Charles Bellinger who was perhaps the best well-known “black political boss” in the early 1900s. He was able to control a large voting bloc that secured the leniency of the white authorities toward the black community and was able to provide electoral support that kept some of these racists in power. In order to better understand the evolution of the African American experience in San Antonio one must look at the historical and political legacy that developed over time. The control of the white elite over Black San Antonio was never more evident than in the educational arena. The education of African American students followed a Jim Crow model from the very beginning. Perhaps the best example of segregationist control was in the establishment of St. Philips College.
The most racist efforts to restrict black desires for education was in the destruction of the Freedman Schools established after the Civil War. Whites in San Antonio did not want to see independent black institutions that would challenge the segregation of the day, or produce black leadership that would question white support of these schools. This control extended to the political arena where the wealth and power of Charles Bellinger would be used to provide infrastructure improvements and eventually lead the funding for the Carver Colored Library.
Under segregated conditions, Charles Bellinger established a saloon, a cab company, a real estate company, a movie house, a barbershop, a black newspaper, and numerous other economic ventures. He was also able to provide jobs for many of San Antonio’s Black citizens. In the 1930s, San Antonio Mayor C.M. Chambers used Bellinger’s influence to win elections as was done by the next San Antonio mayor Charles Quin. Blacks were not allowed to run for office at the time but could vote after paying a poll tax which Bellinger paid keeping the receipts for the voters at his office on E. Commerce Street. He would later use the receipts and his cabs to pick up black voters. Eventually, Bellinger would incur the threats of the San Antonio Ku Klux Klan and in 1935 as they would burn a cross at his mansion on S. New Braunfels Street. Ironically, Bellinger would support a pro-KKK Mayor Charles Quin. Bellinger was able to garner the support of the Black Church, despite his criminal enterprises that included “bootlegging” of alcohol during prohibition, gambling and other vices.
According to Henderson (1970) in his book, Maury Maverick, the corrupt methods of dealing with political power on the eastside shifted to Valmo Bellinger, the son of Charles Bellinger. The church always played a role in these events either criticizing the corrupt nature of eastside politics or going along with it. These strategies lead to splits within the Black community between the more progressive elements and those who were handpicked by white city leaders or who went out of their way to touch their heads to the ground for white approval. There developed a rift between those who were fighting racism and those who were willing to accommodate it—which still exists.
Maury Maverick, Sr. supported an anti-lynching bill in the congress, but his greatest mistake was in calling Bellinger’s son a “Black Baboon” during the city elections of 1941. Bellinger would eventually be convicted of income tax evasion as a result of the NAACP president, Harold Tarver, revealing to banker Walter W. McAlister and Maury Maverick Sr. his non-payments to the IRS. Bellinger would be pardoned by the President of the United States after a support visit from the KKK Mayor of San Antonio.
