Ron J Jackson

Oklahoma's saga is collectively a triumphant one, but victories were often gained at the price of blood. Settlers fought to conquer the frontier. Indians refused to be conquered. Slaves died to be free. Blood Prairie pays tribute to the sacrifices of those who lived on Oklahoma's enchanting, yet often violent, prairie. Within these pages, one will journey through a series of perilous adventures on the vast Oklahoma frontier when cultures clashed, and blood flowed freely. Among these gripping historical narratives are the raw, intimate stories of the Kiowa Tribe's darkest hour, a female Cheyenne warrior's struggle to defend her homeland, a Mexican captive's bloody history, and a Civil War battle through the eyes of an Indian Territory slave. Blood Prairie also offers the most complete narrative to date on the Buffalo Wallow Fight - a last stand, Texas epic in which the heroic participants - red and white - hail from Oklahoma's red soil.

If we do in fact “remember the Alamo,” it is largely thanks to one person who witnessed the final assault and survived: the commanding officer’s slave, a young man known simply as Joe. What Joe saw as the Alamo fell, recounted days later to the Texas Cabinet, has come down to us in records and newspaper reports. But who Joe was, where he came from, and what happened to him have all remained mysterious until now. In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, authors Ron J. Jackson, Jr., and Lee Spencer White have fully restored this pivotal yet elusive figure to his place in the American story. The twenty-year-old Joe stood with his master, Lieutenant Colonel Travis, against the Mexican army in the early hours of March 6, 1836. After Travis fell, Joe watched the battle’s last moments from a hiding place. He was later taken first to Bexar and questioned by Santa Anna about the Texan army, and then to the revolutionary capitol, where he gave his testimony with evident candor. With these few facts in hand, Jackson and White searched through plantation ledgers, journals, memoirs, slave narratives, ship logs, newspapers, letters, and court documents. Their decades-long effort has revealed the outline of Joe’s biography, alongside some startling facts: most notably, that Joe was the younger brother of the famous escaped slave and abolitionist narrator William Wells Brown, as well as the grandson of legendary trailblazer Daniel Boone. This book traces Joe’s story from his birth in Kentucky through his life in slavery—which, in a grotesque irony, resumed after he took part in the Texans’ battle for independence—to his eventual escape and disappearance into the shadows of history. Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend recovers a true American character from obscurity and expands our view of events central to the emergence of Texas.

No one who has seen the iconic photograph can ever forget its emotional pull: a grinning Gene Stallings, hoisted into the air at midfield in the arms of his lifelong mentor, Paul "Bear" Bryant, moments after the final gun sounded for the 1968 Cotton Bowl. Stallings's upstart Aggies delivered an unbelievable upset of Bryant's Crimson Tide, a team that had dominated its SEC rivals under the leadership of a young quarterback who later achieved NFL fame, Kenny "Snake" Stabler. Yet the famous image captured on that memorable day is merely the culmination of a greater story. In Bebes and the Bear: Gene Stallings, Coach Bryant, and Their 1968 Cotton Bowl Showdown, Ron J. Jackson Jr. unpacks for readers the heartwarming journey of two coaches and their lifelong mutual respect and admiration. From the rocky, drought-plagued practice fields in Junction, Texas, in the summer of 1954, through the memorable 1967 autumn campaign that led both coaches to their highly publicized Cotton Bowl matchup, Jackson chronicles the story of Bryant, Stallings, and the two storied football traditions that bound them together. Based on hours of interviews with Stallings, his players, and other eyewitnesses and painstaking research in the archives at both Texas A&M University and the University of Alabama, Jackson has reconstructed the pivotal moments of play, the coaching decisions, and the athletic heroics that combined to create one of the most unforgettable moments in college football history.

This book salvages one of boxing's most legendary stories - a clandestine, 27-round war between San Francisco rivals "Gentleman" Jim Corbett and Joe Choynski on the deck of a barge. This gritty and colorful tale chronicles the Corbett-Choynski blood feud and one of the most inspiring displays of determination and courage in ring history.

If we do in fact ""remember the Alamo,"" it is largely thanks to one person who witnessed the final assault and survived: the commanding officer's slave, a young man known simply as Joe. What Joe saw as the Alamo fell, recounted days later to the Texas Cabinet, has come down to us in records and newspaper reports. But who Joe was, where he came from, and what happened to him have all remained mysterious until now. In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, authors Ron J. Jackson, Jr., and Lee Spencer White have fully restored this pivotal yet elusive figure to his place in the American story. The twenty-year-old Joe stood with his master, Lieutenant Colonel Travis, against the Mexican army in the early hours of March 6, 1836. After Travis fell, Joe watched the battle's last moments from a hiding place. He was later taken first to Bexar and questioned by Santa Anna about the Texan army, and then to the revolutionary capitol, where he gave his testimony with evident candor. With these few facts in hand, Jackson and White searched through plantation ledgers, journals, memoirs, slave narratives, ship logs, newspapers, letters, and court documents. Their decades-long effort has revealed the outline of Joe's biography, alongside some startling facts: most notably, that Joe was the younger brother of the famous escaped slave and abolitionist narrator William Wells Brown, as well as the grandson of legendary trailblazer Daniel Boone. This book traces Joe's story from his birth in Kentucky through his life in slavery - which, in a grotesque irony, resumed after he took part in the Texans' battle for independence - to his eventual escape and disappearance into the shadows of history. Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend recovers a true American character from obscurity and expands our view of events central to the emergence of Texas.