In the segregated Dallas of the 1930s and '40s, it was a bold move.
Jean Edwards not only formed one of Texas' first, if not the first, all-black Girl Scout troops, but she made sure that whatever white Girl Scouts did, her girls did it too.
Attending parades filled with all-white troops. Going to museums. And, of course, selling Girl Scout cookies.
"I would tell them, 'You don't let color keep you from doing the things you want to do,' " said Edwards, 92. "I didn't let nothing stop me; and when I made up my mind to do something, that was it."
More than 70 years after Edwards formed Troop 50, those lessons still stick with her Scouts.
One of them, Pauline Brookins Taylor, says she can't overstate Edwards' importance. Edwards was confident, and she made her girls confident.
"I had my faith, my family, my church and Girl Scouts, too. I was somebody," said Taylor, 82. "It gave me something to be proud of."
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As time marches on, memories of Edwards' scouting days are fading. But she knows she played a defining role in the girls' lives.
"They tell me, 'You took us places we never would have gone if it hadn't been for you,' " Edwards said. "That makes me feel good."
In the '30s, Edwards' husband led a Boy Scout troop. She offered suggestions on what to do. He wasn't interested. He told her: Get your own troop.
So she did.
Edwards flipped through a telephone book and found information about Girl Scouts. She was invited to attend a Scout training session.
She was the only black person at that meeting. She said she felt that some of the white women resented her being there. But she didn't feel awkward.
"It ended up OK," she said.
As early as 1934 or 1935 no one seems to know exactly Edwards formed her troop. She recruited girls she was just 10 years older than some of them from East Dallas.
They met at St. John Missionary Baptist Church. They learned to tie knots. They did the occasional craft. They earned badges.
"We did the same things that the boys did," Edwards said.
In 1940, The Dallas Morning News mentioned the group in a story about area Girl Scouts: "Troop 50 ... went on a hike Saturday morning to study trees. Mrs. Eugene Edwards is captain."
A friend taught the girls how to determine a tree's age by counting its rings, Edwards recalled.
She took the girls to a campsite on Forest Lane. She took them to museums.
"All that history, and at my age, I can't remember," said Edwards, who lives in California.
But the girls who joined Edwards' troop have fond memories.
At campsites, the Scouts dug trenches so their tents didn't get wet when it rained, Taylor said.
Maggie Younger, 83, remembers taking long morning walks. She sold Girl Scout shortbread cookies and used the proceeds to buy uniforms.
Edwards was caring and always there for her Scouts, said Younger, of Dallas.
"She had a beautiful personality, and she was very concerned about each one of us," she said. "She was our second mother."
If some of the girls poked fun at others in the troop, Edwards would sit them down. She'd say: "We are all Girl Scouts, and we look after each other."
Taylor added: "If anything that happened wasn't right ... we were going to go to Jean about it and she was going to take care of it."
Edwards was a go-getter and feisty and she still is, Taylor said.
"If Girl Scouts were going to march, then Jean's troop was going to march, too," said Taylor, who lives in California. "If Girl Scouts were invited to an opening, and Jean heard about it, she'd get us together with our uniforms and we would be there. ... We stood tall. Ms. Edwards was going to stand up for us.
"She just said, 'We will do this.' And we did."
