The Wilcox Ranch with Kelly "Lola" Wilcox Moore

A Virtual Presentation by Kelly "Lola" Wilcox Moore

The Wilcox Ranch is the last operating African American owned ranch in Jakes Colony, a Freedmen’s Settlement in Seguin.

Kelly "Lola" Wilcox Moore’s Legacy Restoration Project is an ancestor-inspired work focused on her paternal lineage. She is charged with being a "Repairer of the Breach" as is written in the book of Isaiah. It’s quite a sacred assignment with feet in three consecutive centuries. She is also a griot (sacred storyteller), writer and Principal of her Legacy Restoration Project. Wilcox-Moore is a fifth-generation Freedmen’s Settlement descendant. Her great-great-grandfather, Henry Wilcox, founded the historic Wilcox Ranch in 1870. He was stolen from his country and enslaved in Kentucky and then in Seguin (Guadalupe County) Texas where he laid roots.

In Jakes Colony Freedmen’s Settlement there were once seventy working Black-owned ranches. Today the Wilcox Ranch is the last one standing. And today, Lola's brother, Mar'lon, stewards the homestead/Wilcox Ranch, including Ridley Cemetery. Jakes Colony was once a thriving Black community with its own Methodist church, a Rosenwald School and a now historic cemetery. With her Legacy Restoration Project and input from her cousin and brother, Ridley Cemetery is now recognized as a historical landmark and is awaiting inscription of their official historic cemetery marker. Things began to unravel during her parents’ generation due to several factors that adversely impacted the Black community at large.

As she restores her paternal ancestors’ legacy, she simultaneously creates her own. Her work is distinguished and powerful. It is set apart, replete with a myriad of nuances that will, on some level or other, resonate with most. Her stories cannot be told truthfully without illuminating painfully disturbing roots of American history. These undeniable roots many chose to attempt to white out of their prevalent accounts of American history.

In the entrepreneurial spirit of her ancestors, she created a line of ancestral greeting cards and notebooks amongst other amazingly creative, never-seen-before items. Lola’s work was recently exhibited at the San Antonio International Airport in a collaboration with San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum (SAAACAM) from February 2022 to April 2022. Her cousin Malcolm also completed the layout work for two of the four featured panels. Her work was also part of the Witte Museum’s Black Cowboy: An American Story Exhibition from November 2021 to April 2022. Both exhibits included QR codes with snippets of her stories told in her own distinct voice.

Lola’s Legacy Restoration Project uniquely positions her to amend the fragmented faulty American history most of us were taught. She aims to work on more curriculum development as far too many have no idea what a Freedmen’s Settlement is and why their creation was necessary for the survival and well being of hundreds of thousands of Black folks.

Lola looks forward to collaborating more with schools, universities, libraries, museums, and community organizations. In the years prior to the pandemic, she connected with school children where she shared her stories and each child was gifted an ancestral notebook/pen from her collection. She also fully encourages and supports others to begin writing their own stories. She often says, "We overstand that there’s power in the pen! Each of us has stories, but most will never write or share them.”