Texas’ Long Struggle Over Civil Rights—and Why It Still Matters, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. July 10, 2026

Texas’ Long Struggle Over Civil Rights—and Why It Still Matters

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

July 10, 2026

I came across this pamphlet I picked up a while back at the Texas Capitol titled,Minority Civil Rights and the Texas Legislature, revised in 2018, and finally sat down to read it. In light of the recent contentious debates over Texas’ K–12 social studies standards before the State Board of Education, I found myself thinking that this brief but powerful document should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand Texas politics today.

At first glance, the document is a concise historical overview. But read closely, it is something more: a record of how law has been used both to deny and to expand democracy in Texas. It tells a story of slavery, Tejano marginalization, Black Codes, Jim Crow segregation, voter suppression, educational inequality, civil rights organizing, court victories, and the long fight for representation inside the Texas Legislature itself.

The report begins with a truth that Texas too often evades: Texas was a slave state. Its 1836 Constitution protected slavery, and by 1860 more than 182,000 enslaved people lived in Texas, about 30 percent of the state population. During the Civil War, enslavers from other Confederate states moved enslaved people into Texas to shield them from advancing Union troops. Some estimates place the enslaved population in Texas at more than 400,000 by emancipation.

This matters because the struggle over civil rights in Texas did not begin in the twentieth century. It is embedded in the founding architecture of the state.

The report also reminds us that Tejanos were not marginal to Texas history. Lorenzo de Zavala, Juan Seguín, José Antonio Navarro, and José Francisco Ruiz were central figures in Texas’ early political life. Yet even as Tejano leaders helped shape Texas independence and statehood, Tejano communities were rapidly subordinated under Anglo political power. After Navarro left office in 1848, no Latino or Latina served in the Texas Senate for more than a century.

That fact alone should stop us in our tracks.

Texas has long celebrated Tejano names on counties, streets, schools, and monuments while too often excluding Tejano people from power. Symbolic recognition has never been the same as representation.

The Reconstruction section is equally sobering. After the Civil War, Texas lawmakers moved quickly to restrict Black freedom. The 1866 Constitutional Convention granted African Americans certain limited civil rights, but Black Texans were denied the right to vote, hold office, serve on juries, and, in most cases, testify against whites. The 11th Legislature refused to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments and enacted Black Codes that used labor contracts, vagrancy laws, apprenticeships, and convict labor to keep freed people in conditions of dependency and exploitation.

And yet, Reconstruction also produced democratic possibility. African American men served as constitutional convention delegates and legislators. George T. Ruby, Matthew Gaines, Walter Burton, Walter Ripetoe, and others helped imagine a different Texas—one committed to public education, infrastructure, land, labor, and political participation.

That possibility was violently and legislatively contained. By the late nineteenth century, African American representation had been driven out of the Legislature. The report notes that the 25th Legislature in 1897 was the last to include an African American member for seven decades.

Then came Jim Crow.

The report is clear that segregation in Texas was not only directed at African Americans. It was also directed at Mexican Americans and other Latina/o Texans. Schools, neighborhoods, public facilities, restaurants, buses, railroad cars, churches, and political systems were organized through racial separation. African American and Mexican American children were forced to attend inferior “colored” and “Mexican” schools. Minority voters faced poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, ballot-stuffing, and accusations of incompetence.

This is why current efforts to censor discussions of race, racism, Ethnic Studies, and civil rights history are so dangerous. They do not merely omit the past. They disable our ability to understand the present.

The history of Texas is not simply a story of individual prejudice. It is a story of law, policy, budgets, schools, courts, legislative districts, and public institutions. It is a story of how inequality was built—and how people organized to dismantle it.

The report rightly highlights civil rights organizations as engines of democratic change. The Texas NAACP began in El Paso in 1915. LULAC was founded in Corpus Christi in 1929 to fight voter suppression and discrimination in public schools and housing. After World War II, Dr. Héctor P. García and other Latino veterans founded the American G.I. Forum to challenge discrimination against Mexican American veterans.

These organizations helped transform the legal landscape. Smith v. Allwright ended the white primary. Delgado v. Bastrop ISD challenged segregated Mexican schools. Sweatt v. Painter opened the door to desegregation in graduate and professional education. Hernandez v. Texas affirmed that Mexican Americans were entitled to Fourteenth Amendment equal protection. Brown v. Board of Education required an end to segregated public education.

These victories were never gifts from the state. They were won through organizing, litigation, testimony, risk, sacrifice, and intergenerational struggle.

The later rise of Henry B. González, Barbara Jordan, Irma Rangel, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Rodney Ellis, Royce West, Judith Zaffirini, Carlos Truan, and many others represents not simply individual achievement, but the long-delayed return of excluded communities to the halls of power. The report notes that minority legislators have left a significant footprint on Texas political history, including through committee leadership, coalition-building, and legislation important to all Texans.

That is an important point. Minority civil rights have never been a “special interest.” They are democracy work.

When Black and Brown Texans fight for voting rights, public education, fair representation, language rights, labor protections, and access to higher education, they expand democracy for everyone. The history of civil rights in Texas teaches us that exclusion is always defended as tradition, order, property, or local control. But democracy has always required people willing to challenge those claims.

This document is especially important now, as Texas once again struggles over whose histories may be taught, whose votes count, whose communities are represented, whose schools are funded, and whose children are allowed to see themselves as full participants in the state’s future.

The lesson is clear: Texas did not become more democratic by accident. It became more democratic because people organized.

And that means democracy can also be weakened—by silence, by erasure, by voter suppression, by attacks on public education, by curricular censorship, by gerrymandering, and by the refusal to tell the truth.

Minority Civil Rights and the Texas Legislature gives us a usable history. It reminds us that the Texas Legislature has been both a site of exclusion and a site of struggle. It has enacted injustice, but it has also been forced—by movements, courts, and courageous leaders—to widen the circle of belonging.

The question before us is whether we will keep widening that circle.

Because in Texas, civil rights have never simply been about the past. They are about the democracy we are still trying to become.

Reference

Secretary of the Senate, Senate Engrossing & Enrolling, & Senate Publications & Printing. (2018). Minority civil rights and the Texas Legislature (Rev. ed.). Texas Legislative Reference Library. https://lrl.texas.gov/scanned/SIRSI/MinorityCivilRightsandtheTexasLegislature.pdf

Texas NAACP and Faith Leaders Launch“Building The Beloved Community”Initiative to Reclaim Civic Dialogue and Protect Dignity Across Texas Sept. 22, 2025

Friends:

So glad to see this happening. And how timely! 

On the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe calls on all of us to help build Dr. King’s Beloved Community. This initiative reminds us that freedom is a moral commitment to one another. It’s inspiring to see LULAC, faith leaders, and community partners uniting to restore dignity, dialogue, and hope across Texas.

-Angela Valenzuela 

Texas NAACP and Faith Leaders Launch“Building The Beloved Community”Initiative To Reclaim Civic Dialogue And Protect Dignity Across Texas

Press Statement

NAACP Houston Branch Statement

September 22, 2025

Texas NAACP and Faith Leaders Launch “Building the Beloved

Community” Initiative to Reclaim Civic Dialogue and Protect Dignity Across Texas

On Sept. 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the venerated Emancipation

Proclamation. Today, 163 years later, our state still in many ways is debating the

dignities, humanity and freedoms conferred to People of Color by that document.

“We have fractured into communities that see this nation as us against those

people. And social media, some political operatives, extremists and others have

exploited those fissures to the point where civic dialogue, respect, and dignity are

on the decline. While violence, indifference, race-baiting, and hopelessness are on

the rise,” said Gary Bledsoe, President of the Texas NAACP.

“Before he died 57 years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged us to be part of Building the Beloved Community. That is why we are launching this

initiative to reclaim the moral high ground.”

“We’ve worked on putting different pieces in place for more than a year, but we are

now asking other people who want to be part of this initiative to join with us at

every level.”

“This is our follow-up to Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Bledsoe said.

Specifically, The Texas NAACP is calling on our partners to join with the Texas

NAACP and its units to create roundtables across Texas to engage in civic dialogue and take other steps to create a better path forward for all Texans.

“I am honored to represent Pastors for Texas Children in supporting this initiative

by our friends in the Texas NAACP to create a conversation of mutual respect and

dialogue to address the challenges faced by our communities with the increase in

incidents of violence and verbal abuse in our classrooms and communities, said

the Rev. Dr. Larry Bethune, Senior Pastor Emeritus of the University Baptist Church,

Austin.

“We believe every Texas student should be treated with dignity and respect and

should feel safe in his or her school and wider community. We believe schools

should provide and protect an environment where Texas youth can learn the value

of respectful civil discourse where their voices are heard and their concerns

honored. Every person is precious in God’s eyes, no matter their background.

“We hope these conversations will strengthen the frayed fabric of our wider

communities and rekindle the dream of our forebears for a nation united by our

democratic ideals of listening to one another and living as “one nation, under God,

with liberty and justice for all.” Therefore, Pastors for Texas Children endorses this

program of community building conversations in our communities and

congregations.”

Texas LULAC General Counsel, Gloria Leal said, “LULAC, the largest and oldest

Hispanic advocacy group in the United States, joins the NAACP in support of the

First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution , a cornerstone of our democracy

protecting free speech, belief and association. LULAC joins the NAACP in opposing

any form of violence which impinges on Firm Amendment rights , in the face of

retaliation and other forceful efforts aimed at suppression and imposition of --

ideological conformity.”

Theme and mission: The Texas NAACP along with faith leaders and other partners are announcing an initiative to continue the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in Building a Beloved Community.

We want round tables in each community to help address issues of violence and to

provide safe spaces for dialogue on issues in our communities. We hold true to the

desire of Dr. King to seek to achieve a Beloved Community. In order to facilitate

discussions we are providing the following documents for our Texas NAACP units

and other partners to consider for use in their round table discussions: (a)

Reimagining Public Safety — Moving to Safe, Healthy, and Hopeful Communities

(Travis County); (b) Public Safety Suggestions Document for College Campuses

(Texas NAACP); and (c) Proposed Policy on K-12 Bullying (written from legislation

by Senator Menendez, Rep. Ron Reynolds and Rep. Senfronia Thompson, IDRA and

Texas and Lubbock NAACP Branch).

Bledsoe said, it falls to people of good will to meet the challenges we face and not

expect or wait for leaders to rescue us. And that means we must come together

and work together to create communications that respect the dignity and

humanity of all people. This means reaching out to people across the political

spectrum, people of all faiths, and building coalitions with local entities for a better

way forward toward that Beloved Community Dr. King spoke of. 

It doesn’t mean that we stop fighting for justice and civil rights, but it means we also look for common ground. Though there may be fundamental political and even religious

issues that may sometimes divide us, we know that people of good will respect all

people and believe that all of us, without regard to race, creed, color, political

affiliation, faith or religious beliefs, be treated with dignity.

Our partners: While the Texas NAACP is leading this work, we are proud that

already we have a large and diverse group of religious.

Gary L. Bledsoe, President

Texas State Conference of NAACP Units

"Federal trial opens to determine whether Texas discriminated in redrawn redistricting maps," by Sameea Kamal | Texas Tribune | May 22, 2025

Friends:

Glad to see that this federal trial on gerrymandering is getting off the ground. For over half a century, federal courts have repeatedly found that Texas has discriminated against voters of color in its redistricting practices, and 2021 was no exception. 

In a word, this practice is termed "gerrymandering." Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing electoral district lines to give an unfair advantage to a particular political party or group. Though often justified as a partisan tactic, it frequently undermines the voting power of racial and ethnic minorities—especially when district boundaries are deliberately drawn to fragment communities of color and weaken their collective voice at the ballot box.

.Here are the member statistics from the Legislative Reference Library at the Capitol that, interestingly, no longer disaggregate by race or ethnicity. How convenient for those in power, right?

These data also show that the average age of our representatives is between 50 and 59 years old and that women are significantly underrepresented in both chambers.

Although in the 2020 U.S. Census communities of color accounted for 95 percent of the state’s population growth—Latinos alone making up more than half—the Republican-controlled Legislature chose not to expand representation for these growing populations. Instead, it reinforced white political control, sidelining the very communities driving Texas’s demographic future.

It drew 23 majority-white congressional districts and just seven Latino-majority ones out of 38, flagrantly disregarding the state’s demographic reality. This is not simply partisan maneuvering; it is a modern form of racial gerrymandering designed to fracture Black and Latino voting power and insulate those in power from democratic accountability.

To claim that these maps were drawn “blind to race” is not just disingenuous—it’s dangerous. Texas had ample opportunity to draw additional Latino-majority districts in rapidly diversifying regions like Dallas-Fort Worth and Harris County but chose not to. 

The claim that partisan interests, not racial bias, were the basis for the maps ignores the deeply racialized nature of partisanship in Texas. Gerrymandering in this context is not just a political strategy—it is a structural assault on civil rights, one that perpetuates disparities in health, education, income, and political voice. This is discrimination by design, and it strikes at the heart of representative democracy.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Kaplan, A. (2021, October 26). Greg Abbott approves Texas redistricting that preserves GOP power, dilutes voters of color. Salon. https://www.salon.com/2021/10/26/greg-abbott-approves-texas-redistricting-that-preserves-power-dilutes-of-color/

Federal trial opens to determine whether Texas discriminated in redrawn redistricting maps

by Sameea Kamal | Texas Tribune | May 22, 2025


Maps based on the 2020 census designating districts within Texas for state and congressional 

offices are the focus of a discrimination case that is being heard in federal court. 

Credit: Ben Torres for The Texas Tribune

Do Texas’ district maps discriminate against some Black and Latino voters? That’s what advocates will allege in court Wednesday, while the state will argue that those communities can elect the candidates they want.

Some advocates will also argue in a set of cases four years in the making that the state intentionally discriminated — while the state will combat that claim.

A panel of three U.S. district judges in El Paso will hear the cases over the next month that allege the state violated federal law in its redistricting process — the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional and state district maps after every U.S. Census to ensure that all districts have approximately the same number of people.

The plaintiffs include the League of United Latin American Citizens, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Texas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. They plan to argue that in 2021, the Republican-majority Legislature deliberately drew its congressional, state House and senate districts in a way that split up voters of color and diluted their political power.

The case has been delayed while the parties fought over what information legislative members are required to disclose.

Plaintiffs point to data around the racial makeup of the state and those of the districts in their arguments: though whites and Latinos made up nearly the same share of the population in Texas in 2020, the state drew 23 white-majority districts out of 38 total congressional districts, while Latino voters made up majorities in only seven. The remaining eight districts had no majority group.

According to the 2020 Census, Texas added 4 million residents in the prior decade and gained two congressional districts. Of the population growth, 95% was among communities of color, with more than half of the growth among the Latino community.

“The inflated number of majority-white districts does not reflect the Census data and does not allow for fair representation,” Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, an advocacy group supporting the plaintiffs in the congressional case, said at a news conference this week. “It is clear that Texas’ congressional map denies Latino voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.’”

If a court finds that to be true, it wouldn’t be the first time: in every decade since the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, Texas has been found by a federal court to have violated federal law by illegally discriminating against voters of color. The law prohibits voting practices that discriminate based on race, color or those who belong to a language minority group.

After the 2010 redistricting cycle, for example – in a battle with similar arguments — federal judges ruled that Texas lawmakers intentionally discriminated against Hispanic and Black voters by unnecessarily crowding them into certain districts.

The allegations that the state violated the Voting Rights Act don’t require the plaintiffs to prove the state intended to discriminate — only that the effect of the maps does so. Some of the plaintiffs are bringing additional claims that the state violated the 14th Amendment by intentionally discriminating against them, which does require proving the state acted in bad faith.

Various groups have sued the state since 2021, even before the maps were ratified. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, El Paso Division ordered those groups to consolidate their cases into the one that begins Wednesday.

The groups allege the state could have drawn a Latino-majority district in the state senate and congressional districts that encompass Dallas-Fort Worth and Harris counties, but failed to do so.

In the House maps, plaintiffs allege the Legislature failed to create Latino-majority districts where there was opportunity to do so in those counties, as well in Central and West Texas, and Bexar, Denton/Wise and Brazoria counties.

The NAACP also alleges the state intentionally discriminated against Black voters in all three maps.

The state plans to defend the maps on the basis that partisan interests, not race, were the primary factor in drawing the maps.


“The Texas Legislature drew the maps blind to race,” the state’s pre-trial brief says. “The redistricting lawmakers did not mince words: they intended to design maps that advanced partisan interests and other traditional redistricting principles.”

The Republican-led Legislature drew the maps, while the advocates who brought the lawsuits are arguing on behalf of Black and Latino voters who historically have aligned with the Democratic party.

The state’s brief says the legislative record will show both Republican and Democratic lawmakers acknowledged the Legislature’s “partisan motivations for drawing districts” — although in pre-trial proceedings leading up to Wednesday, the Legislature’s chief map drawer, Houston Republican Sen. Joan Huffman, declined to share some of the reasoning behind the maps, citing “legislative privilege,” a protection afforded by the state constitution.

The state also plans to argue that population growth was uneven, and that in some areas, such as El Paso County, declining population led to the reduction in the number of House districts where there was a Latino majority.

The governor’s office and attorney general’s office did not respond to requests for comments on the case.

Though the Legislature passed the bills creating the maps in 2021, lawmakers that session were unable to ratify the maps due to a Democratic walkout over a separate bill related to election processes. The next Legislature in 2023 then ratified the maps.

In the meantime, two primary and two general elections have taken place under those maps.

That includes the primary election in 2022, after the Court sided with the state on allowing the map for Senate District 10 to be used. Plaintiffs tried to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, but they dismissed the appeal because it was filed too late.


For Jenkins, with the National Redistricting Foundation, the impacts of a map that potentially violates the law means less of a voice for some Texans.

“The long-term effects of depriving a community of a seat at the table can be seen in disparities in multiple aspects of life, such as higher poverty and unemployment rates, lower incomes and being underrepresented in public office,” she said at the briefing. “This case isn't just about the congressional map, it's about representation and living up to the fundamental ideal that should guide our democracy, that every individual has the right to exercise self determination at the ballot box.”

Texas officers raid house of 87-year-old woman who complained about poor ballot access

Friends,

I'm still in shock from learning about this act of official oppression against an 87-year-old elder, Lidia Martinez, who belongs to LULAC, the civil rights organization to which I have been a longtime member—and where I currently serve as its Education Committee chair. It is disgusting and horrifying to learn that her house was raided by police officers under the auspices of Attorney General Ken Paxton's "Election Integrity Unit." This is double-speak. So Orwellian. Up is down and down is up as in George Orwell's, 1984.

It turns out that all she was doing was her civic duty of inquiring about seniors with whom she had spoken about them not getting mail-in ballots.

This is a larger story of official oppression and voter intimidation that involves numerous individuals, including Cecilia Castellano, a democratic party candidate that you can learn about in an August 24 story in the Texas Tribune.

For those that have access to computers, to get your mail-in ballot, you do have to qualify, but you can get it if you need it. Read and follow these instructions on how to apply for a ballot by mail out of Jane Nelson's Secretary of State office.

I'm glad that State Director Gabriel Rosales and LULAC are calling on the Department of Justice for an investigation into voter intimidation. Also, see my earlier post that provides more information.

Elections matter, my friends. We need leadership with actual integrity rather than offices that use it as a prop.

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas officers raid house of 87-year-old woman who complained about poor ballot access

by Brad Reed | August 26, 2024 | Raw Story

An 87-year-old Texas woman who complained about local seniors not being sent mail-in ballots had her house raided by officers for the state's election integrity unit.

The New York Times reported that Lidia Martinez, a retired educator who lives in San Antonio, was shocked last week when officers came to her house at 6 a.m. and informed her that they were searching her residence because she had filed a complaint about residents in her area getting their mail-in ballots.

Martinez says she's spent decades volunteering with the League of United Latin American Citizens to help seniors in the Latino community register themselves to vote.

"“I go to a lot of senior events; I explain to them what they have to do,” she told the Times. “I’ve been involved in politics all of my life.”

The officers at her house asked to see the voter registration cards that she had collected. After informing them that she didn't have them at her house, they proceeded to search the property and left with her laptop, her phone and some documents.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defended the raid as part of an election integrity investigation.

However, leaders with LULAC are demanding answers to what they say is a baseless raid on Martinez and other members of their organization.

In fact, notes the Times, LULAC is asking the United States Department of Justice to intervene and conduct a civil rights probe into the Texas government's actions.

Latino Civil Rights Group Gives First-Ever Presidential Endorsement to Harris, Rolling Stone, Aug. 9, 2024

So glad to see this endorsement of Vice-President Kamala Harris for U.S. President. This was a great move by former President Domingo Garcia and LULAC, our nation's leading Latino/x/a civil rights organization of which I have been a longtime member. 

As we reflect on the 5th anniversary of the August 3rd Walmart shooting in El Paso where a white supremacist gunman rationalized his actions with Replacement Theory before taking the lives of 23 people and injuring 22 others, I agree that it is an urgent matter that the scapegoating of Mexicans, Latinas/os, and immigrants stop. 

Irresponsible, reckless words lead some people to commit unspeakable crimes and harm innocent people who might have thought otherwise had these broader, Trumpian anti-immigrant discourses and campaigns not been given any oxygen to begin with. Our governor, sadly, is also deeply implicated in this regard.

Sí se puede!

-Angela Valenzuela

LULAC

Latino Civil Rights Group Gives First-Ever Presidential Endorsement to Harris

In endorsing Kamala Harris, LULAC’s former president says “hate-mongering and scapegoating Latinos and immigrants must be stopped”

By Nikki McCann Ramirez August 9, 2024 | Rolling Stone

Left: The crest of the United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Right: Vice President Kamala Harris. AP Photo/John Raoux; Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The nation’s oldest Latin-American civil rights advocacy group has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the White House — the first endorsement of its kind for the organization. 

In a statement to NBC News, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a civil rights group established in 1929, wrote that they are “proud to endorse Kamala Harris and Tim Walz because of the real issues facing Latino communities and all Americans across the nation; we can trust them to do what is right for our community and the country.”

Former LULAC President and LULAC Adelante PAC Chairman Domingo Garcia — the author of the statement — added, “The politics of hate-mongering and scapegoating Latinos and immigrants must be stopped.” 

“Latinos understand how much is at stake in this election, for not only our community but our democracy,” he added. 

LULAC has historically shied away from explicit presidential endorsements, a reflection of the wide array of political leanings throughout the various Latin-American diasporic communities within the United States. The organization was founded in the early 20th century as a coalition of smaller advocacy groups that sought to challenge discriminatory laws and policies targeting Mexican-Americans. 

With immigration and border security serving as driving narratives in the 2024 election, LULAC’s break with electoral impartiality to endorse Harris will be a boon to the fledgling campaign. 

“They’ve never backed away from the fight for the communities they represent, and Vice President Harris has never stopped fighting to create opportunities for Latino families,” Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez told NBC News. 

Despite the Harris campaign only being in its first weeks of operation, immigration has already become a central focus. On Friday the campaign released an ad touting Harris as a capable prosecutor who will crack down on organized crime and drug trafficking at the border. 

“Fixing the border is tough, so is Kamala Harris,” the ad says.