First Available Cell: Desegregation of the Texas Prison System

From Segregation to Desegregation in Texas Prisons: A Timeline

From Segregation to Desegregation in Texas Prisons: A Timeline 1849 An “Act to Establish a State Penitentiary” is passed by the Texas legislature. The Huntsville “Walls” Unit, though not yet fully constructed , accepts its first inmate on October 1. Prior to 1865 and the end of the Civil War, only the most serious white criminals were sent to the penitentiary. Blacks remained on slave plantations. 1865 Civil War ends. Thirteenth Amendment is ratified, prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude except as a form of punishment. (Texas ratifies the amendment on February 18, 1870, prior to its readmission to the Union.) Texas prison population is roughly 165 inmates. 1866 Board of Public Labor is created by the Eleventh Texas Legislature with responsibility to retain contracts for the use of inmate labor. The private-lease system is created. Texas prisoners under the lease are sent to racially segregated camps to work on railroads, public utilities, and plantations. Serious criminals , most of whom are white, remain in Huntsville Walls Unit in cells. 1883– Lease system ends, and contract-lease system ensues. Agricultural 1919 prison farms expand. East Texas Penitentiary in Rusk,Texas, is constructed to help relieve overcrowding in Huntsville Walls Unit. Texas begins to purchase large tracts of land in southeastern part of the state. State prison farms become operational: Wynne in 1883; Harlem I and II in 1885; Clemens in 1893; Ramsey I and II and Imperial and Blue Ridge in 1908; Central in 1909; Darrington and Eastham in 1917; and Retrieve in 1919. Timeline xvii Most white inmates are incarcerated in Huntsville and Rusk, Texas. Able-bodied black inmates are sent to farms near the river bottoms and to sugarcane plantations. Remaining white and Hispanic inmates are placed on other farms. Farms and their camps are completely segregated by race. 1927 Despite years of penitentiary rules and regulations that kept prisoners separated by race, the Fortieth Texas Legislature specifically authorizes the general manager of the Texas prison system, with the consent of the Texas Prison Board, to make provision for the separation and classification of prisoners according to “color.” 1928– Texas prison system continues to be segregated by race, with sepa1965 rate prison farms for white, black, and Hispanic inmates. Allen L. Lamar is committed to the State School for Boys in Gatesville , Texas, in 1952. He is released in 1953. Lamar is incarcerated by the California Youth Authority in 1954. He is released in 1956 and returns to Texas. Lamar is convicted and incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in October 1958. He is released in 1961 on parole. Lamar is committed to the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) for the first time in 1962. Prison farms become “units” by 1965. George J. Beto desegregates individual prisons, allowing black, white, and Hispanic inmates to live at the same prison unit. Units remain segregated in all other areas including work squads, dormitories, cells, and cell blocks, according to the 1927 Texas law that authorizes the director of the Texas prison system to separate and classify inmates by “color.” 1965 Lamar is discharged from TDC. He is held on detainer by the U.S. Marshal’s Office and transported to a federal correctional institution in Texarkana,Texas, for violation of federal mandatory parole release guidelines from a previous federal conviction. 1966 Lamar is discharged from federal custody in April. Lamar is convicted in July of armed robbery and receives a twentyfive -year sentence in TDC, which begins on July 6, 1967. 1972 Allen L. Lamar et al. v. H. H.Coffield et al. is filed in the U.S. Federal District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Lamar alleges systematic racial segregation and discrimination in TDC. Ruiz v. Estelle is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. 1973 The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (DOJ) intervenes on the plaintiffs’ behalf in Lamar. xviii First available Cell A class of “Spanish-speaking” inmates becomes involved as plaintiffintervenors . Among these inmates is David Ruiz of the Ruiz v. Estelle litigation. A group of white, black, and Hispanic prisoners joins TDC defendants in an effort to maintain segregated housing for prisoners for fear of racial violence. Trial preparation begins. 1974 Two additional cases with complaints of racial segregation and discrimination in TDC are consolidated with Lamar. The case is certified as a class action, leading to scrutiny of the entire Texas...