Justice for Santos Rodriguez, Por Fin!

Dallas is often viewed as a city of pioneers bent on scratching a living from a place with no good reason to be there, where hard work and common sense are the ingredients needed for prosperity.  Several of the most famous retail department stores started as retail general stores on the banks of the Trinity River, stores such as Titches,

Sanger Harris and Neiman Marcus began as humble enterprises in Dallas. 

The city's reputation as a business friendly, entrepreneurial mecca, however gives way to a darker side where race and racism shroud its character.  Professor Michael Phillips dedicated an entire book to the subject of Dallas racism in White Metropolis (White Metropolis). 

As a young kid growing up in Dallas one comes to feel the city's darker energy.  In 1910, a Black man was dragged from the city jail after being accused of a crime, which in all likelihood never took place, and was hung from a decorative arch in downtown Dallas (Hanging). For years the arch was used as a backdrop for souvenir "hanging" photos at the State Fair of Texas. 

Racism has long motivated behavior in Dallas. It has been suggested, that it partially explains the hatred that met President Kennedy when he came to Dallas in November of 1963. 

When I was a kid I wondered why there were no other kids in our neighborhood. My mother said all the families had moved to Lake Highlands, a white enclave in the nearby Richardson school district, so the kids would not have to go to school with Black children. Dallas ISD schools were finally being desegregated through busing more than twenty years after 1955's Brown v Board of Education decision.

My father and mother both worked tirelessly within the community to advance equity and fairness,  my father as a young SMU professor engaged in the community through his work to advance bilingual education, and my mother as a Dallas ISD high school English and history teacher in several of Dallas' most economically devalued communities.

It is against this backdrop, that I think of Santos Rodriguez today. Santos was arrested by Dallas police officer in July 1973. The officer accused 12 year old Santos of robbing a Coke machine. Santos was placed in the back of the police car handcuffed. The police officer then began to play Russian roulette with Santos to terrorize the child into a confession (Police Murder Santos). The police officer, Darrell Cain, served five years in prison for the killing.

At the time of the murder, many were outraged this had taken place. Protests were organized, the likes of which Dallas had not witnessed before. People perceived the overt racism that had long lingered in Dallas. Protesters even burned a Dallas police motorcycle in the streets.

Finally, 45 years after Santos' senseless and brutal murder at the hands of a bullying, racist Dallas police officer, Santos Rodriguez will finally receive an acknowledgement from the City of Dallas, a Recreation Center in Pike Park will be named in honor of Santos.

As I read this, I wondered why it took so long. Perhaps this is a bad memory Dallas as a city just wanted to forget. I also wondered if the naming of a city park in Seattle Washington after Santos five years ago shamed Dallas into recognizing what took place in Dallas in 1973 (Santos Rodriguez Park Seattle, WA). When the news that Seattle was naming a park after Santos first appeared, many in Dallas asked why Seattle would do this when Dallas needed to be the first to recognize this tragedy. Fortunately, Dallas finally has.

I am glad that Santos is being acknowledged, and that his mother has not passed without witnessing some form of remembrance for her son. I am left wondering if the naming of a rec center is enough for the life taken so many years ago.