Benjamin H. Johnson

Refusing to Forget is pleased to announce that in 2023 we will be running an #OTD in Ranger History campaign to coincide with the Ranger Force’s claimed bicentennial.  Several times a week, we will post information about Ranger actions on our website and in twitter threads. The posts will draw on scholarship on the Rangers,

The Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum appears to have removed language praising one of its honorees for tracking down people fleeing bondage for freedom in Mexico. For years, it has praised William “Bigfoot” Wallace for tracking down those risking everything to gain their freedom. “Wallace’s skills were often put to use trailing runaway

The use of military weapons and other equipment by police forces is one facet of contemporary debates over policing in the United States.  Although most of the military weaponry in the possession of municipal police departments came in the aftermath of a 1997 law that allowed for the transfer of such equipment, the practice is much older than that.  “Rifles

  Refusing to Forget Awarded Pandemic Recovery Grant from the American Historical Association” For Immediate Release March 30, 2022  Refusing to Forget has been awarded funding from the American Historical Association’s “Grants to Sustain and Advance the Work of Historical Organizations Program,” which provides relief to institutions adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This opportunity was

August 24, 2018 – For Immediate Release   Descendants of the victims of a Texas massacre and scholars across the country called on the Texas Historical Commission (THC) to proceed with longstanding plans to erect a monument commemorating the 1918 Porvenir Massacre. The THC approved an application for a Texas Historical Marker in 2015. Its

As many of you who have followed Refusing to Forget know, our colleague Monica Muñoz Martínez started applying for a state historical marker to acknowledge the Porvenir massacre of 1918, a crime in which fifteen men and boys of Porvenir were executed en masse by the Texas Rangers and local residents in Presidio County. The