The Hidden History of Texas

Hank Wilson
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Here is where you will find The Hidden History Of Texas podcast. The episodes cover Texas history from the earliest days of Indigenous peoples to Spanish exploration, control by Mexico, the Anglo’s take over, Texas becomes part of the U.S., the confederates move in, and back to the U.S. The audio files are accurate and try to tell the story as best as they can from all sides of the issues. The hidden history of Texas is a history replete with heroes and villains of all sorts. There were good and bad people throughout Texas history, just as there were throughout world history.

Episodes

  1. 5h ago

    The Trans-Pecos: Texas Beyond the Mountains

    Hello friends, and welcome back to Hidden History of Texas. This is episode 93 The Trans-Pecos: Texas Beyond the Mountains (NOTE: This is not a verbatim transcript) Last time, we visited El Paso, a city whose story began centuries before there was a Republic of Texas. It reminded us that Texas has never been just one history or one culture. Today, I'd like to take you somewhere that many Texans have heard of, but relatively few have truly explored. Where? The Trans-Pecos. Now, if you're like most people, you've probably seen the name on a map or heard it mentioned in a weather forecast. But what is the Trans-Pecos? The answer is actually quite simple. "Trans" means across or beyond. The Pecos is, of course, the Pecos River. So the Trans-Pecos is literally the land beyond the Pecos River. Simple enough. But don't let that simple definition fool you. Because once you cross the Pecos River heading west, you enter what may be the most surprising landscape in all of Texas. When most people picture Texas, they imagine rolling ranchland... fields of bluebonnets... oak trees... mesquite... perhaps oil pumps slowly nodding against the horizon. And yes, that's certainly Texas. But it isn't all of Texas. Because when you cross the Pecos River, the land begins to change. The horizon grows wider. The distances grow longer. Mountains begin rising where you least expect them. Rain becomes scarce. Water becomes precious. The vegetation changes. The sky seems larger somehow. You begin to realize that you're no longer simply driving across another part of Texas. You've entered an entirely different world. I sometimes think that if someone were dropped into the middle of the Trans-Pecos without knowing where they were, they might guess Arizona. Perhaps New Mexico. Maybe northern Mexico. Texas probably wouldn't be their first answer. Yet this landscape has been part of Texas for nearly two centuries. It simply reminds us that Texas is far more diverse than most of us imagine. The Trans-Pecos is dominated by the Chihuahuan Desert, the largest desert in North America. Now when many people hear the word "desert," they imagine endless sand dunes. That's Hollywood. The Chihuahuan Desert is something altogether different. It's a landscape of rugged mountains... rocky basins... grasslands... canyons... ocotillo... creosote bushes... yucca... prickly pear... and, after a good rain, wildflowers that can transform the desert almost overnight. It's a place that rewards patience. The longer you look, the more beauty you discover. Perhaps the biggest surprise for many Texans is this. Texas has mountains. Real mountains. Not hills. Mountains. The Guadalupe Mountains rise dramatically from the desert floor. The Davis Mountains offer cooler temperatures and forests that seem almost out of place in the desert. Farther south, the Chisos Mountains stand alone like an island rising from a sea of desert. Each mountain range tells a story written not by people, but by geology over millions of years. And yet, despite all this grandeur, the most important feature of the Trans-Pecos isn't the mountains. It's water. Or perhaps I should say... the lack of it. In East Texas, rivers and rainfall helped determine where communities would grow. In the Trans-Pecos, a single spring could mean the difference between life and death. For thousands of years, Native peoples learned where those precious water sources could be found. Spanish explorers depended on them. Stagecoaches depended on them. The Army depended on them. Ranchers depended on them. Entire towns owe their existence to a spring that still bubbles from the earth today. When we visit Fort Stockton in a future episode, we'll discover how one remarkable spring sustained travelers for centuries. Long before maps showed county lines or highways, this was home to Native peoples who understood the land in ways newcomers could scarcely imagine. They knew where water could be found. Which plants could be eaten. How to travel safely across immense distances. How to survive where others could not. For those arriving from wetter parts of North America, the Trans-Pecos could be unforgiving. For those who knew it well, it was home. When Spain pushed northward from Mexico, explorers quickly learned that crossing this region required careful planning. Distances were enormous. Water was uncertain. Supplies had to be carefully managed. The landscape itself became both obstacle and guide. Later, when Texas became part of the United States, the challenges remained much the same. The frontier wasn't simply remote. It was isolated. Mail routes stretched for hundreds of miles. Stagecoaches crossed lonely deserts. Travelers often went days without seeing another settlement. Protecting those routes became one of the Army's greatest responsibilities. That story will take us to Fort Davis, where the frontier soldiers, including the famed Buffalo Soldiers, helped keep those lifelines open. The arrival of the railroad changed much of Texas. It changed the Trans-Pecos as well. Communities that had once depended on wagon trails suddenly found themselves connected to the rest of the nation. Ranches expanded. Mining increased. Trade flourished. New towns appeared. Old settlements adapted. But even with the railroad, one thing never changed. Distance. People who have never driven across West Texas often underestimate its scale. You don't simply pass through the Trans-Pecos. You experience it. The miles encourage reflection. The silence becomes part of the journey. And somewhere along the way, you begin to understand why so many people fall in love with this remarkable country. Over the next several episodes, we're going to explore this fascinating region together. We'll visit Alpine, the community nestled high among the mountains that became the gateway to Big Bend. We'll travel to Fort Davis, where soldiers stood watch over one of the most remote frontiers in America. We'll stop at Fort Stockton, where life itself depended upon the waters of Comanche Springs. And we'll journey to Pecos, a town that proudly proclaims itself "Where the West Begins," and discover why generations of travelers believed that to be true. Each community has its own story. Each landscape has its own personality. And together, they remind us that there isn't one Texas. There are many Texases. As we close today, I'd like to leave you with one final thought. History is often shaped by people. But sometimes... history is shaped by the land itself. The forests of East Texas. The rolling plains of Central Texas. The Gulf Coast marshes. And here... the mountains and deserts of the Trans-Pecos. If we want to understand the people who lived here, we first have to understand the country that shaped them. I'm Hank Wilson, and this has been Hidden History of Texas. Until next time... keep asking questions... because history always has another story waiting just beyond the next mountain.

    9 min

  2. Jun 25

    1976 After Watergate

    1976: After Watergate America celebrated its 200th birthday in 1976. The Bicentennial brought parades, fireworks, tall ships, patriotic ceremonies, and a renewed appreciation for the nation's remarkable history. Yet beneath the celebration lingered a different mood. Only two years earlier, Richard Nixon had become the first American president to resign from office. The Vietnam War had finally ended. The long national ordeal that had dominated more than a decade was over. But peace did not immediately bring confidence. Americans had lost faith in many of the institutions they had once trusted. Government. Politics. The presidency itself. The question facing the country was no longer simply who should lead. It was whether Americans could trust their leaders again. I remember 1976 for another reason as well. While the nation celebrated its Bicentennial and debated its future, I found myself competing in Lincoln-Douglas debate, exploring many of the same questions about government, responsibility, and public life that Americans were asking on a much larger stage. Looking back now, it seems fitting. The country itself was engaged in one great national debate. The End of an Era The Vietnam War was over. American combat troops had already returned home. Then, in April of 1975, the fall of Saigon marked the final chapter of America's longest and most divisive war to that point. For many Americans, relief mixed with disappointment. The conflict had left deep scars. More than fifty-eight thousand Americans had lost their lives. Millions of veterans returned home carrying experiences that many found difficult to explain. The war was over. Its consequences were not. Watergate's Shadow Although Gerald Ford had assumed the presidency after Nixon's resignation, Watergate continued to shape public opinion. Ford's decision to pardon Nixon was controversial. Some believed it was necessary for national healing. Others believed accountability had been sacrificed. Regardless of where Americans stood, confidence in government had been shaken. Public trust would take years to rebuild. Section 3 — Jimmy Carter Into that atmosphere stepped Jimmy Carter. A former governor from Georgia, Carter presented himself as something Washington seemed to lack. Honesty. Humility. Decency. He promised a government that was as good as its people. After years of scandal and division, that message resonated. Carter wasn't asking Americans to become different people. He was asking them to believe again. The Realignment Continues Yet beneath Carter's victory, larger political forces continued moving. Southern voters continued drifting toward the Republican Party at the state and local levels. Religious conservatives were becoming increasingly organized. Suburban growth continued reshaping electoral politics. Working-class voters who had once identified strongly with the Democratic Party were becoming less predictable. The New Deal coalition had not disappeared. But it was becoming increasingly fragile. The political realignment that began during the 1960s had merely paused. It had not ended. Looking Toward 1980 History often remembers 1976 as Jimmy Carter's election. But in many ways, it was the bridge between two political eras. Americans wanted honesty. They wanted stability. They wanted competence. Jimmy Carter offered those qualities. Yet many of the economic and cultural pressures confronting the nation remained unresolved. Inflation. Energy shortages. International uncertainty. Questions about America's role in the world. Those issues would shape the election four years later. In Conclusion Looking back today, 1976 feels like a pause. Not the end of the story. Not the beginning of a new one. A pause. America had survived Vietnam. It had survived Watergate. It had celebrated two hundred years of independence. Yet beneath the celebration, the political landscape continued to shift. The coalitions that had defined American politics for decades were still changing. The arguments begun during the 1960s had not disappeared. They had simply become quieter. Only a few years later, they would return with new energy in the election of Ronald Reagan. If 1964 marked the breaking point... If 1968 revealed the fracture... If 1972 showed the electorate reorganizing itself... Then 1976 reminds us that history rarely moves in straight lines. Sometimes nations pause. Reflect. Catch their breath. Before beginning the next chapter.

    6 min

  3. Jun 17

    Episode 92 – El Paso: The Pass of the North…The Rio Grande Frontier, Part One

    Hello friends, and welcome back to Hidden History of Texas. This is episode 92 – this is the first in a series I’m calling The Rio Grande Frontier – Welcome to El Paso: The Pass of the North When most people think about Texas history, their minds usually start in the  east. They think of Nacogdoches, San Antonio, Austin's Colony, the Alamo, cattle drives, oil fields, and railroads. But today, I want us to start from the opposite direction. Let’s travel nearly six hundred miles west of San Antonio, across deserts, mountains, and vast stretches of open country, to a city unlike any other in Texas. A city that was old before Texas existed. A city that was part of Spain, then Mexico, and only later became part of Texas. A city that sits on the Rio Grande and has served as a gateway between worlds for more than four centuries. In my lifetime, I’ve either driven through or, when I was a child, been driven through El Paso numerous times. But we never really stopped and visited the city, in fact, most of the times I drove to the west coast, I would usually drive through El Paso and stop in Las Cruces New Mexico. I really don’t know why, except when I was driving the Freeway just didn’t seem to offer any real enticing places to stop. The one occasion that I was able to actually spent time in El Paso was when a company I was working for asked me to temporarily run their branch office. After spending some time there, I realized that El Paso was and is distinctly different. We Texans have a tendency to talk about Texas as if it's a single culture. But standing in El Paso, listening to conversations switch effortlessly between English and Spanish, (or as we call it using Spanglish) and  looking across the Rio Grande toward Ciudad Juárez, I understood that Texas has always been more complicated, and more interesting, than that. So join with me as we explore El Paso. The story begins long before there was a state of Texas. Long before there was an Alamo. Long before Stephen F. Austin brought settlers into Mexican Texas. In 1598, Spanish explorer and colonizer Juan de Oñate led an expedition north from Mexico. Near present-day El Paso, his expedition crossed the Rio Grande and entered lands that Spain hoped to claim and settle. That crossing took place more than twenty years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. Think about that for a moment. Many Texans think of San Antonio as the oldest chapter of Texas history. But the El Paso region was already part of the Spanish frontier before the first permanent European settlement was established in San Antonio. For centuries, this crossing would become one of the most important gateways in North America. The Spanish called it El Paseo del Norte. The Pass of the North. And that name tells us everything we need to know about why the city exists. To understand El Paso, you have to forget the modern map for a moment. Today, we see a border separating the United States and Mexico. But for much of history, this region was not viewed as a dividing line. It was a corridor. A road. A meeting place. A connection between communities. Travelers moving north toward Santa Fe passed through here. Merchants passed through here. Soldiers passed through here. Missionaries passed through here. Families settled here. Trade flourished here. For generations, El Paso was less a frontier outpost than a crossroads of cultures. One of the most dramatic moments in its history came in 1680. That year, Indigenous Pueblo peoples in New Mexico launched what we historians call the Pueblo Revolt. Spanish settlements throughout New Mexico were attacked, and surviving colonists fled south. Many of them arrived at El Paso. For a time, El Paso became a refuge and administrative center for Spanish authorities driven from New Mexico. It is one of those remarkable stories that rarely appears in Texas history textbooks. For a period of time, the future of Spanish New Mexico was being directed from what is now Texas. As centuries passed, El Paso developed in ways very different from the rest of Texas. When settlers were arriving in East Texas from the American South, El Paso remained connected to older Spanish and Mexican traditions. Its trade routes stretched toward Santa Fe and Chihuahua. Its culture reflected centuries of interaction among Indigenous peoples, Spanish settlers, Mexicans, and frontier communities. In many ways, El Paso belonged to a different world than the one developing around Houston, Galveston, or Austin. And perhaps that's still true today. When Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836, life in El Paso did not suddenly transform overnight. The city remained geographically distant from the centers of political power. The Republic of Texas claimed the region, but for many years its influence remained limited. The people of El Paso continued living lives shaped by trade, family, faith, and relationships that extended across the Rio Grande. The border on a map often meant far less than the connections between people. Everything changed with the arrival of the railroad. In the late nineteenth century, rail lines connected El Paso to the rest of Texas and the growing United States. Suddenly, a city that had once seemed isolated became an important transportation hub. Businesses arrived. Population increased. Investment followed. And with growth came many of the colorful characters we associate with the American West. Lawmen. Gamblers. Cowboys. Outlaws. Railroad men. Entrepreneurs. The frontier boomtown had arrived. Then came another chapter that few Americans remember today. The Mexican Revolution. For people living in El Paso, this wasn't distant foreign news. It was happening across the river. Residents could see troop movements. Hear gunfire. Watch history unfold from their own community. Few American cities have experienced anything quite like that. Imagine standing in downtown El Paso and witnessing the turbulence of a revolution taking place just beyond the water. Today, El Paso remains one of the most distinctive cities in Texas. It sits in a different time zone than most of the state. It is physically closer to California, Arizona, and New Mexico than it is to many of Texas's major population centers. Its landscape is different. Its history is different. Its culture is different. Yet El Paso is not somehow less Texan because of those differences. In many ways, it reminds us of something important. Texas has never been a single story. It has always been many stories woven together. Spanish frontiers. Mexican communities. Indigenous nations. German settlements. Czech farming towns. Cotton plantations. Oil fields. Railroad centers. Border cities. Each contributed something unique to the state we know today. Personal Reflection When you drive into El Paso from the East on I10, your eyes are drawn to the Franklin Mountains, now if you’re like me you wonder about the stories you’ve heard about lost gold mines being there.  Maybe your imagination shifts to the magical power many of the indigenous people’s believe the mountains hold. Maybe you think of the thousands of people who have walked or ridden their horses through the pass. The indigenous peoples who lived in the area for thousands of years such as the Mansos, Jumanos, the Mescalero, or any of the nomadic groups who came into the area.  One thing I can promise you is that if you get off the interstate and go downtown one thing you’ll notice is how different the city feels from Austin, Houston, or Dallas. It’s a city with a multitude of cultures and life forces. If you’re lucky, you’ll start to reflect  on how easy it is for Texans to forget that communities on opposite ends of the state can have entirely different histories while still sharing the same identity. El Paso is not merely a city on the western edge of Texas. For centuries, it was a gateway. A crossing place. A meeting place. A place where cultures, languages, economies, and histories came together. And perhaps that is why its story remains so important. Because if we truly want to understand Texas, we have to understand all of Texas. Not just the places at the center of the map. But also the places at the edges. Sometimes the edges have the most interesting stories of all. I'm Hank Wilson, and this has been Hidden History of Texas. Join me next time as we continue our journey along the Rio Grande Frontier.

    10 min

  4. Jun 16

    1972: The Landslide That Changed America

    History often remembers elections by who won and who lost. But some elections matter because they reveal deeper changes taking place beneath the surface. The election of 1972 was one of those moments. Many of us consider it to be the landslide that changed America. Those of us who witnessed that time period remember that only four years earlier, America had experienced one of the most turbulent periods in its history. The assassinations of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, riots in cities across the nation, anti-war protests, and the bitter divisions of the Vietnam era left many Americans wondering what had happened to the country they thought they knew. By 1972, those wounds had not healed. In fact, in many cases, they seemed to have gotten worse. The war continued. Protests continued. The arguments over race, culture, and the future of America continued. Yet something important had changed. Many Americans were no longer simply reacting to the turmoil. They were choosing sides. And in November of 1972, they made their choice overwhelmingly clear. The Long Shadow of 1968 For myself, the years between 1968 and 1972 felt unsettled. In 1968 I had graduated from high school in Houston and in 1969 I had enlisted in the Coast Guard amid one of the most turbulent periods in modern American history. By 1972, many of the arguments that had erupted during the 1960s were still raging. Yet something had changed. Americans were no longer simply arguing about the future. Increasingly, they were choosing sides. The Vietnam War remained a constant presence in American life. Young men continued to receive draft notices. Families continued to watch casualty reports on the evening news. College campuses became centers of protest. Then came May 1970. At Kent State University, National Guard troops opened fire on student demonstrators. I was serving as a radio man at the Coast Guard Radio Station in San Francisco. Emotions ran high as people found out that: Four students were killed. The images shocked the nation. For some Americans, the protests represented necessary dissent. For others, they symbolized disorder and disrespect. The divide widened. The same events were producing entirely different reactions depending on who was watching. Nixon's Appeal Richard Nixon understood something many politicians had missed. Millions of Americans were exhausted. They were tired of violence. Tired of unrest. Tired of uncertainty. In speech after speech, Nixon spoke of what he called the "silent majority." These were Americans who were not marching in the streets, not appearing on television, and not leading protests. They were raising families. Working jobs. Paying mortgages. Watching the evening news and wondering whether anyone was still in control. Nixon promised stability. Order. Gradual change rather than revolution. Whether one agreed with him or not, his message resonated with millions of voters. George McGovern and a Different Vision The Democrats nominated Senator George McGovern. McGovern represented a very different vision of America. He opposed the Vietnam War. He appealed strongly to younger voters, activists, and many who believed the country needed more dramatic social change. His campaign energized parts of the Democratic Party. But it also exposed growing divisions within the coalition that had dominated American politics since Franklin Roosevelt. Many working-class voters who had once been reliable Democrats felt increasingly disconnected from the party's direction. The old alliance was beginning to crack. The Great Realignment Begins The election results were stunning. Nixon carried forty-nine states. McGovern won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Even many states that had supported Democratic candidates for generations voted Republican. It was one of the largest electoral victories in American history. Yet the significance of 1972 was not simply the size of Nixon's victory. The election revealed new political fault lines that would shape the decades ahead. White Southern voters continued moving toward the Republican Party. Many suburban voters became increasingly Republican. Working-class ethnic voters who had once formed the backbone of Democratic strength began drifting away. The New Deal coalition that had dominated American politics for nearly forty years was weakening. A new political map was emerging. The Contradictions Yet even as Nixon celebrated victory, trouble was already brewing. Just months earlier, operatives connected to Nixon's reelection campaign had been caught breaking into Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex. At the time, almost nobody imagined that a minor break-in would eventually bring down a president. After all, at the time, the incident seemed minor. Few Americans paid much attention. The landslide victory overshadowed everything. But history would soon reveal that one of the greatest electoral triumphs in American history carried within it the seeds of one of the greatest political scandals. For the moment, however, most Americans saw only the victory. The scandal was still hidden in the shadows. Closing Looking back, 1972 was more than a landslide election. It was a snapshot of a nation searching for stability after years of upheaval. The arguments that had erupted during the 1960s had not disappeared. But voters were beginning to sort themselves into new political coalitions. The old Democratic dominance was fading. A modern Republican coalition was taking shape. The political map Americans recognize today was beginning to emerge. And while Watergate would soon shake the nation once again, the deeper story of 1972 was not simply about Richard Nixon. It was about millions of Americans trying to decide what kind of country would emerge from the turmoil of the previous decade. In many ways, that debate continues to this day. "At the time, none of us knew how this story was going to end." Looking back, 1972 was more than a landslide election. I still have a Presidential Certificate of Appreciation from those years, signed by Richard Nixon during my service in the Coast Guard. At the time, it was simply a certificate from the Commander-in-Chief. Like most Americans, I had no way of knowing how dramatically the story of that presidency would unfold. History has a way of doing that. We live through events one day at a time, rarely seeing where they will lead. Only years later do we begin to understand how the pieces fit together. And in many ways, the America that emerged from 1972 is still the America we live in today.

    8 min

  5. Jun 11

    The Germans, Czechs, and the Making of Texas

    The Germans, Czechs, and the Making of Texas I live in Central Texas in an area called the Hill Country. We have an old saying that if you drive far enough through the Hill Country, you’ll eventually find three things:a church steeple,a dance hall,and the smell of barbecue smoke drifting across the fields. But behind those familiar, almost stereotypical, Texas scenes lies a deeper story. A story carried across oceans by immigrants who arrived with little more than trunks, tools, family Bibles, recipes, songs, and hope. During the 1800s, thousands of Germans, Czechs, Poles, and other Europeans came to Texas searching for something they could not find in the Old World:land…freedom…and the chance to build a new life. And in doing so, they helped shape the Texas we know today. This is the story of the Germans, the Czechs, and their role in the making of Texas. THE JOURNEY TO TEXAS For many immigrants, Europe in the mid-1800s was a difficult place. Germany was divided into small kingdoms and states. Political unrest swept through Europe after the revolutions of 1848. Economic hardship and land shortages left many families struggling to survive. Meanwhile, in the Austro-Hungarian territories, Czech farmers and laborers faced poverty, overcrowding, and limited opportunity. Then came the stories about Texas. Cheap land.Open skies.Fertile soil.A place where a man might own property for the first time in his life. For many families, the journey began with a crowded ship crossing the Atlantic.Then came the rough Gulf waters to Galveston or Indianola.After that…weeks of travel by wagon, horseback, or simply on foot into the interior of Texas. The Texas they found was not easy. There were droughts.Floods.Disease.Isolation.And the constant challenge of carving homes and farms out of untamed land. But they endured..... This is their story.....

    8 min

  6. Jun 9

    1968: The Year America Came Apart

    Welcome to 1968: The Year America Came Apart. This is an episode of "The Realignment" a Hidden History Series. There are years in history that feel less like ordinary time and more like a fault line. Years where the ground beneath a nation begins to shift and the people can feel it, they may not understand what they’re feeling, but they know something is changing.. For America, 1968 was one of those years. The country had already been changing throughout the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement had challenged the old order. The war in Vietnam was growing more divisive. Cities were struggling with poverty, race, and unrest. Young Americans were beginning to question institutions their parents had trusted without hesitation. But in 1968, all of those pressures collided. And for millions of Americans, it felt as though the country itself was coming apart. I remember that year well. I graduated from high school in Houston in the spring of 1968 and entered college that September. Even in Texas, far from Washington and Chicago, there was tension in the air. Conversations about race, war, protest, and authority were no longer distant news stories. They were part of daily life. America was rapidly changing. And not everyone agreed on what that change should look like. Vietnam and the Collapse of Trust The year began with war. In January of 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched what became known as the Tet Offensive. Militarily, the offensive was repelled. But politically and psychologically, it changed everything. For years, Americans had been told the war was being won. Tet suggested otherwise. Television screens suddenly filled with images of firefights in cities, American casualties, and chaos in places many Americans had never heard of before. The war no longer felt distant. It entered American living rooms every night. Trust in government began to erode. Even respected broadcaster Walter Cronkite publicly questioned whether the war could truly be won. For many Americans, confidence in leadership was beginning to collapse. Martin Luther King Jr. Then came April 4th. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The murder shocked the nation. For years, King had stood as the moral voice of the Civil Rights Movement, preaching nonviolence, justice, and reconciliation. But his assassination unleashed grief, anger, and frustration across the country. Riots erupted in more than one hundred American cities. National Guard troops were deployed. Smoke rose above neighborhoods already struggling with poverty and racial division. For some Americans, the unrest confirmed fears that the country was descending into disorder. For others, the riots reflected generations of anger and inequality that had gone ignored for far too long. The divide between those perspectives would become politically important. Robert Kennedy and Lost Hope Two months later, tragedy struck again. Senator Robert F. Kennedy had emerged as a candidate who seemed capable of bridging some of America’s growing divisions. He spoke openly about poverty, race, and the need to heal the country. His campaign attracted young people, minorities, working-class voters, and many Americans exhausted by the war. Then, on June 5th, moments after winning the California Democratic primary, Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Another national figure gone. Another sense of hope shattered. To many Americans, it felt as though violence and instability were becoming the defining language of the era. Protest and Disorder By the summer of 1968, protest movements were spreading across college campuses and major cities. Young Americans marched against the Vietnam War. Civil rights organizations demanded deeper reforms. Groups like the Black Panthers emerged in cities across the country, reflecting growing frustration among younger Black activists who believed nonviolence alone was no longer enough. At the same time, police departments and local governments often responded with increasing force and suspicion. The tensions could be felt even in places like Houston, where concerns about policing, activism, and racial conflict became part of the atmosphere surrounding college campuses and urban neighborhoods. Then came Chicago. During the Democratic National Convention in August, protesters flooded the streets while police battled demonstrators in scenes broadcast nationwide on live television. Americans watched officers swinging clubs, protesters bleeding in the streets, and crowds chanting: “The whole world is watching.” The Democratic Party itself appeared divided and exhausted. And millions of Americans watching from home saw chaos. George Wallace and the Politics of Backlash Into that atmosphere stepped George Wallace. Running as a third-party candidate, Wallace appealed to Americans who believed the country was moving too fast, changing too much, and losing control. His campaign focused on law and order, resistance to federal authority, opposition to unrest, and anger toward political elites. While Wallace’s earlier political career had been deeply tied to segregation, by 1968 his campaign also tapped into a broader sense of cultural backlash and working-class frustration. And millions responded. Wallace carried five Southern states and won nearly ten million votes. His success revealed something both major political parties would increasingly recognize in the years ahead: A large portion of the American electorate felt alienated from the direction of the country. Nixon and the Realignment In the end, Richard Nixon won the presidency. Nixon promised stability. Order. An end to chaos. His victory represented more than a normal election. It marked the acceleration of a political realignment already underway since the Civil Rights era began reshaping American politics earlier in the decade. Southern voters were beginning to move away from the Democratic Party. Many suburban and working-class voters were becoming increasingly concerned about crime, protest movements, and cultural upheaval. Trust in institutions  government, media, universities was weakening. The coalitions that had dominated American politics since Franklin Roosevelt were beginning to fracture. And the consequences of that fracture would shape American politics for generations. Looking back now, 1968 feels like more than just a turbulent year. It feels like a turning point. A year when millions of Americans stopped believing the future would naturally bring unity and stability. The old political consensus was breaking apart. New coalitions were forming. And many of the arguments that still define American politics today, race, protest, policing, media, nationalism, cultural identity, distrust of institutions were becoming impossible to ignore. For those of us who lived through it, even as young people stepping into adulthood, the tension was real. You could feel it. And in many ways, America has been wrestling with the legacy of 1968 ever since.

    10 min

  7. May 28

    Separate Schools – Separate Futures

    OPENING My learning curve about segregation did not happen all at once. I grew up in a Navy family and attended Catholic schools. We moved often. Different states. Different bases. Different communities. But strangely… many things stayed the same. Most of the schools I attended as a child were almost entirely white. In Virginia, in 1962, I remember having my first non-white classmate… a Hispanic girl. Later that same year, we moved back to Texas. Again, I attended Catholic schools that were overwhelmingly white. But by 1964, after we had settled in Houston, I went to San Antonio to attend high school, and I began noticing something larger than classrooms. The city itself seemed divided. Whites lived primarily on the north side. Blacks on the east side. Mexican-Americans on the west and south sides. And the schools reflected those invisible boundaries. At the time, it simply seemed normal. Years later, I realized I had been watching the geography of segregation. (pause) This is Hidden History of Texas. Episode 90: Separate Schools, Separate Futures. EDUCATION AND THE TEXAS MAP In Texas, schools have always been more than places of learning. They reflected power. Economics. Geography. Race. And opportunity. For generations, where a child lived often determined the quality of education they received. Not officially, perhaps. But practically. And sometimes intentionally. After the Civil War, Texas entered Reconstruction along with the rest of the South. In theory, formerly enslaved people had access to education. In reality, separate systems quickly emerged. Black Texans were relegated to schools that often had few, if any resources. Churches became classrooms. Communities raised money themselves. Teachers were underpaid. Buildings were overcrowded. Supplies were outdated or nonexistent. But education represented something larger: advancement, independence, and hope. SEGREGATED TEXAS By the early 20th century, segregation in Texas had become deeply embedded. Sometimes through laws. Sometimes through custom. Sometimes simply through where people were allowed to live. Entire cities developed around racial geography. In San Antonio, those lines were easy to see. North side. East side. West side. South side. Different neighborhoods. Different churches. Different schools. Different expectations. Even Catholic education reflected these divisions. In San Antonio there was St. Peter Claver Academy, founded in 1888 as the first African American Catholic parish in Texas. They competed separately in athletics and academics. As students, we simply accepted this as part of everyday life. Looking back now, it becomes clear how deeply separation had been normalized. THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Texas segregation was never simply Black and white. Mexican-American communities experienced many of the same barriers. In some Texas towns, children attended so-called “Mexican schools.” These schools were often poorly funded and overcrowded. Students were frequently discouraged from speaking Spanish. Some were punished for it. In 1948, a major Texas court case challenged these practices: Delgado v. Bastrop Independent School District. The ruling declared that Mexican-American students could not legally be segregated into separate schools solely because of ethnicity. But as often happened in Texas and across America… changing laws did not instantly change attitudes. COLLEGES AND QUIET BARRIERS Even higher education reflected these divisions. Colleges across Texas remained segregated well into the 1960s. Official barriers slowly began to fall. But social barriers remained. People often stayed within familiar communities. Familiar churches. Familiar schools. Familiar neighborhoods. Official segregation can end with a court ruling. But social separation often lasts much longer. A NATION OF REGIONS One thing that shaped my perspective was movement. Because of being raised in a military family, and later my time in the Coast Guard, I lived in multiple regions of the country. I saw firsthand that segregation and division were not unique to Texas. America itself often functioned as a collection of separate worlds. Different regions. Different customs. Different assumptions about race, class, and belonging. But Texas had its own version. Its own geography. Its own history. And its own invisible boundaries. SCHOOLS AS MAPS OF OPPORTUNITY Schools became mirrors of larger systems. Housing patterns shaped districts. Property values shaped funding. Economic divisions reinforced educational divisions. In many ways, schools became maps of opportunity. And those maps often reflected decades of earlier decisions. Some districts flourished. Others struggled. Some communities had modern facilities and expanding programs. Others fought simply to maintain basic resources. And while Texas today is far more integrated than the Texas of the 1950s or 1960s… echoes of those older systems still remain. CLOSING Today, many Texas schools are far more diverse than the ones I attended as a child. And in many communities, students who once would have been separated now learn side by side. That is real progress. Important progress. But history leaves impressions on places. On neighborhoods. On school districts. On expectations. And on people. Sometimes the most important hidden history is not found in dramatic events… but in ordinary routines. The school a child attended. The side of town where they lived. The opportunities they were given… or denied. Because in Texas, for generations, separate schools often meant separate futures. This is Hidden History of Texas. I’m Hank. Thank you for listening.

    8 min

  8. May 20

    1964: The Breaking Point…

    1964: The Breaking Point...How a Texas President Helped Reshape American Politics Forever There are years in American history that feel less like moments… and more like fault lines. 1964 was one of them. It was the year the old political order began to crack. Not overnight.Not all at once.But in ways we are still living with today. And at the center of it all stood a Texan. Lyndon B. Johnson Growing up in Texas, Lyndon Johnson was never just another historical figure to some families. People remembered him. In my own family, my great-aunts grew up around Johnson City during the years when Lyndon Johnson was still simply “Lyndon.” Before the presidency. Before Vietnam. Before history turned him into something larger and far more complicated. And that’s important to remember. Because Johnson understood Texas.He understood the South.And perhaps more than anyone else in Washington, he understood political power. Especially how to use it. By 1964, America was already under enormous strain. The images coming across television screens were becoming impossible to ignore. Black students being screamed at while trying to attend school.Peaceful protesters attacked with dogs and fire hoses.Freedom Riders beaten.Church bombings.Demonstrations erupting across the South. For many Americans, the Civil Rights Movement was becoming not just a regional issue but a moral one. And television changed everything. For the first time in American history, millions of people could witness these confrontations in their living rooms almost as they happened. The country was being forced to look at itself. John F. Kennedy had moved cautiously on civil rights during his presidency. But after Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, Lyndon Johnson inherited not only the presidency… but the unfinished battle over civil rights legislation. And Johnson knew something many younger Americans today may not fully appreciate: The bill would not pass simply because it was morally right. It would pass only if someone could force it through Congress. And Lyndon Johnson knew Congress better than almost anyone alive. Before becoming president, Johnson had served as Senate Majority Leader. He understood personalities, pressure, favors, intimidation, timing, all the invisible machinery of power. Historians would later call it “The Johnson Treatment.” He could flatter you.Threaten you.Charm you.Corner you.Convince you. Sometimes all within the same conversation. And in 1964, Johnson unleashed that political machinery behind what became the: Civil Rights Act Today, most Americans remember the Civil Rights Act as inevitable. It wasn’t. The legislation faced fierce opposition, especially from Southern Democrats who viewed it as federal overreach into state affairs and Southern society. For decades, many Southern politicians had held enormous power in Congress. Committee chairmanships. Senate influence. Institutional seniority. But the country was changing. And Johnson understood that history was moving whether Congress wanted it to or not. So he pushed. Hard. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation in public accommodations and prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Supporters viewed it as one of the most important moral and constitutional advances in modern American history. Opponents viewed it as a dangerous expansion of federal authority. And beneath the political arguments, something deeper was beginning to happen. The old Democratic coalition, the one that had held together since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was beginning to fracture. Then came the election of 1964. And this is where the political story becomes truly fascinating. The Republican nominee that year was: Barry Goldwater Goldwater was a conservative from Arizona. He opposed the Civil Rights Act, not necessarily because he supported segregation, but because he argued parts of the law violated constitutional limits on federal power. That distinction mattered to Goldwater. But politically, something much larger was unfolding. Goldwater lost the election badly nationwide. Lyndon Johnson crushed him at the national level. But then something unexpected happened. Goldwater carried several Deep South states. States that had been Democratic strongholds for generations. For many observers at the time, it looked strange. Temporary, even. But in hindsight, historians now recognize it as one of the first major warning signs that the political map of the South was beginning to change. Slowly. Unevenly. But undeniably. Now, none of this happened in a single election. The South did not suddenly wake up Republican in 1964. That transformation would take decades. Many Southern Democrats remained loyal to the party well into the 1970s and even the 1980s. Local courthouse politics, state offices, and regional traditions still mattered enormously. But the foundation had shifted. The old alliances were weakening. And the issues reshaping American politics were no longer simply economic. Increasingly, they were becoming cultural. Constitutional. Regional. Moral. And perhaps no one understood the price of what had happened better than Lyndon Johnson himself. According to one famous account, after signing the Civil Rights Act, Johnson reportedly told an aide: “We have lost the South for a generation.” Whether the quote is perfectly remembered or not, the political reality behind it proved remarkably accurate. The transformation had begun. In the next chapter of this story, we move into one of the most chaotic years in modern American history:   Assassinations.Protests.Riots.The Democratic Convention in Chicago.And the rise of a new political message that would reshape conservative politics for decades to come: “Law and order.” And once again… Texas and the South would stand near the center of the storm. Join me on BlueSky or Instagram Talk to me

    8 min

  9. May 13

    Episode 89 After Sundown: The Hidden Geography of Fear in Texas

    Welcome to Episode 89 of The Hidden History of Texas. After Sundown: The Hidden Geography of Fear in Texas Tonight, we’re stepping onto a highway most history books barely mention. A road traveled in silence…A road traveled with caution…And sometimes, a road traveled in fear. This episode is called: “After Sundown: The Hidden Geography of Fear in Texas.” We’re going to talk about Sundown Towns…The Green Book…And the hidden map Black Texans and Black travelers carried in their minds during the Jim Crow era. Now imagine this with me. The year is 1952. You’ve just crossed the Sabine River leaving Louisiana and entering Texas. The sun is beginning to sink low across the horizon. Your children are asleep in the back seat. Your gas gauge is dropping toward empty. And suddenly… you’re nervous. Not because of bandits.Not because of weather.Not because of the road itself. You’re afraid of where you might accidentally stop. Because there are towns ahead where being Black after dark could get you threatened… beaten… arrested… or worse. So before you ever left home, you packed something almost as important as gasoline. A small green book. Texas has always carried a larger-than-life image in the American imagination. Cowboys.Oil wells.Cattle drives.Wide-open skies.Frontier independence. But hidden beneath that mythology is another Texas. A Texas many people never experienced firsthand…and many others could never escape. For decades, scattered across this state and across America, were places known as Sundown Towns. Some had signs posted right at the city limits. Others didn’t need signs at all. Everybody knew the rules. “Don’t let the sun set on you here.” Now before we go further, let’s talk about that little green book. The Negro Motorist Green Book was first published in 1936 by a Harlem postal worker named Victor H. Green. At first, it covered only New York City. But over time, it expanded across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and even Bermuda. Inside were lists of hotels, restaurants, tourist homes, gas stations, barber shops, beauty parlors, and businesses where Black travelers were welcome or at least safe. Safe. Think about that word. Today, most Americans choose a hotel based on price or reviews. Back then, Black families often chose places based on one simple question: “Will we survive the night?” The Green Book became known as “the bible of Black travel.” And it wasn’t paranoia. It was necessity. Because across America, including Texas, there were towns where Black travelers knew not to stop after dark. So what exactly was a Sundown Town? A Sundown Town was a community that either formally or informally excluded minorities from remaining there after sunset. Most commonly, these policies targeted African Americans. But in some places, the hostility extended to Mexican Americans, Chinese Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Catholics, Mormons, almost anyone considered “outside” the community’s idea of whiteness. Some towns passed ordinances. Others used intimidation. Violence.Threats.Economic pressure.Police harassment. And often, unwritten rules enforced the system more effectively than laws ever could. Maybe businesses mysteriously closed at sunset. Maybe hotels “had no vacancies.” Maybe gas stations refused service. Maybe local law enforcement simply escorted Black travelers to the city limits. The message was always understood. “You don’t belong here.” Now many people think this was mostly a Deep South phenomenon. But Texas had its own long and painful history with Sundown Towns. Some communities openly embraced exclusion. Others quietly practiced it for generations. And some of those legacies still linger today. Take Alba. Small East Texas town.Population under five hundred. On the surface, it looks peaceful. But historically, Alba was founded as an all-white community. In the year 2000, it was still reported to be over 98 percent white. One local theory even claimed the town’s name came from the Latin word for “white.” (note: the Latin word is album) Whether that story is fully true or not almost doesn’t matter. Because the reputation itself tells us something important about how communities wanted to define themselves. Then there’s Alvin. In 1933, a brutal axe murder shocked the community. When suspicion briefly turned toward a Black suspect, local newspapers reportedly noted that this seemed unlikely because “practically no negroes are allowed to live in Alvin.” Imagine reading that sentence in a newspaper today. Not whispered privately. Printed openly. As if exclusion itself were ordinary. Because at the time, in many places, it was. And perhaps one of the starkest examples comes from De Leon in Comanche County. In the late 1800s, Black residents were driven out after racial violence and lynchings. According to historical accounts, signs reportedly warned Black people not to let the sun set on them in town. And over time, the absence of Black residents became normalized. One Black resident interviewed decades later described growing up isolated… excluded from parties… unable to find anyone who understood her experience. That’s one of the hidden costs of segregation people often forget. Not just physical danger. Isolation. Loneliness. The quiet message that you are permanently outside the community around you. But history is complicated. And not every Texas town stayed frozen in that past. Consider Killeen. In 1950, Killeen reportedly had no Black residents. But the growth of nearby Fort Hood, now known as Fort Cavazos and now back to Fort Hood, slowly changed the city’s demographics. Black soldiers stationed there challenged old barriers simply by existing in large numbers. And by the 1960s, those barriers began to crack. Today, Killeen is one of the most diverse cities in Texas. That transformation reminds us something important: History is not destiny. Communities can change. But only when people are willing to confront the truth about where they’ve been. And then there’s perhaps the most infamous modern example in Texas: Vidor. For decades, Vidor became nationally known for Ku Klux Klan activity and racial intimidation. Cross burnings.Marches.Threats. Even in the 1990s, not the 1890s but the 1990s, Black families moving into public housing faced bomb threats and harassment so severe some fled for their safety. Now it’s important to say this carefully. A town is not permanently defined by its worst history. And many residents today reject those beliefs entirely. But understanding that this happened within living memory matters. Because sometimes Americans talk about segregation and racial terror as though it belongs to some ancient, distant era. It doesn’t. Some of this history is only a generation or two behind us. Now there’s another piece of this story we have to understand. The Green Book wasn’t just about avoiding danger. It was also about building community. Inside its pages were Black-owned businesses…restaurants…tourist homes…beauty shops…service stations. It represented an entire parallel economy created because segregation left Black Americans excluded from so much of mainstream society. And in many ways, those businesses became lifelines. Places where travelers could finally exhale. Places where they didn’t have to wonder whether they’d be humiliated… denied service… or attacked. The Green Book stopped publication in 1966, two years after the Civil Rights Act outlawed segregation in public accommodations. Legally, the world had changed. But culturally… well, culture often changes slower than laws. And some roads remained dangerous long after the signs came down. One of the challenges of studying this history is that many Sundown Towns never officially documented their policies. No ordinance.No paperwork.No public declaration. Just memory. Warnings passed from parent to child. Stories told quietly at kitchen tables. “Don’t stop there.”“Keep driving.”“Make sure you have enough gas.” That hidden geography shaped how people traveled through Texas for generations. And unless you experienced it yourself, you may never have realized it existed. History often remembers the grand moments. The battles.The presidents.The famous speeches. But sometimes the most revealing truths are found in ordinary things. Like a family trying to find a motel before dark. Or a child asking why they can’t stop in a certain town. Or a worn little green book folded into a glove compartment. Those quiet details tell us just as much about America as monuments and battlefields ever could. And maybe that’s the real purpose of hidden history. Not to make people ashamed of the past. But to understand it honestly. Because history that remains buried has a strange way of repeating itself. But history that is remembered…examined…and understood… can become something else entirely. A warning. A lesson. And hopefully… a path forward. I’m Hank Wilson, and this has been Episode 89 of The Hidden History of Texas. Until next time…keep asking questions…keep digging deeper…and never stop looking beneath the surface of the stories we think we already know.

    13 min

  10. Apr 29

    Episode 88 – From Reconstruction to DEI: The Long Arc of Race Relations in Texas

    Episode 88 – From Reconstruction to DEI: The Long Arc of Race Relations in Texas Hello folks, I’m Hank Wilson and welcome to Episode 88 of the Hidden History of Texas. This is Episode 88 - From Reconstruction to DEI: The Long Arc of Race Relations in Texas In this episode I’m going to talk about a subject that a lot of folks like to avoid. That is the subject of race and race relations in Texas History. The story of the struggle that both African Americans and Mexican Americans faced in achieving their civil rights might be something you were unaware of.  While our image travels from reconstruction to today, and that is the title of this episode, the reality is also that our Mexican American citizens have fought to improve their political circumstances ever since the Anglos began showing up in the 1820s and especially after the revolution of 1836.  The struggle African Americans faced started after their emancipation from slavery in 1865. For the most part though organized campaigns for both groups really weren’t launched until the early twentieth century. In the years following the Texas Revolution Tejanos were often the focal point of Anglo hatred and mistrust.  In the 1850s, Anglos accused Tejanos in Central Texas of helping slaves escape to Mexico and many of the Tejano families were forced to leave their homes. During the Cart War of 1857 (which I covered in a previous episode) Tejanos around Goliad and San Antonio were attacked by Anglos. Two years later in 1859, Tejano’s in South Texas were attacked after Juan N. Cortina's captured Brownsville. And he issued a proclamation demanding the protection of Mexican-American land rights. Needless to say, this caused panic among Anglo residents who thought of him a nothing more than a bandit. This instigated the "First Cortina War" which grew in intensity and eventually required the U.S. Army, including troops under Robert E. Lee and local Texas Rangers, to eventually force him to retreat into Mexico by December 1859.  It was called the First Cortina War because Cortina returned during the Civil War (hence, the Second Cortina War), initially assisting the Union army this time, (after all he recognized that the Confederacy wanted to maintain slavery and continue to take the land held by Tejanos) and he succeed in taking control of steamboats, before being defeated in 1861 by Confederate forces under Santos Benavides. After the Civil War, both the newly freed slaves and Tejanos faced further atrocities. In the 1880s, White men in East Texas used lynching as their preferred method of maintaining political control. It became very common as a method of retaliation for alleged rapes of White women or for other insults or injuries that white people felt had been perpetrated. Mexican Americans of South Texas faced the same problems. The Ku Klux Klan, the White Caps, law officials, and the Texas Rangers, all served as official and unofficial enforcers of White authority, and they regularly terrorized both Mexican and Black Texans. For blacks emancipation eventually proved to be more of a symbolic action than anything else, because while slaves were freed from official bondage, they were still mostly blocked from fully participating in society.  Freedmen often found themselves barred from most public places and schools and often were  forced to live only in certain residential areas of towns. As the calendar changed to the twentieth century and reconstruction was abandoned, white politicians insured that such practices were written into the law. Even though Tejanos were not specifically targeted by these statutes they were still often subjected to them through unwritten social customs.  Through the 1880s and 1890s, both African Americans and Mexican Americans faced organized legal efforts to disfranchise them and if those didn’t work, Anglos turned to a variety of informal means to weaken their political strength. The most common method they faced were terrorist tactics, literacy tests, the stuffing of ballot boxes, and accusations of incompetence when they won office. White political bosses in South Texas and other areas with large Mexican-American population such as the El Paso or Rio Grande valley, meantime, dominated their areas by controlling the votes of the poor. Two of the more odorous methods used by the white politicians was the poll-tax law and the other was the white primary passed by Texas Democrats. The poll tax law  was passed in 1902 the legislature passed the poll-tax law which required every person who wanted to vote to “pay from $1.50 to $1.75’ for that privilege, which effectively disenfranchised those who were poor. (Poll Taxes for federal elections weren’t eliminated until 1964 when the 24th amendment was passed and then in 1966 for state election.) These mechanisms disfranchised Blacks, and Mexican Americans for that matter, for White society did not regard Tejanos as belonging to the "White" race. Progressive reformers of the age viewed both minority groups as having a corrupting influence on politics. By the late 1920s, Texas politicians had effectively immobilized African-Texan voters through court cases that defined political parties as private organizations that could exclude members. Some scholars have estimated that no more than 40,000 of the estimated 160,000 eligible Black voters retained their franchise in the 1920s.  Racial animosity in Texas (and indeed throughout the south) was rampant. White controlled legislatures passed what are known as Jim Crow laws.  These laws greatly increased the segregation of the races, and in the cities, Black migrants from the rural areas were shunted into ghettoes where black citizens were already relegated. Ordinarily the Jim Crow laws did not target Mexicans but, there was an understanding among white people that the laws were to be enforced on the premise that Mexicans were an inferior people.   This meant that Tejanos were, much like black Texans, relegated to separate residential areas or designated public facilities. While the Tejano population was primarily Catholic, remember Texas was originally settled through the use of Missions, they were often made to worship at segregated churches. When it came to education both Blacks and Hispanics attended segregated and inferior "colored" and "Mexican" schools. In the mid-1950s, the state legislature passed segregationist laws directed at Blacks (and by implication to Tejanos), some dealing with education, others with residential areas and public accommodations. Texas governor R. Allan Shivers, who was opposed to integration especially in education and vehemently opposed the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, went so far as to call out the Texas Rangers at Mansfield in 1956 to prevent Black students from entering the public school His successor Marion Price Daniel, Sr., was a little more tolerant, the integration process in Texas was slow and painful. Supreme Court decisions in 1969 and 1971 ordered school districts to increase the number of Black students in White schools through the extremely controversial practice of busing.  As the 1960s started African Americans and Mexican Americans began to participate in both State and national movements that were designed to help bring down racial barriers. Black Texans held demonstrations within the state to protest the long lasting and well entrenched conditions created by segregation. Understanding the power of the dollar individuals began to boycott racist merchants. When the National March on Washington took place  in 1963, approximately 900 protesters marched on the state Capitol in Austin. This was a very diverse group and included Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites, and they directly called out the slow pace of desegregation in the state and Governor John Connally's opposition to the pending civil-rights bill in Washington.  After the passing of the contentious Civil Rights act of 1964, more and more people, especially those people of color began to demand the equality promised in the Constitution. By the latter half of the sixties, some segments of the Black community began to embrace the concept of "Black power" and a minority of them believed violence was the best avenue to achieve social redress. While throughout America riots did take place in major urban areas, the destruction of property and life in Texas in no way compared to that in other states. Likewise,  Tejanos took part in the Chicano movement of the era, and some, especially youths, supported militancy, and denounced "gringos," and spoke of voluntary separatism from American society. The Raza Unida party spearheaded the movement during the 1970s. A political party, Raza Unida offered solutions to inequalities previously addressed by reformist groups such as LULAC and the G.I. Forum. Members used demonstrations and boycotts and confrontational approaches, but violence of significant magnitude seldom materialized. The movement declined by the mid-1970s. During the same period, the federal government tried to implement an agenda designed to achieve racial equality, and Texas Mexicans and Black Texans both profited from this initiative. The Twenty-fourth Amendment, ratified in 1964, barred the poll tax in federal elections. In 1969 Texas repealed its own separatist statutes. The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated local restrictions to voting and required that federal marshals monitor election proceedings. Ten years later, another voting-rights act demanded modification or elimination of at-large elections. Much of the activity in civil rights during the last quarter of the twentieth century and the opening decade of the new millennium focused on consolidating the gains of previous decades. For example, African Americans and Mexican Americans registered to vote in unprecedented numbers, and members of both ethnic groups won election to major local

    13 min
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Here is where you will find The Hidden History Of Texas podcast. The episodes cover Texas history from the earliest days of Indigenous peoples to Spanish exploration, control by Mexico, the Anglo’s take over, Texas becomes part of the U.S., the confederates move in, and back to the U.S. The audio files are accurate and try to tell the story as best as they can from all sides of the issues. The hidden history of Texas is a history replete with heroes and villains of all sorts. There were good and bad people throughout Texas history, just as there were throughout world history.

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