Lubbock Roots Historical Arts Council

The Lubbock Roots Historical Arts Council seeks to enrich the life and history of the African Americans of West Texas by promoting a greater understanding of the African American experience through the practice and appreciation of the visual and performing arts and through the study, interpretation and preservation of the history of the African American in the Early American West and West Texas.

The Roots began as the Roots Committee in 1978. At that time the organization’s desire was to share the African Americanexperience in the Early American West. This led to thecommittee to organize the first-ever reenactment of Nolan’s Staked Plains Expedition of1877, where a troop of10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers survived on the parched West TexasPlains by drinking the blood and urine of their dying horses. The success of the reenactment and the group’s desire to share the African American historical and cultural experience with the region led to incorporate as a nonprofit arts and humanities organization. Roots is the owner of the Caviel Museum of African American History, Roots Community Revitalization Center and the Roots Booker T. Washington Community Garden. Roots is also the founder of the Caprock Jazz Festival; that is a major annual fundraiser to support the Caviel Museum and gives awards the Braxton music scholarship a selected talented youth.