The Interview
Andrea Roberts Is Working to Define What Free Black Space Is
Through the Texas Freedom Colonies Project, researchers are working to liberate data on behalf of Black Texans.
In 1865, it was announced that more than 4 million Black people were freed, ushering in the Reconstruction Era. And although formerly enslaved people were told ...Read More
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins on Battling COVID-19, and the Governor, as Texas Reopens
“Now we're just working with this unprecedented state usurpation of local control, trying to keep people safe as best we can.”
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins was the first Texas official to declare a stay-at-home order for COVID-19 in March—more than a week before Governor Greg Abbo...Read More
The Future of Fair Housing in Texas
John Henneberger has spent 45 years advocating for Texans’ right to have a safe, affordable place to live.
In 1974, while he was an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, John Henneberger started volunteering with a community group in Clarksville, a form...Read More
Scientist Peter Hotez on Why Vaccine Development is ‘Critical to the Security of Our Nation’
Several years ago, Hotez and his colleagues developed a vaccine that may have prevented the new coronavirus—but they couldn’t get it funded.
Peter Hotez has spent his career studying infectious diseases that others weren’t paying attention to, developing vaccines that “no one else will make.” F...Read More
Researcher Jeremy Slack on the Horrors that Await Immigrants Deported from the U.S.
Slack led a massive research effort to learn what happens to those whom immigration authorities deport and dump all along the Mexican border.
As an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Arizona, Jeremy Slack began crossing the border into Mexico not to down shots of tequila, but to interview the d...Read More
Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication
To celebrate our 65th birthday, we asked our founding editor about where the Observer has been and what he thinks about its future.
On December, 13, 1954, Ronnie Dugger published the first issue of the Texas Observer. In it, he wrote the newspaper’s founding mission: We will serve no group...Read More
How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms
The Texas Tech professor and lead author on the last three National Climate Assessments wants you to talk about how to live in a warming world.
Katharine Hayhoe loves talking to her Uber drivers—it’s one way she practices finding common ground on climate change with just about anyone. A Texas Tech p...Read More
Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma
“There are 364 other days in the year when people’s lives are shaped by the possibility of deportation or a raid.”
On a cold Thursday morning in November 2013, Santiago (a pseudonym) was leaving his apartment on the top floor of an auto repair shop in Washtenaw County, Michi...Read More
Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform
Texas Gun Sense’s Ed Scruggs on how Abbott and Patrick talk about guns behind closed doors—and what that says about the prospects for change.
Ed Scruggs has been on the frontlines of the battle to reform Texas’ gun laws ever since the Sandy Hook massacre. That 2012 tragedy galvanized a movement that...Read More