Fort Worth philanthropists honored as ‘Living Legends’

Dr. John Barnett, Jr. and Dr. Arlene Barnett lost their dental clinic and Mardi Gras poster collection when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005. The disaster presented an opportunity for the couple to hit the road back home to Fort Worth.

John grew up in Northside, although he attended the schools where his parents taught like Dunbar Elementary, Morningside Middle School and Dunbar High School, where he graduated high school in 1966. He described himself as a “latchkey kid.”

Growing up in Fort Worth, John said the Northside was mostly Black and still had the remains of segregation. He noted a separate white and Black fountain, and his schools mostly reflected the divide.

Arlene grew up more than 1,500 miles northeast in Newark, New Jersey. She described her childhood as “sheltered,” being the eighth of nine children in her family. Arlene described her childhood as communal and diverse. 

Their paths crossed at Howard University Dental School in the mid-1970s. 

On June 16, they accepted the Dr. Marion J. Brooks Living Legend Award, an award presented to “Tarrant County residents who have exemplified excellence in their chosen vocation and provided great service to the community,” according to an email from the Beta Tau Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc, a historically Black fraternity involved in mentorship, service and community.

For the first time in the nearly 30 years of Dr. Marion J. Brooks Living Legend Award ceremonies, a married couple received the award. 

“We wanted to do something a bit unique in that we wanted to honor a dynamic partnership, the union if you will, typically we honor individuals, but as an organization that really wants to celebrate and honor the family, we felt it appropriate to recognize the inextricable link between their bodies of work,” SaJade Miller, Living Legends event chair and brother of the Beta Tau Lambda chapter, said.

The connecting string between John and Arlene’s work is art. They are avid art collectors and further their philanthropic ventures through art collecting. Art helps the Barnetts’ philanthropic endeavors like Arlene’s Tarrant County Education Foundation Art of Giving program, a nonprofit that helps students in Tarrant County with scholarships based on their needs.

In 2024, the program will present a 20,000-water bottle sculpture created by artist Willie Cole at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, 1300 Gendy St. The project “lessens the impact of plastics on our environment, empowers creativity and explores scholarship opportunities,” according to the project description.

County students, teachers and artists will help with the water bottle project that will be on display from March 1, 2024, through March 30, 2024. The project also hopes to “inspire higher learning and encourage education in S.T.E.M. and art careers.”

John co-owns and practices pediatric dentistry at Kids Stop Dental, 6222 Hulen Bend Blvd., and is the president of the Fort Worth African American Museum and Cultural Center board. Arlene was an oral surgeon.

The Fort Worth African American Museum and Cultural Center hopes to bridge communities together across different races by showcasing Black art and history. The museum is an opportunity to bring culture to his city, John previously told the Report.

The Barnetts had art on display at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art library in 2022, which ties their art collection to the mission of exposing youth to history and culture.

Through their involvement in the Fort Worth art community and dentistry, the Barnetts’ impact the community within their disciplines.

Growing up, Arlene’s only experience with dental care was emergency oral care.

“I was a teenager when I discovered that disease was preventable. I thought it was a travesty of injustice that no one had shared that with a family of nine children,” Arlene said. “I just started very early thinking that that would be my path.”

Arlene was accepted into dental school at 19 years old, but because of her young age, she was asked to wait until she was 20.

“I just really thought that extracting teeth was all they did,” Arlene said. “That’s not all they did in other communities. In our household, on our budget, it was just, ‘Go have it removed.’”

Arlene’s focus has always been to teach parents and children about oral health in simple, understandable ways. It’s a mission she brought with her to Fort Worth. One of her phrases, “If you clean it, you can keep it,” helped break down the concept of oral health.

John’s cousin had a dentist’s office in Northside Fort Worth off of 25th Street. 

“I used to go around and just observe him, and being a relative, he’d let me assist or work there. I really got interested in dentistry through observing him,” John said. “He was very encouraging. And so I could see myself in his role.”

Later on, during Arlene’s freshman year, she met John, who was a junior. In 1976, the Barnetts eloped at Howard University’s chapel as a capstone couple, or a model of marriage that places marriage on top of a set of previous young adult accomplishments.

After graduating from Howard University, residencies and externships, the couple planned to come home to Fort Worth, where John grew up, but an opportunity presented itself for the couple to go to New Orleans.

In 1979, the population in New Orleans was predominately Black, and John and Arlene opened their practice, the Barnett Dental Group.

“I went there, one for the novelty of being the first Black pediatric dentist in Louisiana,” John said. “We were bringing services to the community that they just didn’t have from an African American. And so we thought that was a good combination to come into a community where we could provide services and relate to the people that we were serving.”

During their time in New Orleans, the Barnetts successfully ran their practice for more than 25 years. John also collected Mardi Gras posters and vinyl LPs during his undergraduate college years and considered himself a collector. Arlene collected art. She grew up knowing about art through her older sister who painted.

John said New Orleans was a culturally enhanced arena and at one point, the Barnetts’ house was full of art and Mardi Gras posters.

One Christmas, Arlene bought John a William Tolliver original art piece, and that initiated his art collection.

“She paid probably as much for that as all my other collections put together,” John said.

From then on, the couple built a prominent art collection based on the Harlem Renaissance from artists like Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and even a piece commissioned by Oprah Winfrey.

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, it destroyed the couple’s business, prompting the return to Fort Worth. The Barnetts opened their dentist office and hit the ground running with the mission they had in New Orleans.

Since 2005, the Barnetts have collectively served on a number of boards and pursued projects like the Art of Giving program. 

The Beta Tau Lambda members heading the Living Legends Awards said presenting the award to the Barnetts was a no-brainer.

“The Dr. Marion J. Brooks Living Legends Awards honors significant community contributors in Tarrant County, who within their respective disciplines have improved conditions for the citizenship at large,” according to the Beta Tau Lambda website.

Miller said the organization awarded them because their work is “not just dental care, it’s advocacy, it’s about educating about the importance of oral health particularly within the African American community.” He emphasized the importance of continuing the educational work they did in New Orleans but now in Fort Worth.

“There is just no way that we can take one over the other, but we wanted to be intentional in honoring their individual contributions, but we wanted to present them as a union,” Beta Tau Lambda member Glen Harmon said. “I think this is long overdue when you have a couple that has contributed what the Barnetts have contributed and have done it for so long without any seeking of the glory.”

Through the Barnetts’ dentistry, the couple taught youth and Black residents about the importance of oral health. They hope one day children who may not have been exposed to the dentistry career path, can pursue that as a profession.

The Living Legends Awards was founded nearly 30 years ago by a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc, Jim Austin. The awards recognize trailblazers in Tarrant County. Beta Tau Lambda inherited the event in 2017.

The organization presents the Dr. Marion J. Brooks Living Legend Award, an award for community leaders 65 years and older, and the Legends in the Making Award, for leaders 40 and under.

“I think programs like this help us to capture our oral history. You just have a ton of rich oral history and it’s very important for people we don’t know to have access to the information,” Miller said. “This is one opportunity to support us to elevate and highlight the excellence that exists within our community. We stand on the shoulders of giants.”

The Beta Tau Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc, will continue to honor legends like the Barnetts for years to come.

“I was shocked when they told us. We do what we do not appreciating that you’re being observed, you know, we do it because it’s our passion to do it,” John said. “An organization had noted our work individually, and felt that our work individually was notable, and then to have us be married, combined us as a duo.”

Cristian ArguetaSoto is the community engagement journalist at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him by email or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

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