Amid a song, a prayer, and joy, a Black man known as a “mechanical genius” was honored with a historical marker in Forney, east of Dallas, on Saturday, more than 90 years after his death.
Against the backdrop of an old cotton gin and the sound of trains passing in the background, community members stood up and sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to open the ceremony. It was to honor Reeves Henry, a formerly enslaved man who became a prominent business leader in Forney.
He was also an inventor who filed patents for cotton chopping machines and fixed locomotives.
Henry fixed the first automobile that was driven in Texas after it broke down on its way to the State Fair in Dallas, about 125 years ago. Reeves was able to fix the damaged water tank and get the vehicle back on the road.
In the 1990s, a historical marker that commemorated that moment left Henry out.
His great-grandson, Carroll “Jimmy” Malone, wanted to make sure his great-grandfather would be remembered in Texas history. On Saturday, he saw that happen.
“I'm elated. I’m just peacock proud,” Malone said. “We're just so happy that this thing finally came to manifest itself into what it is today. We finally got the marker put in place and it's been a long time coming.”
The process to get here started when Malone called the Spellman Museum, located in downtown Forney, in 2021 to request a meeting. Three years later, Malone, museum manager Kendall Nobles and other Henry family descendants are seeing their efforts come to life.
“It required ... research, poring over documents, eventually compiling a narrative that the Texas Historical Commission finds particularly compelling and important,” Nobles said. “Reeves Henry is compelling, and important and we're happy to share his story today.”
Born in Gregg County in far east Texas in 1859, Henry and his family later moved to Kaufman County, where he set up his blacksmith shop.
“My great-grandfather was a member of this city,” Malone said. “He supported not just the Black community, he supported everybody and just imagine during the turn of the century Jim Crow, he had to go through a lot of stuff here just to do what he did.”
One of the speakers at the ceremony was Henry Brown, the president of the Mesquite NAACP.
“A genius was born in 1859,” he said. “It took 150 years to get us to this point today, but we are here, and we are so daggone proud of being here. Let’s give it up for Mr. Reeves Henry.”
Evans Fitzgerald, a local pastor who led the crowd in a prayer during the ceremony, said Henry’s “greatness” isn’t going unnoticed.
“Even though he may sleep now in an unmarked grave, he will have a marker that will show us who he has been and what he has done,” Fitzgerald said.
Although never met his great-grandfather, Malone had heard stories his whole life about Henry’s mechanical genius and inventions.
Malone said many of his uncles went to Detroit to work as mechanics because of the skills Henry had taught them.
Malone invited two of his grandchildren to speak at the ceremony. He hopes his great-grandfather's contributions will serve as not only as a lesson in history, but a lesson in life as well — especially for the youth, he said. His message to them is to never give up.
“There's some roadblocks ahead," he said. "There might be some things that you might need to back up and then recalibrate and think about it."
“But at the end of the day, the flowers are going to come to the top and that's what happened here.”
The historical marker sits at the site where Henry’s shop once stood. It ends with these final words: “Reeves Henry’s ingenuity and skill during a time when Forney was adopting the new conveniences that would shape twentieth century life made him an important early citizen worthy to be remembered.”
Copyright 2024 KERA