OTD calendar September

#OTD in 1937, Bob White, a Black farmworker, was found guilty of rape and sentenced to death based on a forced confession extracted with the help of Texas Rangers. Though little remembered, the case is one of two Supreme Court rulings against Ranger conduct. In August 1937, White was arrested in Polk County, Texas, for […]

#OTD in 1918, Texas Rangers illegally held and tortured Jesus Villareal of Copita, TX on his way to his niece’s wedding near Roma. Villareal was traveling with his two nephews to the wedding, when he was stopped by a Ranger at one o’clock in the morning who asked him to drive him a mile or

#OTD in 1988, Lee Roy Young became the first African American man to be allowed to join the Texas Rangers. Young served in the U.S. Navy for four years during the Vietnam war before attending UT Austin and graduating with a degree in sociology with an emphasis on criminology. After college, Young joined the @TxDPS

Black-and-white photo of a white man kneeling beside a small white boy on a sidewalk. The boy holds a sign reading “‘All-white’ college.’”

#OTD in 1949, the first episode of The Lone Ranger premiered, starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels. In this romanticized version of the Wild West, and what it meant to be a Texas Ranger, this ABC show teamed up a Native American named Tonto, and the Lone Ranger to defeat lawlessness. While the television series

#OTD in 1993, Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris premiered on CBS. The show consisted of 9 seasons, with Chuck Norris as Sergeant Cordell Walker, a DFW-based Texas Ranger. The series was inspired by the 1983 film, Lone Wolf McQuade, directed by Steve Carver, also starring Chuck Norris. J. J. McQuade (Norris) portrays a former

#OTD in 1915, Texas Rangers murdered Jesus Bazan and his son-in-law, Antonio Longoria, in cold blood. Raiders from Mexico had ridden onto their Hidalgo County ranch and stolen horses and other supplies, so the men were faced with a predicament. The men had two choices. Report the theft and face revenge from the raiders or

#OTD in 1915 between eleven and fifteen Mexican men were killed by Texas Rangers just outside of Ebenoza, Hidalgo County, Texas. Rangers clashed with about 40 Tejano raiders near Ebenoza, and the Rangers, reigning victorious, took 12 or more of the raiders prisoner and lynched them. According to eyewitness army scout John Peavey, “we saw

#OTD in 1956, legendary civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall wrote to J. Edgar Hoover, head of the @FBI, complaining of Ranger intimidation of Black citizens who had sued Dallas over school segregation. Marshall, Chief Counsel of the @NAACP, was advising Dallas families in an effort to desegregate the city’s schools, pursuant to the ruling in