foundation, brought the idea to Brown and George. The first festival, in January 2015, screened 13 films for more than 800 attendees; it is now described as the largest Black film festival in Texas and the Southwest, and its proceeds fund scholarships for African American students in Denton.

Quakertown Descendant

Rev. Reginald Logan

A Quakertown descendant — his grandfather Lloyd Logan Sr.’s family was forced from Quakertown to southeast Denton — Logan co-presented “The Story of Quakertown, Land, and Reparative Justice” at the 2023 Aya Symposium in Dallas, alongside Alma Clark and Betty Kimble.

1947–2020 • Fred Moore Alumnus

Carl Garrett

A Fred Moore Dragons running back, Garrett was drafted by the Boston Patriots in 1969 and named the Sporting News AFL Rookie of the Year and an AFL All-Star that season. He went on to play for the Bears, Jets, and Raiders.

Denton County Office of History & Culture

The county office, based at the Courthouse-on-the-Square, operates the Historical Park and the Courthouse museum, keeps the county’s special collections, and — with the Denton County Historical Commission — maintains the county’s oral history collection.

Texas Historical Commission Markers

State markers stand at Quakertown Park, St. James A.M.E. (1985), Lane Chapel (2000), St. Emmanuel (2006), County Line (2007), Galilee (2009), the Harrington–Cassady–Clark Cemeteries (2015), and Champion–Macedonia Cemetery (2023). The 2018 marker for Frederick Douglas Moore in Fred Moore Park is a Denton County Historical Commission marker.

TSHA Handbook of Texas

The Texas State Historical Association’s Handbook carries the standard entries on “Quakertown, TX” and “Moore, Frederick Douglas” — the references other histories of the county build on.

UNT Oral History & Special Collections

UNT’s Oral History Program holds the Quakertown Oral History Project — interviews with residents and descendants, including Alma Clark in 2006 — archived in UNT Special Collections. The Portal to Texas History holds the photographs, the 1941 Fred Douglass School panoramic among them.

“Uncovering St. John’s”

UNT Libraries’ Omeka exhibits — “Uncovering St. John’s” and “Disappearing Black Denton,” built from a 2018 public-history seminar with the Denton County Historical Commission — gather 49 biographies and more than 650 photographs, records, and oral histories on St. John’s, County Line, Quakertown, and the Fred Douglass School.

TWU Quakertown Stories

A Texas Woman’s University faculty-led project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, weaving Quakertown into the university’s curriculum — with Alma Clark and Betty Kimble as co-documentarians. In April 2022 the team hosted a town hall of Quakertown descendants, the mayor, the city council, and TWU administrators on reparative justice.