DeSoto reflecting Dr. King’s dream with diversity, middle class expansion

DeSOTO, Texas (CBSDFW.COM) — On Monday afternoon, DeSoto’s Ernie Roberts Park was filled with an array of parents, grandparents and children.

It was a display of ethnic and racial diversity—a community centerpiece to gather families on the nation’s holiday commemorating the life of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

The very presence of these families side by side may offer a symbolic example of Dr. King’s vision, known worldwide as “The Dream.”

From the Alabama bus boycotts of the 1950s to the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis, Dr. King advocated for the end of racial segregation and discrimination afflicting the nation’s African-American population. 

The pastor used protests and boycotts to ensure legal remedies against job, housing and education bias. 

In the midst of the civil rights era, DeSoto was a small town just southwest of Dallas. The town followed the tenets of Jim Crow laws. By the 1980s and 90s, the migration of Black families started to be seen in the southern Dallas County communities of DeSoto, Duncanville and Cedar Hill. 

“When I think of the history of this community…there were mostly whites only. Really, it’s changed, a positive change,” DeSoto resident Craig Lester said.

Lester and his wife now raise their five children in DeSoto. As an African-American family, they are part of the town’s racial majority. DeSoto’s median income, according to the United States Census Bureau, sits at $79,000. The town’s median home value is listed at $359,000.

The racial and ethnic diversity among the town’s neighborhoods, city government, and business development reflect the “dream” Dr. King envisioned, according to Lester and others. 

“I can remember being the only African-American student in many of my classes when [I] attended school in DeSoto ISD,” DeSoto Mayor Rachel Proctor said. She says that she now believes the city fully embodies Dr. King’s dream.

Proctor points to the city’s expanding middle class, housing stock and education programs—both public and private—as examples of opportunity and accessibility urged and pushed for during Dr. King’s advocacy for civil rights. 

And it’s not just a DeSoto thing, she says. 

“I think it’s being seen in many great southwest Dallas County communities. I think it’s a dynamic affecting more than DeSoto.”

Steve Pickett

Steve is an Emmy Award-winning journalist. He has been recognized nationally for his coverage of Public Education and his reports from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina garnered the “Best News Story” Katie Award from the Press Club of Dallas.