Rockdale, Texas: A Legacy of Discrimination and the Fight for Justice
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Rockdale, Texas: A Legacy of Discrimination and the Fight for Justice
By Rebecca Kay Bright
Lede:
In an era where debates over school curricula, LGBTQ+ rights, and historical memory dominate national discourse, Rockdale, Texas, stands as a poignant microcosm of America’s struggle with its legacy of discrimination. From the fires set beneath Black church roofs to the silent erasure of Jewish merchants, from medical neglect of transgender youth to a recent body-cam scandal, Rockdale’s history is not just a relic of the past—it is a mirror reflecting the injustices still at work in rural America.
The Terror After Emancipation: Lynching and Jim Crow in Milam County
Following the Civil War, violence against Black residents surged. Freedmen’s Bureau records from 1866 to 1872 documented over twenty “racial disturbances”: Black churches burned, families evicted by armed white posse for registering to vote, and night raids meant to silence resistance.
Dragged Through the Dirt: The Lynching of John Brown, 1898
On the evening of July 5, 1898, John Brown, a Black man in his early twenties, sat shackled in the Cameron City Jail—his crime unclear, his fate already sealed. Reports from The Cameron Herald described Brown as “accused of insulting a white woman,” a common, weaponized pretext used to justify racial terror during the post-Reconstruction era. No formal charges had been filed. No trial date was set. There was never going to be one.
Just after midnight, a mob of 40 to 50 white men, faces hidden beneath flour sacks and wide-brimmed hats, forced their way into the jail. The sheriff and jailer offered no resistance, either because they had been threatened or because they sympathized. The mob dragged Brown out of his cell and down the unpaved road that led from the jailhouse to the heart of downtown Cameron. There, they chained him to a wagon axle, as if preparing livestock for slaughter, and began to drag him down Main Street, his body scraping across the gravel, his limbs bloodied and breaking.
Some laughed. Some cursed. Others simply watched.
They stopped when they reached the old oak tree near the courthouse square. One man fired a shot into Brown’s back. Another spat on him. Then they hoisted his mangled body into the air and hung him from a low-hanging branch, leaving him there until sunrise.
There was no autopsy, no burial records, and his family—if he had any—was never notified. The Cameron Herald reported the next day, “Justice was swift,” suggesting the mob had performed a civic duty. No one was arrested. The oak tree remained, but John Brown's name faded from public memory until now.
The Silence of the Pole: The Lynching of Antonio Gómez
On the night of June 19, 1911, in the small town of Thorndale, Texas, just west of Rockdale, fourteen-year-old Antonio Gómez, a Mexican-American boy, was lynched by a mob of white men. His crime? Being brown, being poor, and allegedly defending himself against a white man in a confrontation that was never allowed to see a courtroom.
Gómez had been arrested earlier that day, accused of stabbing a local white employer during an altercation whose details remain buried under a century of hearsay. No investigation was completed. No legal representation was offered. He was thrown into the Thorndale jail, little more than a glorified shack with iron bars and rotting wood, and left alone.
By sundown, word had spread. A mob of around 30 white men, fathers, sons, farmers, businessmen, gathered outside. The sheriff made no stand. Some say he left the premises. Others say he was complicit. What is known is that the mob broke in, dragged the terrified boy from his cell, and marched him down the dusty main road of Thorndale in silence.
They didn’t stop until they reached the telephone pole by the depot, a landmark still standing today, though most in town have long forgotten-or choose not to remember what happened there. A rope was thrown over the crossbeam. Antonio was hanged before midnight. His body was left to sway into the morning, silhouetted against the Texas sunrise as a warning to others.
There was no trial. No autopsy. No death certificate listing the cause as murder. If they mentioned it at all, local newspapers buried the story under livestock prices and church announcements. The Austin Statesman referred to the killing as “mob justice,” and the matter was laid to rest—not in a courtroom, but in silence.
To this day, there is no marker where Antonio Gómez died, no plaque, and no grave with his name etched in stone. The pole may still stand, but the silence surrounding it is perhaps the most damning legacy of all.
The Cottonwood Execution: The Lynching of Will Jones, 1926
Will Jones, a Black sharecropper in his thirties, lived on the outskirts of Rockdale with his wife and two children. He was known for being quiet, hard-working, and reserved. In August of 1926, a white landowner accused him of “stealing chickens”—another well-worn excuse for white vigilantes to enforce racial dominance. There was no proof, just an accusation.
Jones was taken into custody by Milam County deputies and held briefly at the Rockdale substation. But before he could be transported for arraignment, a group of armed white men arrived at the jailhouse, demanding “justice.”
Unlike earlier decades, the mob didn’t bother hiding their faces. They acted in daylight. The deputies opened the cell. Jones, sensing what was coming, begged for his life, reportedly saying, “Please, let me see my babies again.” His words were ignored.
The mob dragged him to the cottonwood tree behind the sheriff’s residence, a known lynching site whispered about in the Black community. There, they beat him with fence rails—not for minutes, but nearly an hour. A former janitor at the jail, interviewed decades later, described it as “like someone was chopping wood and wouldn’t stop.”
After the beating, Jones was shot multiple times—once in the head, twice in the chest—and hanged from the tree, his broken body swaying for hours. White families came to gawk. Children were told, “That’s what happens when you cross the line.” No medical examiner was called. The coroner signed off on the death as “unspecified trauma.”
The sheriff claimed “unknown parties” had committed the act. The local paper barely mentioned his name. His wife disappeared from public records after the event. Some say she fled north with their children under the cover of night. Others say she went mad with grief.
Aycock High: Separate and Unequal
Aycock High School was built in 1951 as a “modern” school for Black students, but its facilities told another story. By 1960, only 12 percent of students had access to science labs. Gym equipment consisted of two deflated balls and a warped backboard. Between 1951 and 1971, just 78 Black seniors graduated—an average of four per year, compared to 45–60 white graduates annually. Literacy scores in 1970 showed Black students performing 28 percent below the state average.
Mary Louise Carter, a former teacher, remembered, “One year, the only copy of the biology book arrived in April—and they still docked our budget.” It wasn’t until 1968, 17 years after Brown v. Board of Education, that a NAACP lawsuit, Davis v. Rockdale ISD, forced desegregation.
No Entry, No Access: Rockdale’s Public Spaces and the Architecture of Exclusion
Discrimination in Rockdale was not always shouted. It lived in the cracks of sidewalks, the weight of locked doors, and the silence of those who looked away. Well into the 1970s, the Rockdale post office remained a stronghold of segregation, despite federal mandates intended to dismantle such systems. African American residents were forced to enter through a decaying side door, one that often reeked of mildew and opened into a cramped, unventilated alcove. The primary lobby—with its polished tile and brass service windows—was for white patrons only.
Black customers were routinely denied access to post office boxes, and their mail was frequently delayed or "misplaced." Even routine transactions like buying stamps or sending registered mail were intentionally difficult. “We had to wait outside for the white folks to finish before we could even step in,” said lifelong Rockdale resident Elnora Bradley, who was born in 1943 and remembered vividly the humiliation of standing in the heat with her grandmother, waiting while others cut ahead.
In one incident from 1965, documented in the Milam County NAACP archives, an elderly Black veteran was refused assistance when trying to file for benefits. The clerk behind the window told him to “go back out and use the colored door,” despite his cane and failing eyesight. The man turned and left. His papers were later found in the trash.
Even after legal segregation ended on paper, the post office failed to comply with basic accessibility standards. There was no wheelchair ramp or accessible entrance until the early 2000s. Disabled veterans, elderly residents, and wheelchair users—regardless of race—were forced to wait on the sidewalk and hand their documents to strangers going inside. Local disability rights advocates filed a formal complaint in 2005 with Disability Rights Texas, citing not just physical barriers but a pattern of dismissive, hostile service toward both Black and disabled patrons. The U.S. Department of Justice quietly settled the matter with an agreement for retrofitting, but no public apology was ever issued. For many, the damage was already done.
Rockdale’s parks told the same story. In Colonial Park, Black families were prohibited from using the picnic tables or playground equipment. They were allowed only in the unshaded, weedy section along the creek, where benches were often broken and no trash cans were provided. In the late 1950s, a Black family from nearby Minerva attempted to host a birthday party in the main park area. A white city employee dumped their cake and sandwiches into the trash and told them to “take your party where it belongs.”
At the Strand Theatre, Black moviegoers were corralled into the upper balcony, accessible only by a narrow side staircase next to the alley trash bins. They were required to pay in advance, were not allowed to return if they needed the restroom, and were barred from the concession stand altogether. Local teens recall sneaking friends up the back stairwell in defiance, only to be kicked out when ushers did a sweep with flashlights.
Inside city government offices, discrimination remained entrenched long after civil rights legislation passed. Black residents were made to wait in separate lines. They were told they needed additional paperwork, additional witnesses, or simply told to “come back another day.” According to a 1971 complaint submitted to the Texas Commission on Human Rights, a young Black mother attempting to apply for a business permit was asked if she could “read the forms by herself,” then refused a chair while waiting with her toddler.
"Whites Only" signs came down slowly, reluctantly, and without fanfare. Some were simply painted over. Others were peeled off and thrown in dumpsters behind the courthouse. By the time federal civil rights enforcement arrived in Rockdale in the late 1960s, most of the damage was already cultural, emotional, and generational. People had learned where they could go, where they could not, and how long they had to wait to be seen.
“We knew our place,” said Eddie Booker, a retired teacher from Aycock High. “And that place was behind everyone else.”
It wasn’t just what was said aloud. It was what was allowed to happen in silence. It was the slow erosion of trust in every public space that claimed to serve all but truly belonged to only some.
The Jewish Community and B’nai B’rith: From Thriving to Erased
In the late 1800s, Jewish settlers in Rockdale were visible and vital to the town’s growth. They operated general stores, pharmacies, and dry goods businesses, frequently donating to schools, charities, and community relief efforts. The B’nai B’rith lodge, chartered in 1887, served as a hub of civic leadership, hosting educational lectures and charity drives. Established in 1878, a Jewish cemetery remains one of the few surviving markers of their once-vibrant presence.
But by the 1890s, antisemitic sentiment had begun to take root, fueled by national conspiracies and local economic anxiety. Anonymous leaflets circulated between 1892 and 1895 warned residents not to “trade with the kikes.” Bricks were thrown through windows. Local white supremacist groups quietly organized business boycotts. Social ostracism became routine.
In 1899, the B’nai B’rith lodge hall was burned under suspicious circumstances. No investigation followed. Around the same time, prominent store owner Isaac Rosenfeld was punched, kicked, and spat upon in broad daylight. His granddaughter later shared a letter he wrote: “Daddy said, ‘We are not safe here anymore. The town that welcomed us now spits on us.”
By 1905, nearly every Jewish family had sold their property and fled. The synagogue closed. No arrests were made. No property was ever returned. And no hate-crime charges were filed.
Forgotten Scholars: The Boys Home and Rockdale High, 1993–1998
For the boys living at the Mary Rose Home on FM 908, wards of the state, too old for foster placement and too young to be discarded, school represented more than just education. It was a chance at legitimacy, a sliver of belonging in a world that had already written them off. Many came from abusive homes. Some were Black, some white, some Latino, and at least one was Asian. By the mid-1990s, a few had managed the near-impossible: they made the A Honor Roll at Rockdale High.
In 1995–96, several received formal invitations to the school’s Honor Roll Breakfast, proving their hard work had finally been seen. They came to school that morning in borrowed dress clothes and clean shoes, some nervous, some proud. But as they approached the event, they were met by a wall, not metaphorical, but human. Vice Principal Alan Saunders stood before the entrance, arms crossed, face tight with contempt.
“THEY are not welcome,” he drawled, blocking the doorway with his body.
“I was there,” said Rebecca Bright, a fellow student and eyewitness. “I watched my friends, who had worked their asses off, who were proud of those grades, get talked down to and turned away like they were trash.”
Bright challenged him: “Why not? They showed me their grades and they got straight A’s AND the invite to the Honor Roll Breakfast—same as me. And you know he,” she said, pointing to the boys’ social worker, “wouldn’t have brought them up here just to be humiliated and bullied by you if they weren’t eligible.”
“I don’t want these little criminals in here with people going places,” Saunders said coldly.
No one intervened. Not the teachers who had praised the boys’ turnaround. Not the staff member who stood beside them in silence. The boys didn’t fight back. They just turned around, their heads low, retreating from that breakfast and the illusion that this town would ever fully accept them.
The school never addressed the incident. Those boys, like so many before them, were erased not for failing but for daring to succeed.
LGBTQ+ Persecution: Michael’s Story, Ben’s Tragedy, Tesia’s Loss, and Ongoing Legal Battles
In 1995, Michael, a 17-year-old transgender boy, was admitted to Milam County Hospital after a car accident on FM 487. Instead of receiving immediate care, Michael was misgendered by ER staff and mocked openly by nurses and technicians. His intake paperwork was “corrected” to list his deadname, which resulted in a delay of over 45 minutes in administering pain medication and treatment. A whistleblower nurse recounted:
“They laughed at him in the halls, called him slurs. The administration did nothing when complaints were filed.”
Michael's condition worsened due to complications from the delay. His parents, horrified, removed him from the facility against medical advice and transported him to Austin. Michael survived but dropped out of school shortly after, suffering from PTSD and depression. No disciplinary action was taken against the staff involved.
In 2003, Ben Brownlee, a 15-year-old gay teenager from Rockdale, died by suicide after enduring relentless homophobic bullying at school. Despite his mother's repeated pleas to school officials, no substantial action was taken to address the harassment. Following his death, the Rockdale police failed to conduct a thorough investigation, neglecting to collect potential evidence or order an autopsy. The lack of accountability and acknowledgment from both the school and law enforcement highlighted a systemic failure to protect vulnerable students.
That same year, Tesia Samara, a 15-year-old transgender girl from Rockdale, also died by suicide after facing persistent bullying and a lack of support. Tesia had recently begun hormone replacement therapy and was exploring her gender identity with hope for the future. However, the hostility and isolation she experienced in her community became overwhelming. Classmates reported that Tesia was assaulted by football players who urinated on her the day of her suicide. Tesia hung herself at home.
To this day, Rockdale lacks local ordinances protecting LGBTQA+ individuals from discrimination in housing, employment, or healthcare. Public records show no Pride events, no affirming clinics, and no openly LGBTQA+ elected officials. The silence has become institutional.
Legal battles have also been waged by transgender individuals facing discrimination. In a landmark case, Lopez v. River Oaks Imaging & Diagnostic Group, Izza Lopez, a transgender woman from Texas, filed a federal lawsuit after a job offer was rescinded due to her gender identity. The court ruled that Lopez had a viable claim of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, marking a significant step forward in recognizing the rights of transgender individuals in the workplace.
Faith Under Fire: Anti-Catholic Zoning and Terror
Long before religious freedom became a pillar of American civic identity, Catholic families in Rockdale, Texas, were treated with open suspicion and institutional contempt. When Irish and German immigrants arrived in the late 19th century, many of them were laborers drawn by railroad construction or miners working the lignite fields; they brought their faith with them. However, in a town shaped by Protestant hegemony, Catholicism was not welcomed. It was feared.
In 1880, the Catholic community of Rockdale pooled what little money they had to construct St. Joseph’s Mission Church, a modest wooden chapel just beyond the city’s legal border. The placement was not by choice. Church leaders had petitioned the city council to annex the land into Rockdale proper so the parish could receive basic infrastructure and municipal support, including water access, fire protection, and road maintenance. Their request was swiftly denied. Meeting records from that year, now held at the Milam County Courthouse archive, document a comment from one alderman: “We must not allow Popery to take root within our limits.”
The church was forced to operate outside the boundary, both geographically and symbolically. And in the summer of 1924, that boundary was violently enforced. On July 4, 1924, townspeople awoke to find Ku Klux Klan pamphlets scattered across front yards and posted on trees throughout Rockdale. The message was clear. “True Americans do not bow to Rome. Catholics go home or else.” That same morning, as families prepared for Independence Day parades and picnics, a group of riders on horseback approached St. Joseph’s.
According to oral histories passed down through parish families and partially recorded in the Central Texas Catholic Archive’s 1986 “Witnesses of the Cross” project, the men wore white hoods and carried torches. They drove stakes into the lawn in front of the chapel and erected a wooden cross. Then they set it ablaze in broad daylight, just steps from the sanctuary entrance. No fire crew responded. No police report was filed. No names were taken.
Inside the church, Michael O’Donnell, a former railroad worker and one of the parish deacons, gathered his wife and two children and ushered them into the rectory, bolting the doors. “My father slipped in at dawn, fearing they’d burn us out,” recalled his granddaughter, Nora Kathleen O’Donnell, in a 1991 interview. “He carried a hammer in one hand and rosary beads in the other. We stayed locked inside for two days with the curtains drawn.”
Another parishioner, Maria Elizondo, whose family fled religious persecution in Mexico during the Cristero War, told a 1993 oral history researcher, “They called us idol worshippers. They said we drank blood in our rituals. I was eight years old and thought they might come in the night and kill our priest.”
Throughout that summer, Catholic residents of Rockdale reported harassment, threats, and vandalism. Statues of saints were smashed. Prayer candles were stolen or urinated on. Latin inscriptions on hymnals were scrawled over with slurs. Students at the nearby public school were mocked for making the sign of the cross before meals. At least one family had their mailbox set on fire.
The Diocese of Austin, which would not be formally established until 1947, sent a visiting priest to assess the situation in the fall of 1924. In correspondence now housed at St. Mary’s Seminary Archive in Houston, he wrote, “I find a parish under siege. The sheriff is sympathetic to the agitators. The people fear even attending Mass. The terror is silent, but total.”
No arrests were made. No suspects were questioned. And no apology, official or otherwise, was ever issued by city officials.
St. Joseph’s remained outside city limits for decades. Though the church was eventually rebuilt in stone in the mid-20th century, many older families had long since relocated to Austin or Temple. The church cemetery still holds the bones of those early Catholics. But no historical marker speaks of the July 4th burning, the threats, or the frightened children praying in darkened rectory rooms.
For Rockdale’s Catholic community, faith was not just a private matter. It was an act of courage, practiced beneath the shadow of hoods and flames.
Police Harassment and Modern Racism: A Continuing Legacy
In 2022, bodycam footage surfaced showing Officer Kevin Saunders calling Marcus Reed, a 26-year-old Black man, “boy” and using racial slurs during what should have been a routine traffic stop for a broken taillight. Saunders accused Reed of “looking suspicious” and ordered him out of the car at gunpoint without cause. Though the footage clearly showed Reed complying calmly, he was arrested for “resisting.”
The video went viral after being leaked by an anonymous dispatcher. Protests erupted outside Rockdale City Hall. The NAACP and Texas Civil Rights Project launched an investigation, and under pressure, Saunders was suspended, not fired. City officials initially claimed the footage was “taken out of context.”
Reed’s civil suit, Reed v. City of Rockdale, alleges not just racial profiling and excessive force, but systemic failures: complaints against Saunders going back five years, bodycams being selectively edited, and retaliatory behavior against officers who spoke out.
That lawsuit remains active today, and Rockdale’s police department has yet to issue an apology.
Call to Action:
Rockdale's history is not an isolated tale but a reflection of broader societal issues that persist today. The stories of Michael, Ben, Tesia, and Marcus are not just personal tragedies but indictments of systemic failures. As debates over educational content and civil rights continue, it's imperative to confront and learn from these histories. Communities must advocate for inclusive policies, support marginalized groups, and ensure that such injustices are neither forgotten nor repeated.
References:
The Death of Ben Brownlee - The Austin Chronicle
Equality Texas's post - Facebook
Mom's Story 1 — PFLAG Austin https://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/2004-02-04/195771/
Federal judge expands ruling to limit LGBTQ protections - The Texas Tribune texastribune.org/2024/08/14/federal-title-ix-ruling-lgbtq-protections
Texas legislators' relentless political attacks make Texas unsafe for LGBTQ+ people - HRC https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/texas-legislators-relentless-political-attacks-make-texas-unsafe-for-lgtbq-people