#OTD in 1970, the Texas Civil Rights Advisory Committee called for the abolition of the Texas Rangers. https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/10/archives/civil-rights-unit-would-disband-texas-rangers-advisory-group-says.html
The Committee was an advisory arm of the United States Civil Rights Commission, which was created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 as an independent, bipartisan federal agency whose mission is “to inform the development of national civil rights policy” https://www.usccr.gov/about/mission
“The elite 89‐man police force, whose members still wear big white hats, cowboy boots and holstered revolvers, was cited in a committee report as an example of police intimidation and repression of racial minorities in Texas.” https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/10/archives/civil-rights-unit-would-disband-texas-rangers-advisory-group-says.html
These findings on the Rangers were accompanied by information about school segregation, dropout rates, and school textbooks that the Committee deemed “culturally or historically biased.” The Committee cited the deployment of Rangers against strikes and civil rights and electoral mobilizations in the previous decade, especially Ranger “physical and verbal abuse” and “encouragement of farm workers to cross picket lines.”
These events, including the Supreme Court case Allee V. Medrano will be treated in subsequent entries. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/416/802/ The Committee’s report points to the connections between racialized policing and other forms of inequality, especially educational. How we remember and teach the history of the Rangers is part of a larger struggle for equality and the equal protection of the law.
This thread is a part of the #OTD in Ranger history campaign that @Refusing2Forget is running this year. Follow this twitter handle or https://refusingtoforget.org/ranger-bicentennial-project/, and visit our website https://refusingtoforget.org to learn more.
Refusing to Forget members are @ccarmonawriter @carmona2208 @acerift @soniahistoria @BenjaminHJohns1 @LeahLochoa @MonicaMnzMtz and @Alacranita, another co-founder is @GonzalesT956
@emmpask @sdcroll @HistoryBrian @LorienTinuviel @hangryhistorian, @ddsanchez432! , Brent Campney, Jeffrey Littlejohn, and Miguel Levario are other scholars working on this project.
