Garland mosaic mural brings The Flats, the city's first Black community, back into view

For about 50 years, The Flats was the heart of Black life in Garland. Now a new mosaic mural in downtown Garland is bringing it back into view. The neighborhood was the city's first free-standing African American community. Garland historian Emily Chavez told CBS Texas it lasted from the early 1910s into the early 1960s.

The mural is outside the Granville Arts Center at North Fifth and Austin streets. It stands three feet high and runs 36 feet long. Its 15 scenes show the community's faith, farming, family life, and Black-owned businesses. Houston-based public artist Reginald C. Adams led the project. Community members helped lay nearly 20,000 hand-cut tiles. One of them was Bertha Lipscomb Wallace, whose parents moved to The Flats from Plano in the 1940s. "It will be there for generations to come," she told CBS Texas.

The City of Garland says The Flats sat northeast of the downtown square. The neighborhood had cafes, barbershops, grocery stores, and a Methodist church. It was also home to the Colored School, which served as a regional education center from 1936 to 1948. The Dallas Observer reported that the neighborhood was bulldozed in the 1960s and that very little of its history was ever written down. That left Chavez to piece the story together. "We have such little artifacts left of the actual Flats," she told CBS Texas.

The mural is more than tile. The Observer reported that visitors can scan it to see an augmented reality version where the characters move while a narrator explains each scene. Four songs were written to go with it. The mosaic is part of a larger city project that also includes a Texas Historical Commission marker at the original site and five panels about daily life in The Flats. The city planned to dedicate the mural as the kickoff to its annual Juneteenth celebration.

This story is based on original reporting by WFAA, with additional reporting from CBS Texas, the Dallas Observer, and the City of Garland.