- The pace of activity continues to mount here at Fair Park as opening day of the 1969.

- Located just east of downtown Dallas Fair Park is a 277 acre city on site home to the state fair of Texas.

Since the 1880s.

The State fair may evoke images of its iconic Texas size, Ferris wheel, corny dogs, and of course big techs.

But dig a little deeper into the story of Fair Park.

And reality is much heavier.

Its history is tightly interwoven with Confederate soldiers, the KKK, civil rights activists, and the Black Power Movement.

In Dallas, - We had the largest clan chapter in America.

- Fair Park was an epicenter of racial politics throughout the city of Dallas.

- Many of our movements in this city came from this part of town, south Dallas proper.

- Before there was a cotton bowl, cotton as the phrase goes, was king.

Here in Dallas, according to scholars, by 1900 Dallas was the largest inland port for cotton.

The culture of slave holding in the Confederacy is interwoven into fair park's history.

As William Gaston, a confederate soldier once owned the land, the fair occupies today the fallacy of white supremacy reemerged in the 1920s.

Thanks largely to the film, the Birth of a Nation.

- And this is a mainstream film portrayed the Klan as heroes that saved the South from corruption and the raped by African American soldiers in the human union.

Army, Texas audiences stood up, gave standing ovations of the film.

- The Birth of a Nation, which was even screened at the White House, sparked the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.

And the Dallas mainstream embraced this terrorist group.

- We had the largest Klan chapter in America.

So you got the policeman who wear the police uniforms in the daytime and the Klan and the judges were in the Klan.

The all of the attorneys, the ministers were all members of chapter number 66.

- With the help of the state fair of Texas the size of the Klans.

Chapter 66 grew.

The Klan held the largest single initiation day in its history here in Dallas.

Their numbers increased to 13,000, which represented about one out of every three eligible men in the city.

It was the highest membership per capita in the nation.

- My friends of Texas, I have come here today to bear the Crile of the nation through you on your hundredth birthday.

- See, in 1936, Texas was celebrating its hundredth birthday and it was a big debate on where the centennial was going be hell.

So Houston said, we should get the centennial.

We are the largest city.

And they say, well, Dallas, what have y'all got?

And our Thornton says, well, we've got the state fair, Texas, and got a suitcase full of money.

And they says, sounds good to us.

- Securing the centennial, put a national spotlight on the growing city of Dallas.

- This great centennial exposition has not fought Texas alone.

It is for the people of all the other 47 states, as well - As business leaders begin planning for the development of Fair Park.

There was a notable void in the exhibition - When they were building Fair Park.

Macio went to the city leaders and said, look, there's no Negro presence in this thing.

- Civil Rights Leader, a Maceo Smith, served as the executive secretary of the Dallas Negro Chamber of Commerce.

He played central roles in major NAACP legal strategies and became known as Mr. Civil Rights.

A Maceo Smith had his eyes set on getting the Hall of Negro Life erected in the Texas centennial.

- So they said, okay, if you can raise the money, we'll build a building.

And they were able to find a hundred thousand dollars.

- They ne 1936 Negro building was the forerunner of the Civil Rights movement because it started getting people from all over, gathering in one place, showing art, politics, science, all of the things that black folks wasn't supposed to do.

This was to show them that we were already doing it.

- There's actually a, an account of a white woman coming into the hall and she gets angry, said they meaning black people.

They could not have done this.

She has an intense, panicked reaction to the record of achievement.

And there is this recurring theme in Dallas history and in in American history regarding African Americans.

There's this fear in fact that African Americans might rise and eventually dominate.

And part of this is guilt because of white consciousness of what they've done, the violence, the exploitation.

They're afraid they're going to receive what they've given out - Between its opening on Juneteenth.

And November, 1936, around 400,000 people visited the Hall of Negro Life, the first of its kind in the United States.

The exhibition included a pamphlet by WEB Du Bois and four murals painted for the exhibition by artist Aaron Douglas, one of the most prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

- So at the end of the fair, they decided to bring in Pan Am Exposition and they decided to that the Hall of Negro Life was one of the buildings that was going to destroy because they said it didn't fit into the theme.

So just like that, they just wiped it - Out.

There was this innocent desire to erase that we cannot keep that in place because the achievements recorded in that hall totally refuted, exploded the myths of white supremacy.

And that was the foundation of Dallas politics and Dallas culture.

And it was a danger to the status quo.

- Today, the American Museum of Dallas is close to where the Hall of Negro Life one stood.

Two of the Aaron Douglas murals remain in museum collections outside of Texas.

And the other two are believed to have been destroyed following the demolition of the State's recognition to the accomplishments of African Americans Fair Park, like the rest of Dallas remains segregated with only one day black people could attend Negro Achievement Day.

- When I was a kid growing up, we came to the Fair Park one day or the year, and that was Negro Day.

And Negro Day is all of the Negroes from the state of Texas could come to the great state Fair, Texas.

They used to let the school kids out for the day to come to the fair.

We didn't know that it was really the wrong thing to do 'cause we always had fun.

That was our day.

- Juanita K Craft saw things differently.

The organizing icon is known for her work with the NAACP helping to launch more than 180 youth chapters around the country here in Dallas.

She's especially known for her work with youth training up an army of young, black and brown leaders known as the craft kids.

They were instrumental in pushing for desegregation across the city, including the state fair of Texas.

- My mother is what really first and foremost inspired me to be involved 'cause she is the one who, who, who ensured that, that my sister and I to the NAACP Youth Council.

And that was under the leadership of Mrs.

Craft.

So that's really where my, my, my training started.

That's where I received some training and, and civil disobedience and protests and et cetera.

- Juanita Craft and another lady named Minnie Flanagan decided that the state fair was being unfair.

And so they decided that they would boycott Negro Day.

They wouldn't come to the Fair - Negro Appeasement Day is what they called it.

Standing outside of Fair Park with the NAACP Youth Council.

They held signs imploring African Americans to join them in boycotting the fair.

It's considered one of the most important early protest in Dallas that got media attention.

- It wasn't like it is now.

Thank God that the change has been, and I've been a part of the change.

Times change, but you got to make 'em change - Though.

The NAACP youth protest at the state fair succeeded.

The ugly realities of Jim Crow segregation continued in Dallas, sometimes even leading to violence, just blocks from Fair Park.

Black residents found themselves battling both city policy and bombings for activists and organizers.

The struggle will continue.