TEXAS PURCHASE MOVEMENT. The Texas Purchase Movement was a plan to solve the so-called race problem in Texas. The separatists who put forth this scheme in 1910 called upon the federal government to purchase the state of Texas, remove all the white citizens therein, and settle the state with African Americans. The purchase price of Texas would be repaid by the black settlers over a period of 100 years. The state, upon its settlement by black Americans would become an independent black republic with its sovereignty guaranteed by the United States. Support for the plan came primarily from rural blacks who, at the turn of the century, still lived in an economic and social situation approximating that of the slavery period. Discouraged at ever achieving a responsible position in society, and taking to heart the often repeated admonishment that they were the "nation's burden," the scheme for separation of the races, and an independent black nation found favor with Texas's poor and country dwelling blacks. The scheme did not, however, have any supporters among white Texans. The Nation, a magazine known to be in sympathy with the plight of America's black population and their efforts at achieving full citizenship, denounced the Texas Purchase Movement as "preposterous." The Texas Purchase Movement scheme, like other separatists plans, came to nothing, and was eventually discarded.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bruce Alden Glasrud, Black Texans, 1900-1930: A History (Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Tech College, 1969 Nation, September 1, 1910. Ralph W. Steen, Twentieth Century Texas: An Economic and Social History (Austin: Steck, 1942).
