Jaybird–Woodpecker War

The roots of the Jaybird-Woodpecker violence stretch back to the emergence of antebellum plantation society in Fort Bend County and the end of the American Civil War. The conflict over slavery impacted how the war began, played out, and influenced Fort Bend political and social life for over 100 years. Antebellum plantation society in Fort Bend County Fort Bend County was colonized by families of the Old 300, who had purchased land rights from Stephen F Austin and the Mexican government in the 1820s and the pacification of local Native American tribes. Within the decades leading up to the American Civil War, Fort Bend country grew into one of the largest and most prosperous slaveholding communities in Texas. With these sentiments percolating in the mid- to late 1880s, many young men in Fort Bend County were fed up with the Whites' inability to change county politics via the ballot box. They brought together and formalized the informal vigilante groups into the Jay Bird Democratic Association in July 1888. ==Conflict==

The conflict allegedly derived its name from Bob Chapel, a local African-American man who was said to sing about jaybirds and woodpeckers. The Jaybirds were White Democrats opposed to the participation of Blacks in local politics, as an alliance of Blacks and Whites (formerly Republican) had elected county officials for 20 years since Reconstruction. The Woodpeckers were nominally Democrats, too, with representatives elected largely by Black voters. An election was held November 6, 1888, that was supervised by Texas Rangers. All of the Woodpecker candidates were elected or re-elected (many had won election in 1884) to their slate of office. This engendered further hostilities from the Jaybirds. In the spring of 1889, Kyle Terry, then a Woodpecker official appointed as the tax assessor, murdered Ned Gibson, a leader of the Jaybirds. As a result, the county government was reorganized under the control of the Jaybird faction. This was formalized through a meeting held on October 3, 1889, and the former officeholders were told to leave town. Subsequently, the Jaybirds held a meeting on October 22, 1889, creating the Jaybird Democratic Organization of Fort Bend County. It dominated local politics for decades into the 1950s. The faction established a "White-only" preliminary ballot for county offices. This effectively disenfranchised African Americans because the only competitive contest was that within the Democratic Party. A similar White primary measure was adopted by the state legislature in the early 20th century. The Jaybird Democrats retained control until their provision was overturned by a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461 (1953). By that time, two White primary processes authorized by the state government had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; the second was in Smith v. Allwright (1944). ==References==