First Available Cell: Desegregation of the Texas Prison System

Introduction

Introduction It was Sunday, April 23, 1939, and it was a day of rest for the men clad in white in Otey, Texas. This was not going to be like any other Sunday at the Ramsey State Prison Farm, however. On this day a visitor drove up to the prison and had special clearance to talk to the black men. He also had permission to listen to and record the convicts sing their work songs. The visitor’s name was John Lomax—the “ballad hunter”—and he set about recording the songs used by the black Texas convicts in the fields about hoeing and flat weeding, felling timber with double-bladed axes, picking and chopping cotton, their dreams of freedom and far-off places, their hated bosses and tracker dogs, their girlfriends and wives, and their mothers. He recorded various songs sung by James “Iron Head” Baker (“My Pore Mother Keeps A-prayin for Me”), Wade “Monkey” Bolden, Mose “Clear Rock” Platt,W. S. “Jaybird” Harrison, Wallace “Big Stavin’ Chain” Chains, and Lightnin’ Washington. Lomax, who was raised near Meridian,Texas, right where the 98th parallel passes through and divides Texas into two distinct geographical and cultural traditions, toured other southern prison farms in search of the “perfect ballad ” or song untouched by the outside world. Yet the Texas prison farms of the 1930s, or any other decade, were not isolated completely from the outside world. The inmate world he encountered was shaped by what the felons brought with them into the farms and reworked to be useful in the tanks and hoe squads and turn rows. John Lomax was, among other things, a trailblazer, and he opened the Texas prison system to successive generations of researchers and outsiders in search of their own “perfect ballads.” Bruce Jackson, Harvard-educated folklorist, picked up where Lomax left off. He recorded numerous African American convict work songs (some at the Ramsey State Prison Farm) in the 1960s and took many photographs of the convicts’ world as it teetered on the brink of the sea change examined in Introduction xv this book. Ben Crouch, a professor of sociology at Texas A & M University, donned the gray uniform and worked as a prison guard or “boss” in the 1970s. His “perfect ballad” was to uncover or shed light on the world of the guard and how the custodians managed to keep order in a world of hostile, bitter , and violent men. Sheldon Ekland-Olson, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted surveys of prisoners in the 1980s to ascertain their thoughts and opinions about the consequences of impending change as a result of judicial intervention behind the walls. Each of these researchers or curiosity seekers was allowed extraordinary access to Texas prisons. Most important, these researchers were on hand at a time when the penal system was on the brink of monumental change. Outside influences, often uncontrollable, were set in motion that forever altered the isolated prison farms, and these individuals saw history unfold before them. In this book, we bring historical records and observations, prison data, court records, social survey data, guard and inmate observations, and personal observations of Texas prisons that span three decades to examine the consequences of an obscure court ruling in Texas that ordered the custodians to desegregate prison cells. This book, then, is our “perfect ballad” and extends the work of those who preceded us—those who broke down the boundary between the free world and the prison world. We trace our lineage and our inspiration to those who came before us, and we surely stand on the shoulders of giants. Like them, we seek to understand the role of the outside world as it affected the inside world. ...