Racist Busing Rides Again
Moving migrants from Texas to Democratic strongholds is not new. The Reverse Freedom Rides of the 1960s hold lessons for activists of today.
Texas history
Roe’s Grassroots Beginnings
Student organizations at the University of Texas at Austin played a key role in the landmark court case.
Texas Draws Criticism With Plan to Lure Tourists to Sites Where Indigenous People Were Banished
Nations once exterminated or displaced are now being asked to help bring in tourism dollars.
Efforts to Save What’s Left of Mary Allen Seminary Reveal The Challenges of Preserving Black Placemaking in Texas
The Mary Allen Museum of African American History continues to race the clock to preserve what’s left of Texas’ first African American school for Black girls and women.
The Ghosts of Jefferson
This East Texas tourist town calls itself “the most haunted town in Texas,” but its whitewashed ghost stories elide a complex racial history.
Up From the Desert
As a child, I hunted for fossils in the Chihuahuan Desert beyond my backyard. Those afternoons shaped the way I think about my fronteriza identity today.
‘Big Wonderful Thing’ Valianty Fits Much of Texas History Into a Single Book
Stephen Harrigan forgoes a sweeping narrative and instead opts for finely etched anecdotes to explain the state’s epic history.
SIGN UP FOR TEXAS OBSERVER EMAILS
What the UAW Strike Looks Like, From Deep in the Heart of Anti-Union Texas
GM autoworkers from the Arlington plant, one of the company’s most profitable, are part of the largest strike against a U.S. business since 2007.
Where the Bodies are Buried
In 1910, East Texas saw one of America’s deadliest post-Reconstruction racial purges. One survivor’s descendants have waged an uphill battle for generations to unearth that violent past.
Women’s Work
Lessons from my great-aunt, an East Texas original.