First Available Cell: Desegregation of the Texas Prison System

Notes

Notes Chapter 1 1. See http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil, the National Museum of the Air Force, for more information on Iven Kincheloe. 2. Elvis said it himself in 1956: “The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doing now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them. Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said if I ever got to the place where I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.” See Farley, C. J. (2004, July 6). “Elvis Rocks. But He’s Not the First.” Time Magazine. 3. See Bertrand, M. J. (2000). Race, Rock, and Elvis. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. 4. Ladino, R. (1996). Desegregating Texas Schools: Eisenhower, Shivers, and the Crisis at Mansfield High. Austin: University of Texas Press: 6. 5. Ibid. 6. Jackson v. Rawdon, United States District Court, Northern District, Texas, August 27, 1956, Civ. No. 3152. 7. Ladino, R., Desegregating Texas Schools, 91–92. 8. Ibid., 138–143. 9. See Sample, A. (1984). Racehoss: Big Emma’s Boy. New York: Ballantine Books: 178–180. 10. In the TDC of the 1950s, inmates working in the field were required to weigh their sacks of cotton to meet quotas. Inmates who did not meet their quotas at “weigh up” faced disciplinary punishments for being “lazy” or otherwise insubordinate, punishments which could have included placement in solitary confinement among other coercive disciplinary sanctions. 11. Inmate has recently been replaced with the word “offender” in today’s correctional institutions. Such changes generally paralleled the name changes that have come to the old prison farms. Prisons in Texas have evolved from farms (convicts), to units (inmates), to the newly labeled correctional institutions (offenders). 12. See Park, R., Burgess, E., & McKenzie, R. (1925). The City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 13. Lilly, J., Cullen, F., & Ball, R. (2007). Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 14. Ibid. 15. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896). 16. See Jacobs, J. B. (1983). “Macrosociology and Imprisonment.” In J. Jacobs (Ed.), New Perspectives on Prisons and Imprisonment (pp. 17–33). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 17. The history of racial desegregation at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) parallels the Texas prison situation and lends credence to the notion of zones of desegregation . For example, in 1955 UT first admitted African American students for the fall 1956 semester. In 1964, the first African American teaching assistants and faculty members were employed. Also in 1964, the University of Texas Board of Regents voted 6–1 to desegregate the dormitories. In short, desegregation occurred first at the university level, then among employees, university facilities, and student living areas. See Durden, A. M. (1979). Overcoming: A History of Black Integration at the University of Texas at Austin. Office of the Dean of Students, University of Texas at Austin. 18. See Jacobs, J. B. (1977). Stateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society. Chicago: University Chicago Press; Irwin, J. (1980). Prisons in Turmoil. Boston: Little, Brown; Crouch, B. M. & Marquart, J.W. (1989). An Appeal to Justice: Litigated Reform ofTexas Prisons. Austin: University of Texas Press; Carroll, L. (1999). Lawful Order: A Case Study of Correctional Crisis and Reform. New York: Garland Publishing. 19. In the coming pages we describe the Texas prison experience with in-cell desegregation and note that the Texas prison system is the most desegregated prison setting in America. While all state prison systems (and the federal prison system) have desegregated dormitories, dayrooms, work squads, and almost all other areas in the prison environment today, it is important to note that two-person cells are not racially mixed on any large scale in most U.S. prison systems, and certainly not to the degree of the Texas prison system. Despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1968 (in Lee v. Washington) that prison and jail administrators are generally prohibited from segregating inmates by race, this ruling did not lead to cell desegregation in state prison systems. As we explore in Chapter 4, a major reason is that the Court provided a caveat for prison administrators: “Acting in good faith and in particularized circumstances,” prison authorities have the right to take into account racial tensions in ensuring order and security in prisons and jails. This caveat allowed prison administrators across the country to avoid...