Maybe from tvs and movies if nothing else. Florida i watched this show called texas john slaughter. Song was texas john slaughter do what they outta, because if they didnt they would die. The lone ranger may be the most cinematic ntb radio rangers that started in 1933. Out of wxyz in detroit. The script was originally called man hunter. But then they changed it to lone ranger. We would still be talking about it today. In rangers have been hundreds of movies. There have been hundreds of books written about them, hundreds of magazine and newspaper stories. The image was built. I will go into that a little more. First i want to get a brief history of the rangers. Why the talk about Texas Rangers have residence and a place in a conversation were having now nationally about Police Brutality and approaches to history and all this taking down of the confederate monuments. The rangers have a place in that too. Will try to toggle to vintage photos. This is the first time i have done this. F i mess up, im sorry i have my Technical Assistant and my lovely wife to help me if we mess up. I will try to pull of photos and do a slideshow. I hope everybody is seeing that. This is lone wolf gonzalez. Famous texas ranger in the 1930s, 19 40s, and 1950s. He was a sharp dresser. He has the custom boots. Was, by allf accounts, a good ranger. There are many rangers who were heroic, upright honorable, courageous, valorous individuals who formed a Public Service in texas. Whether you agree or not whether the anglos should have settled texas. Texas would not be texas without the rangers. They were a valuable for started starting in 1823. We have to say there were many terrific people who rangers continue to be. I dont want this to be seen as an attack on the rangers, but i want to get behind the myth of the rangers themselves. Lone wolf gonzales gives us a good example. He was a good ranger up a quite concerned with his public image. There was a saying, i know you heard this applied to other politicians, that there was no more dangerous place in texas than lone wolf gonzales. Being a rangerd he rode off to hollywood and became a tv show consultant. He put forth his own public image. 75was said that he killed ranchers. That was not true. He never abused anyone of that. He claimed to be descended from spanish royalty. He claimed to have fought in the mexican army as a mexican soldier, that was not true. One time a reporter was hanging out with him and they ended up spending the night together in a hotel. I dont mean to imply there was anything strange going on, there was no other rooms in the town where they work. The reporter woke up that morning and saw the loma lone wolf shaving with his towel on an boots and nothing else. The lone wolf explained that is what he did every morning. Put on his hats and his boots. That was lone wolf. The first rangers came together in april in 1823 when the first anglo settlers came into texas. Firstn f austin led the anglo texans. That is him in the center of this painting that comes from the library of congress. What he is doing is urging settlers to go out and kill the indians. Tribe whoa coastal had been in texas for thousands veryars, but they were large, very muscular, very tall, they smeared alligator grease on themselves to keep the mosquitoes off them. They put rattlesnake rattlers in their air hair and were said to be cannibals. First time he saw them he recorded in his journal these people must be exterminated. Urging is doing is settlers to exterminate these indians. The first 10 rangers, they were not firmly formerly recognized by any government. They were formed in 1823 to protect settlers against the indians. This was when mexico was still a part of texas. They did not do any fighting and they ran out of ammunition and food and returned to their day jobs. That was the beginning of the rangers. 197 years ago. And eventually they were exterminated in about 10 years. They cannot put up much of a fight. They did not have the ammunition or population to fight the settlers and they were long gone. Texas became an independent 1836. Ic in soon they had to fight the comanches. To 1850nches from 1750 with the most powerful indian tribe in north america. That is because they were the greatest horsemen in north america. This is a painting of comanche horsemen. They were very clumsy on foot. , werent veryt much good at anything. But when they got the horse, people who would see them, white men would see them and say it was like watching a thin tar cintar. It was one beast, comanche and horse. What the comanches could do was have a little strap that they rolled onto what their foot and they would lean down beneath the neck of the horse and fire their arrows. From there they can fire up to 30 hours in a minute. Settlers in the rangers were using a single shot, pistols and muskets. They would fire and have to reload. Took them toe it reload the comanches would fill them with arrows. It was not an easy fight. Lordsmanches were called of the plains. They ruled the planes from colorado into texas for these many years. Jack had a Ranger Company that was one of the First Companies use themerican west to revolving pistol. It was a five shot pistol that samuel colt developed and then went broke. But jack hayes and his company of rangers got hold of them and use them to fight the comanches. Thats when the tide turned. No longer could the comanches and wait for the rangers others to fire their oneshot and have to reload. That began to turn the tide. Jack hayes is seen as one of the great ranger captains of all times. Fears, heve, he was was a terrific tactician, any also led some companies in the mexican war. 1846. Xican war was in the u. S. Invaded mexico and the went and joined the army to fight against mexico. They were, at that time, army soldiers. They stayed to themselves, they did not dress as army soldiers. They stayed dressed as rangers. I want to tell you a free passage from a book by a new englander called my confessions. Its a terrific book. He was from New Hampshire and boston and he encountered the rangers in the mexican war. He wrote, the rangers were the scouts of our army and a more reckless, the devil may care it would be impossible to find this side of the region, shirts black with grease and blood. Some wore red shirts, their trousers thrust into their high boots. All were armed with revolvers and bowie knives. Together with their bearded faces, lean and form and swaggering manners, they were fit representatives of the outlaws that made up the populations of the lone star state. Here it lone star state. Here is where the rangers made their reputation. The mexican war had a number of war correspondents recording what had happened. They ran outward by the rangers. They were enamored by the rangers. They saved a lot of american lives. They kept american soldiers from ambushes. They fought guerrilla warfare very effectively. They were extraordinary valuable to the u. S. Army. At the same time, they were noted for their atrocities. They took prisoners and they killed them. They often wiped out the civilians in the village for no reason except revenge. Grant, a later president who was then a lieutenant in the mexican war, wrote a letter to his wife to be. He wrote, about all of the texans seem to pick it perfectly right to impose upon a city of a conquered city to any extent, even to murder them where the act could be covered by the dark. How much they seemed to enjoy ask of violence. Acts of violence. Texas rangers in the mexican war came to be known as los diablos tehanos. They would tejanos. Feared the rangers because they are fighting their atrocities. Here is an engraving that shows Samuel Walker, and was on the horse and one of the most famous Texas Rangers fighting in the mexican war. This is the death of Samuel Walker in a village in mexico near the end of the war. He was not how he died, shot. It was a traumatic rendering of him being pierced with a lamp. Walker was one of the more via fight rangers vilified rangers. He was instrumental in perfecting the colt revolver into a six shooter. It became the gun that won the west. Samuel walker was a pioneer in that regard. T and col helped him work on this new gun. Texass pro state. Its before the civil war, its the 1860s. This is a cartoon that ran in harpers magazine called young texas in repose. The figure on top is texas with the scars, sharp teeth and the knife. , who sitting on a slave stabbed,ripped, shackled and abused. Texas was a slave state before the war. Texas ordered mexico and the underground ro road in Texas Railroad in texas ranch off to mexico. If you were a slave and wanted to escape, you probably ran to mexico. Once you got across the rio becauseou are free slavery was illegal in mexico at the time. Cases, had, in some slave hunting expeditions into mexico. They would go in, try to seize the slaves, bring the back across the border and sell them in texas. Hence this cartoon. Rangers did a lot of valuable things. John wesley hardin, one of the great gunslingers of the old west. Here is John Wesley Hardin as a dead man. The rangers did not kill him, they put him in prison where he learned to become a lawyer. He got out and practiced law and was shot to death in el paso by either a dissatisfied client or a lover. No one is quite sure. The rangers were in sure mental in capturing a number of bad guys, including hardin. Lets move to the 20th century. 1913, 1914, 1915 on the new mexico border, the Rio Grande Valley in texas. This is a post card at the time. The men on horseback and rangers. The men on the ground are dead mexican bandits. The rangers were sent to sell texas at the time because the border was in place of was a place of great violence and of people. There was a revolution going on in mexico. At the same time there was a land boom going on in texas. The rangers were sent to keep the peace. It meant that the rangers, depending upon your sores, killed a hundreds, maybe thousands of mexicans and mexican americans, including these for here. Some of them were bad guys, some of them were abandoneds. Many of them, hundreds of them were only mexicans are mexicanamericans who lived on land that the white people wanted. They sent the rangers into force them off the land. Sometimes that meant scaring them, sometimes that meant scaring them burning them out , sometimes that meant killing them. Rangers were known at the time as common man killers. They operated death squads. There is a list a list of people that the anglo powerful wanted dead, so they killed them. This was the point that the bygers became as feared mexicanamericans along the border as the kkk was feared in the deep south by black people. Terror to these people. Now to the anglo powerbrokers who want this land, they were a godsend. It depended on which side you are on. This is where the rangers got their reputation as a force of death along the mexican border. That is a reputation that has been impossible for them to shake. We will talk a little bit more about that when we get to the end. Ranger company around the turnofthecentury. Well armed with the texas flag flying in the background. Century the early 20th 450 lynchings in texas. Im 1885 to 1930. Most of them of black men. Some of them hispanic men and women. 1919, which was known as the red summer because of racial violence, Texas Rangers conspired with Police Chiefs and sheriffs in texas at the governors order to quash the civil rights of black people. They conspired to keep them from voting. They conspired to keep them from meeting to pursue their civil rights. They blocked their mail. They instructed local gunshot owners Gun Shop Owners not to sell them weapons. At keepingaimed black citizens of texas from exercising their civil rights. This picture is from 1930. In sherman, texas. The black man is in shackles and is named George Hughes. He was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. So he went to trial. This is him being led to the core house from the jail to the courthouse for the first day of his trial for assault. The rangers were brought in to protect him. For rangers. You may have heard the slogan one ranger, one riot. This was set by a ranger who showed up one day where there was a riot going on in the local Law Enforcement official said there is only one of you and the ranger allegedly said, you only have one riot. That never happened. Statues, a number of signs and monuments around texas that have the slogan, one riot, one ranger. Here is what happened. George smith is on trial for assaulting a white woman. First day of trial for rangers are there to protect him. This is insurance, texas. A farm town north of dallas. Formed outside the courthouse. A mob of white people. They decided to storm the courthouse to get George Hughes. They got to the second floor, which is where the trial was taking place. The rangers fired some shotgun shots at them and the mob are treated. The rangers thought they had it fixed. But then the mob set fire to the courthouse. Hughesgers locked george and ewald on the second floor to try to protect him. The courthouse was ablaze. Therangers climbed out second floor window of the courthouse. Got in a car and left town. The mob waited for the fire to burn out. Out fromGeorge Hughes the vault, through his body out the second floor window, drag it through the streets behind a car and hoisted it from a tree limb on a noose in the black part of town and set it on fire. That was your one riot, one ranger. This is indicative of the rangers problematic history with race. Here is one of the best examples. The man leaning up the tree is a banks. Named j he was sent to a town called mansfield, texas, which is between dallas and fort worth. The naacp, after brown v. Board of education was to integrate texas schools. Which were all white. They chose mansfield as the place to start. This is mansfield high school. ,hey arrived with a court order ordering local officials to enroll black students. The governor sent in the rangers to keep the peace. I know you have all seen pictures, and may be like me youre old enough to remember in places like arkansas and mississippi, federal troops in the National Guard were deployed to make sure that black students could enroll. We have seen the photographs and the famous Norman Rockwell painting of a black student being led past speeding and yelling mobs to enroll in school. The rangers were there to keep black children out of the school. You see there is a figure hanging from a noose. That is a black figure hanging in effigy over the school. Schoolormed outside the carrying a sign that said black children must die. Kill all blacks. It did not say blacks, you can imagine what it said. The rangers, under the governors orders, were ordered to prohibit black students from enrolling. They cited with the mob. J banks, because of that. Mansfield and a week later in texarkana, texas, because of this photograph, which circulated worldwide, became the of the opposition to integration in texas. This photograph ran in newspapers all across the country. A couple more things to talk about and then we will deal with the rangers in general. This is captain alfred ali who is a distinguished ranger in south texas. Was one of the toughest rangers ever. How do i know he was one of the toughest ever . Patroltexas firemen wrote his wife a traffic ticket for a burnt out tell i, he went light,a burnt out tail he went in and he said his wife was lying, so he pistol whipped the highway patrolman. He would pistol whip or slap you. That was how he handled people he did not like. There was a farm workers strike. They were hispanic and paid maybe . 50 an hour to pick melons. They lived in shacks. They had no medical care. To get water they had to bend down and drink the puddles from the ground. There were aligning themselves with cesar chavez forces out of california. The melon growers asked them to bring in the rangers. He did. The strike by harassing the strikebreakers by beating them, by arresting them for no reason. Inchesing their faces from speeding freight trains that were barreling through town. And they were successful. The rangers were strike rakers in many cases. They broke steelworkers strikes, coal miners strikes. Broke an at one point cowboy strike up in the panhandle of texas. This is one of the most famous in 1967 led by the captain. And later in several courts and the Supreme Court and findings from the civil rights commissions censored him. In his defense, he was just a man out of his past. He once said these doggone civil rights is the dammed thing i ever heard of. When he retired he was hailed as one of the greatest ranch captains ever. He settled back in his hometown of south texas. One day he went to the store to buy a jug of water. Up young hispanic clerk rang a price of 1. 75. The captain thought it should be 1. 45. He slapped the clerk and pulled his pistol on him. And it was the captain until the end. One more ranger anecdote. This is henry lee lucas. The most one time famous serial killer in American History. Mid was in the late 1970s, 1980s. , perhapsedly killed 300 people across the United States. This was a guy who only had one good eye, his right eye. He had an iq of about 85. He had a fifthgrade education. Yet, he was able to go all over the country killing hundreds of people, never leaving a single clue. Not a fingerprint, not a hair, not a shell casing that could be matched to him, not a tire track, nothing. Not a witness, ever. But the rangers had him in captivity. He began confessing to these crimes. Police officers would come in and all over the country lucas would confess to unsolved murders, so they would clear these murders. Every time they would clear a murder and confessed to a crime the rangers would put a pin and a map. They ran from coast to coast. From texas to canada to california from california to new england. Between 200 and 300 workers this. An confessed to killing the murders were attributed to him. A deadly is,ad most dangerous man in america in captivity. We are very proud of that. A lot of the rangers got a lot of glory out of that. 1985, the dallas newspaper ran an expose and showed that lucas could not have committed these murders. He may have committed three of them. His mother, his commonlaw wife and a woman he woke for he worked for. But evidence proved that he could not have been in these places when he claimed to have committed these murders