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Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have made vital contributions to our state's history, infrastructure and culture, however, much of that history has been overlooked or forgotten, so we're shining a light on a lost history.
The most dynamic freedom celebration in Texas, begun in the nineteenth century, returns to life.
Mike Hall writes about criminals, musicians, the law, and barbecue. Mike graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1979 with a degree in government. He wrote for various publications, including Trouser Press, Third Coast Magazine, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Austin Chronicle. In 1997 he joined Texas Monthly, where he has won two Texas Gavel Awards from the State Bar of Texas and four Stephen Philbin Awards from the Dallas Bar Association. He was named Writer of the Year at the City and Regional Magazine Awards in 2015. His stories have appeared in The Best American Magazin...
The Ghosts of Comanche Crossing In 1981 three Black teenagers drowned while in law enforcement custody during a Juneteenth gathering at Lake Mexia. Four decades later, Texas’s proudest Emancipation Day celebration still hasn’t recovered. Lake Mexia, seen from Booker T. Washington Park, known locally as Comanche Crossing, on April 21, 2021. Photograph by Michael Starghill Every Juneteenth, as soon as Pamela Baker got to Booker T. Washington Park, she’d race to the merry-go-round, squeeze through the swarm of shrieking kids, grab one of the shiny rails, and hold on tight. After a few min...
Illustration by Jamiel Law In the historic Black neighborhood where I grew up in Dallas, a parade would roll off the lot of New Mount Zion Baptist Church on June 19, or the Saturday closest to it, and wend its way through a community where many of the streets were named for institutions and people central to Black history: Oberlin and Ebony. Bellafonte and Dandridge. Bunche and Campanella. Neighborhood celebrities—entrepreneurs, student body presidents, and original homeowners, or “pioneers,” as we called them—would ride like homecoming kings and queens atop convertibles. When the Ju...