Mellownie Johnson

Mellownie Johnson

Written by Cathy Kincaid Thursday, 07 February 2008

In 1948, when Joe Lee Johnson brought his young family to live in the town where he was raised, Round Rock had 1,400 residents. Both Georgetown and Taylor were larger in size. IH 35 expressway did not exist. West along RM 620 lay ranchland owned by the Robinson and Beck families and small homes around the area known as Old Town. Round Rock Medical Center was not built, Round Rock High School was where C.D. Fulkes Middle School is now, and the blacks went to a separate school, Hopewell School, located on McNeil Road southwest of downtown.

The town centered around Main Avenue, and most residents could walk to one of the three grocery stores on that street to do their shopping. At the movie theater, 80-year-old Mellownie Johnson, widow of Joe Lee, said the black community sat upstairs and their white neighbors downstairs.

Joe Lee loved Round Rock because everybody knew everybody. Before he was drafted to serve in the Korean conflict, he invested in land once owned by his great-aunt. He continued investing in his city for many years by buying property in the downtown area known as the Flats. His Aunt Petronella, who also lived downtown, married Garfield McConico who was the first black city councilman and mayor pro tem from 1969 to 1977.

After the military, Joe Lee received his degree through the GI Bill, which offered free higher education to veterans, from Samuel Huston College, now Huston-Tillotson University in Austin. Mellownie began her studies there after graduating from the high school in Georgetown, a rare career step for most young ladies of that time. When Joe Lee graduated, he moved his family to a house he had built on his property. Mellownie still lives in that house and acts as landlord to most of the homes and businesses within a two-block radius. After Joe Lee died in 1994, Mellownie sold one of her lots to the city so that a parking lot could be built for the growing downtown library.

They both distinguished themselves as educators in the small town. Joe Lee became principal and teacher at Hopewell for nearly 20 years. Mellownie eventually began teaching there, too.

In 1966, Round Rock had three public schools. Mellownie does not remember where Joe Lee taught when the schools integrated that year and Hopewell closed, only that he taught math. When he retired in 1986, the school district honored him, and among other things named a street after him for a short time. She speaks of the school integration matter-of-factly.

“I kind of knew there wouldn’t be any trouble integrating,” she said, “because I had been working summers at the courthouse. There were just one or two blacks, but there was no trouble. Sure enough, it just didn’t matter when the school integrated. It was all very smooth. I think it was because all the kids had always played together and knew each other, and all the parents knew each other since they were kids, too.”

Mellownie’s eyes light up most when she begins to talk of the many third-grade children she taught at Berkman Elementary between 1966 and 1986.

“Those little kids would just snuggle up to me and sit on my lap. They would tickle me to death and cover me with kisses and hugs. Some of them would say I was their black mama.”

Today she is still known as Mama, not only to her children, Joe Douglas and Cora Ellen, who live within a block of her, but also to the neighbors who wave and say “Hi Mama” when she is out walking.

Hopewell School

From “Historical Round Rock, Texas” by Karen R. Thompson and Jane H. Digesualdo

In 1909, the Colored School District Trustees of Round Rock purchased land from Mitchell and Belle Mays to build a school.

When the Round Rock Common School District voted to incorporate in May 1913, the black school fell under the jurisdiction of the newly created district. The school was held in temporary quarters until 1922, when the two-room school opened southwest of downtown.

Originally the school term was five months, but when the new building opened the term was extended to six months. In 1928 a seven-month term was established and remained that for many years.

After the eighth grade, Pflugerville students who wished to continue their education either went into Austin to L.C. Anderson or took a bus to Hopewell in Round Rock. By the time the schools integrated in 1966, there were eight teachers, and home economics, business and band were offered as electives.

Hopewell School was one of the first black schools built in Williamson County.

Inside the Hopewell meeting center, the walls are dedicated to those who attended the school and the efforts to preserve the history of the school. One wall displays some of the alumni of the school, including Joe Lee Johnson who was not only the last principal, but also one of the school’s graduates.

After the school closed in 1966, it was used as a transportation facility by the school district before it was closed and the property sold. By 1999, the building was nearly demolished. Leaders in the African-American community created ideas for relocation and renovation. In 2000, the building was moved next to Round Rock High School. It is now a teacher training and meeting facility for the district.