The live burning of Jesse Washington is a birthmark on the face of Waco, Texas 100 years later

The live roasting death of 17-year-old Jesse Washington in Waco, 1916. Vigilante instigators hold two chains around his neck as the bloodthirsty mob look on like they are watching a horror movie. No one stepped in to stop the outdoor execution.

Once upon a time acts of violence against Black people were so horrendous and characteristically faithful in White America’s DNA that Black folks were scared 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The fear pushed them into hiding inside their houses, churches, sometimes slipping out of town in the quiet of night. There were no magic stairs for them to climb in their quest to escape their imprisonment. Even after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing African slaves from bondage, the sun did not shine any brighter for them.

Life for the freed Africans was akin to psychological robbery of their souls; deliberate vandalism of their well-being. Fear and death were constant companions. They did not know how or when they would be selected to die at the hands of bogarting Whites who acted with impunity, because White privilege allowed them the luxury to kill Black folks at will. Inbred panic and adopted expectations of serious harm and death never took vacations in the lives of the newly emancipated slaves regardless of age.

John Dollard, a psychologist and social scientist studied race relations in America. In his 1937 book “Caste and Class in a Southern Town”, Dollard collected data on Southern states. He discovered: “Every Negro in the South knows that he is under a kind of sentence of death; he does not know when his turn will come, it may never come, but it may also be at any time”.

The author of an editorial published in The Waco Iconoclast did not pretend to be race friendly. William Cowper Brann parted with this biting proposal on how to eradicate southern states of Black males suspected of "spoiling" White women. “If the South is ever going to rid herself of the negro rape fiend, she must take a day off and kill every member of the accused race that declines to leave the country”.

In Texas between 1885 and 1942 there were 468 lynchings, of which 339 were Blacks; 77 Whites; 53 Hispanics, and one Indian. Texas was the third state in line behind Georgia and Mississippi in hangings. The heaviest concentration of vigilante hoodlumism occurred along the Brazos River, from Waco to the Gulf of Mexico. Waco was the county seat of McLennan County. In 1916 lynching was a violation in Texas, but White lynch mobs did not acknowledge the violation.

The resurrection of Jesse Washington

The resurrection of Jesse Washington’s lynching suddenly reappeared in the spotlight in 2001; first locally and then nationally. ABC’s Ted Kopple aired an 85^th anniversary special on lynchings in America. One guest was James Allen, author of “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography In America”, a heart wrenching pictorial history of lynched men and women, the majority being African Americans. Sometimes four or five victims were lynched simultaneously from bridges, trees, utility poles, any place the mobs could throw a rope on.

After researching lynchings in America, it was difficult to choose a particular incident to write about. All of the compassionless deaths were ugly, reprehensible and inhumane. While looking at James Allen’s book I decided on 17-year old Jesse Washington. His death was, and still is a gigantic birthmark on the face of Waco, Texas. Washington’s short life was a tale of racism, terror, ambitious politicians, mob schizophrenia, unbridled, racial hatred and hostility. Waco citizens today are striving to erase the notorious horror story bearing their state’s name 100 years later. But the barbarity of Jesse Washington’s death refuses to die or disappear. His fire roasted ghost hovers Waco like a dark cloud. The historical pictures will never vanish.

Lynching and burning at the stake were once absolute entertainment for blood thirsty despots in Texas and nationwide. Black folks did not have to be guilty of a crime to be executed by lynch ready mobs. They were always subjected to getting labeled “criminal.” Mere suspicion of committing a crime led to an automatic death sentence. A “crime” was whatever a White man, woman or mob wanted it to be. When a single hanging or multiple hangings occurred, Black victims were sadistically taunted, body parts butchered and sold for souvenirs. They were tortured and tormented for hours before death took mercy on them.

Jesse Washington lived with his mother, father, several sister and brothers. Born in 1899, Washington and lived in Robinson, Texas, a rural community. The Crisis magazine, in a story titled “The Waco Horror”, Washington was described as a “big, well developed fellow, but ignorant, barely unable to either read or write. He seemed to have been sullen, and perhaps mental deficient, with a strong, and even daring temper”.

A farmhand, Washington’s troubles commenced when he was arrested for the beating death of Lucy Fryar (or Fryer), 53, wife and mother of two. He worked for George and Lucy Fryar on their farm in Robinson. Returning from the field one afternoon Fryar’s daughter discovered her mother’s lifeless body inside the farm’s seed shed. Lucy Fryar had been bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Suspicion fingers pointed the sheriff and his posse toward Washington, who was immediately arrested and booked.

After Washington was tried and lynched the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) secretary Royal Nash commissioned suffragist Elisabeth Freeman to investigate the Waco Horror. She was to write a report and obtain photos if any were available. “Will you not get the facts for us”? Nash asked in a letter to Freeman. “Your suffrage work will probably give you an excuse for being in Waco”. Freeman spent a week in Waco interviewing city officials, citizens, politicians, witnesses to the lynching, read newspapers, interviewed editors, the Washington and Fryar families, and neighbors. 

The ex-mayor of Waco, Allan Stanford, Sheriff Fleming and Judge Munroe cut a deal before the trail. The mayor sought reassurances from Robinson officials that Washington would not be lynched. “They shut the mouths of the better element of Waco by telling them that the Robinson people had promised not to do it. . . . But they did not get the pledge from the disreputable bunch of Waco that they would not start the affair”, writes Elisabeth Freeman, commissioned investigator/reporter for the NAACP.

 The Killing of Lucy Fryar (also Fryer)

Lucy Fryer (Fryar)

Elisabeth Freeman wrote: “On Monday, May 8, while Mr. Fryar, his son of fourteen, and his daughter of twenty-four were hoeing cotton in one part of their farm; the boy, Jesse, was plowing with his mules and sowing cotton seed near the house where Mrs. Fryar was alone. He went to the house for more cotton seed. As Mrs. Fryar was scooping it up for him into the bag which he held, she scolded him for beating the mules. He knocked her down with a blacksmith hammer, and as he had confessed, criminally assaulted her; finally he killed her with the hammer.

“The boy then returned to the field, finished his work, and went home to the cabin, where he lived with his father and mother and several brothers and sisters. When the murdered woman was discovered, suspicion pointed to Jesse Washington, who was found sitting in his yard whittling a stick. He was arrested and immediately taken to jail in Waco. Tuesday a mob visited the jail. They came in about thirty automobiles, each holding as many as he could crowd in. There was no noise, no tooting of horns, the car lights were dimmed, and some had no lights at all.

“These were all Robinson people. They looked for the boy, but could not find him, for he had been taken to a neighboring county where the sheriff obtained a confession from him. Another mob went to the county seat to get the boy, but he was again removed to Dallas. Finally the Robinson people pledged themselves not to lynch the boy if the authorities acted promptly, and if the boy would waive his legal rights. A second confession in which the boy waived all his legal rights was attained in the Dallas jail. The Grand Jury indicted him on Thursday, and the case was set for trial Monday, May 15”.

Jumping ahead of the bloodthirsty miscreants intent on killing Washington, Sheriff Fleming transferred him from Dallas to Waco around midnight on a Sunday. He was “secreted to the office of the judge. There was not the slightest doubt that he would be tried and hanged the next day, if the law took its course. There was little doubt of his guilt. The confession was obtained, of course, under duress, and was, perhaps, suspiciously clear, and not entirely in the boy’s own words. It seems, however, probably that the boy was guilty of murder, and possibly of the premeditated rape”.

In Freeman’s report she revealed that Waco politicians demanded a hanging, because there “was a political value to the county officials who are running for office.  All the elected element who took part in the lynching will vote for the Sheriff. The Judge is of value to his party because he appoints the three commissioners of the jury, and these commissioners pick the Grand Jury”.

The characters in question are Judge R. I. Munroe, who presided over Washington’s trial and Sheriff S.  Fleming, who arrested him. Fleming was up for re-election and “has made much political capital out of the lynching”, wrote Freeman, adding that he had a “beautiful story to tell”.  When Fleming told his story he put all blame for the lynching on the shoulders of Judge Munroe. In a later interview with the Judge, Freeman asked why he did not seek a change of venue to avoid trouble. He told her she did not know the South, and that a change of venue would not stop a mob. “A mob anywhere would have done the same thing”.

Waco courtroom filled to capacity on judgment day

Before the trial had begun a thrill seeking mob poured into Waco anticipating a cinematic showdown. They were ready and prepared to make the verdict happen. A Black man accused of killing and raping a White woman. Only one verdict and one sentence was acceptable: Guilty. Death by hanging. Or chained and roasted over a bonfire. Or both.

The Waco 54^th District Court’s capacity was 500, but Judge Munroe allowed 1,500 spectators to squeeze into the courtroom. News reports stated that the courtroom was so packed “the jurors could scarcely get in and out of their seats”. On Monday, May 15, 1916 the kangaroo trial began at 11 a.m. By 11:22 a.m. the foreman, W. B. Brazelton, read the verdict: Guilty. The decision was made by 12 White male jurors, one of whom “was a convicted murderer with a suspended sentence over him”. The doctor who examined Lucy Fryar’s (Fryer’s) head wounds, assessed that she had been raped, but he did not testify to the rape at the trial. Washington’s court appointed lawyer did not put on a defense, nor did he challenge the prosecutor. There are no reports that the state presented exhibits or damning evidence such as a bloody hammer, bloody clothes worn by Washington.  

It seems that Washington knew a lynch mob was going to steal him life. “The boy, Jesse Washington, was asked what he thought about them coming after him. He said, ‘They promised they would not if I would tell them about it. He seemed not to care, but was thoroughly indifferent’”, wrote Freeman, repeating a newspaper account.

Some spectators entered the courtroom armed with guns and other weapons, ready for action. According to Freeman, “A door which opened by a peculiar device had been fixed so that it would open”.  Before the verdict was completely recorded Washington was grabbed by a herd of homicidal vigilantes, and dragged out the back door of the courthouse. A large crowd was waiting for Washington’s delivery to the alley. The Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune noted what happened in the courtroom. “Then the tall man started over the heads of the crowd. Fred H. Kingsbury, who was standing alongside of Judge Munroe”.

Bloodthirsty mob of Whites from Waco and Robinson
County gather for the lynching.

Freeman reiterated what she read in a news reports: “A big fellow in the back of the courtroom yelled, ‘Get the Nigger’! Barney Goldberg, one of the deputy sheriffs, told me that he did not know that Fleming had dropped orders to let them get the Negro, and pulled his revolver. Afterwards he got his friends to swear to an affidavit that he was present”.

In an interview with the court stenographer Freeman learned that “there was a full minute” before all hell broke loose in the courtroom. “The people crowded around him and he knew what was coming, so he slipped out the back door with his records. Sheriff Fleming slipped out also”. Goldberg had a reason to lie. If Fleming did not win re-election he would be unemployed. He said the sheriff’s rival was “unable to read and write”. However, being illiterate was not a disqualifier. Fleming’s opponent had “three dead niggers to his credit”, and that appeared to outweigh reading and writing.

When Freeman got a chance to interview Fleming she asked him where he and the fifty deputies was when Washington was kidnapped from the courtroom. Fleming asked her, “Would you want to protect a nigger”? He told her that all he was “called upon to do in the way of protecting the boy was to get him to court”. He told her that Judge Munroe made no effort to stop the mob, although he had firearms in his desk in the courtroom.

The Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune wrote when the chain thrown around Washington broke, one of the instigators stepped forward. “The big fellow took the chain off the Negro under the cover of the crowd and wound it around his wrist so that the crowd jerking the chain was jerking at the man’s wrist and he was holding the boy. The boy shrieked and struggled”. An estimated 15,000 from Waco and Robinson attended the burning.

Freeman learned that “the mob ripped off the boy’s clothes, cut them in bits and even cut the boy. Someone cut his ear off; someone else unsexed him. A little girl working for Goldstein Mingle Department Store told me that she saw this done”.  The “little girl” was an adult manicurist. She witnessed the castration of Washington while looking out the store’s window. Although Freeman reported that names of the primary instigators were known to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization refused to make the names known to the public unless it received an “application responsible parties”. After learning who the ringleaders were Freeman set out to prove they were the mob participants in Gildersleeve’s photos. The five were identified by people who knew them. Their faces are prominent in the photos.

To get a feel for the distance Washington was dragged before he was lynched, Freeman wrote:  “I went over the route the boy had been taken and saw that they dragged him between a quarter-and-a-half-mile from the court house to the bridge and then dragged him two blocks and another block over to the City Hall. After they had gotten up to the bridge, someone said that a fire was already going up at City Hall, and they turned around and went back. Several people denied that this fire was going, but the photograph allows that it was”.

Lynching takes place under mayor’s window at City Hall

The live roasting of
Jesse Washington.

The Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune describe the mob’s gathering of materials to start a bonfire, and setting Washington’s body afire. “A huge dry goods box was then produced and filled to the top with all kinds of the material that had been secured. The Negro’s body was swaying in the air, and all of the time a noise of thousands was heard and the Negro’s body was lowered into the box. No sooner had his body touched the box than people pressed forward, each eager to be the first to light the fire. And as the smoke rapidly rose in the air, such a demonstration as of people gone mad was never heard before. Everybody pressed closer to get souvenirs of the affair. When they had finished with the Negro his body was mutilated.

“He tried to get away, but could not. He reached up to grab the chain and they cut off his fingers. The big man struck the boy on the back of the neck with a knife just as they were pulling him up on the tree. Mr. Lester thought this was this was practically the death blow. He was lowered into the fire several times by means of the chain around his neck. Someone said they estimate the boy had about twenty-four stab wounds, none of them death-dealing.

 “When the Negro was first hoisted into the air his tongue protruded from his mouth and his face was smeared with blood. Life was not extinct within the Negro’s body, although nearly so. When another chain was placed around his neck and thrown over the limb of a tree on the lawn, everybody was trying to get to the Negro and have some part of his death. . . . As rapidly as possible the Negro was then jerked into the air at which time shouts from thousands of throats went upon the morning air”.

“Mr. Lester” was believed to be the father of the woman who observed the castration of Washington. Freeman wrote that Lester had climbed up a tree to watch the lynching. “He had seen the mob cut off Washington’s fingers and saw the blow to the back of his head by the big man that probably finished him off”.

The live roasting of Washington took place close to City Hall, under the window Mayor Dollins. Standing at the window watching the tragedy unfold were the mayor, chief of Police Guy McNamara and local photographer Fred Gildersleeve. He had been told by telephone that Washington was going to be lynched. Spectators were also watching from windows in nearby buildings, and from trees. Mayor Dollins was reportedly more concerned about destruction of the tree than burning the life out of Jesse Washington.

Whereas he took photos of the mob and the lynching/burning, Gildersleeve did not take any photos of Washington’s before his death. There is a mind-staining photo of the teenager’s naked body splayed in a grotesque pose atop the fire. The chain is around his neck, one leg is partially on the ground. The majority all-male posse of hooligans calmly watched Washington’s lowered body, undisturbed by the tragedy they helped perpetuate. 

Observing Jesse Washington hanged and roasted alive, dying an undignified death, the frenzied clan

Charred body of Washington raised up 
for the mob to cheer his death.

of masochists were not ssatisfied. They heaped more acts of violence upon Washington’s charred body. Someone lassoed his torso, threw the rope over a saddled horse, and dragged the corpse through the streets of Waco. ** I am going to take poetic license and say the body was likely dragged a short distance rather than the streets of Waco. It might have been within the square around the court house. 

Waco Times Herald reported: “The body of the Negro was burned to a crisp, and was left for some time in the smoldering remains of the fire. Women and children were who decided to view the scene were allowed to do so, the crowds parting to let them look at the scene.  After some time the body of the Negro was jerked into the air where everybody could view the remains, and mighty shouts rose in the air. The torso was taken to Robinson, hung on a tree, and shown off for a while, then they too it back down again and dragged it back to town and put it back on the fire again at five o’clock”.

Freeman learned that as Washington’s torso was dragged behind a horse, “limbs dropped off and the head was put on the stoop of a disresputable woman in the reservation district. Some little boys pulled out the teeth and sold them for five dollars apiece. The chain link was sold for five cents a link”.  ** “disresputable” and “reservation district” suggests a house of prostitution in a red light district or neighborhood.

The brutal execution of Washington was memorialized on 5.5x3.5 post cards, made available by Gildersleeve. Countless post cards displaying the appalling photos were sold in Waco. One postcard mailed to a father from his son said: “This is the barbecue we had last night. My picture is on the left with a cross over it. Your son, Joe”.

When Elisabeth Freeman requested photos from the Waco photographer he was reluctant to provide copies to her. He wrote a note to the Waco Times Herald, telling the paper why he would no longer sell the photos. “We have quit selling the mob photos, this step was taken because our ‘city dads’ objected on the grounds of ‘bad publicity’ as we wanted to be boosters and not knockers. We agreed to stop all sale’”.

A Houston Chronicle and Herald editorial dated May 24, 1916, observed: “The sovereignty of the great State of Texas, the constituted authority of the United States, have been defied and outraged in order that an angry mob might make the last few moments of a Negro, already condemned to death, more horrible than the law decrees; so horrible indeed that no respectable citizen of this state will lower himself to declare them unjustified. It is so bad that silence must be maintained even though that silence amounts to perjury. It is so bad that thousands must lie. Remember this was not in the dead of night; not a secretly planned affair; not an assault on an unprepared jail. It was in the daytime, in the court house, in open and deliberate defiance of law and order. To burn a human is a horrible thing”.

In 2006 an interracial organization gathered at the Waco court house steps to read a resolution condemning the lynching of Jesse Washington, and to apologize for the century old tragedy. Whereas the group agreed that the lynching should be acknowledged, the majority of Waco citizens, Black and White, did not want to be reminded of 1916. They preferred that Washington’s ghost stay in its unmarked grave, hidden from Waco, history and the world.

Roland R. Fryer, the 75-year-old grandson of Lucy Fryer, did not approve of any recognition of the “Waco Horror” or Jesse Washington. He said it a “stupid idea to put up a monument to a Black man who killed my grandmother”.

Jesse Washington, author and sportswriter for “The Undefeated”, who was named after the deceased teenager, said he learned about Washington a decade ago. He set out on a personal journey to discover what happen to young Jesse Washington. He traveled to Waco, where he interviewed several people, including politicians. His last interview was with relatives of the dead teenager.

Teen's body is left on smoldering fire.

 One relative, Mary Pearson, 67, was very emotional when she talked to Washington about Jesse Washington; how his death had affected her, though she did not know him. The horrific photos of Washington’s charred body told the story for her. “It is something I just can’t shake. I look at the pictures . . .  it just makes me want to get me a machine gun”, says Pearson. “You lose rest. You can’t sleep.

“What really gets me is how could you have a heart to do another soul like that? I mean, you can see a chicken, a hog that have no soul . . . How could you sit up there and go and get pieces of his body and save it as a souvenir . . .  How they drug him in his flesh, flesh was falling off the bone . . . Seventeen years old! Seventeen! That takes a whole lot of me. I’ve tried to keep from getting angry, but I can help it. That’s the reason why I had to go up under the doctor to get me some medicine . . .”

Washington said the family would like to see a historical marker situated at the spot where Jesse Washington was lynched, plus an apology. He said both of these requests can be realized but it's not likely to happen. Politicians and reluctant citizens have repeatedly said no to the idea.

Homeless in Austin, Texas

The homeless crisis in Austin was growing rapidly, and there did not appear to be a long term solution on the burner. The Salvation Army statics estimates that there were about 5,000 homeless, near homeless and hidden homeless living in Austin.

I interviewed some of these homeless people living in Austin, Texas during the early 1990s. The seven participants, part of a series for a local newspaper, were willing to talk about themselves in general terms, but were not willing to delve into their personal lives. Not all of them wanted to be identified by their real names, or have their photos taken. Anonymity was the insurance policy they needed to assure that they could live their lives without interference from friends and relatives, none of whom they wanted to keep contact with. Only two women and one male were willing to use their actual names, but no photos. I also interviewed the mayor of Austin, and program director of Salvation Army. Due to space constraints, I am only printing excerpts from four of interviews.

Carl Riley: From working high to homeless low

Riley is an African American male who was gainfully employed at Caterpillar Tractor Company in Chicago. When Riley lost his job he found himself homeless, but not hopeless. Eventually he lost his family. Riley was clean cut, clean and neatly dressed.

Q. Why are you homeless?

A.  I became a homeless person about five years ago. I worked for the Caterpillar Tractor Company in East Peoria, Illinois. They sold out to Mitsubishi, which put thousands of people out of work.  Everybody moved to different places. I came straight to Austin. I had been here on vacation in 1976. I liked the sights here. But when I came back, I couldn’t believe the economic downfall. When I moved to Texas, I got a job and things were going great, but certain circumstances beyond my control made that job go on the slack. I’ve picked up a few more jobs here and there; I’ve worked minimum wage jobs. But in Texas you cannot live on minimum age.

Q. Did you give up after not finding more employment?

A. No. I didn’t give up. I kept on looking, working. I worked for a brand new car wash on Bee Caves Road. I was assistant manager out there. It was only minimum wage. I’m still trying to find something better.

Q. Did you lose your family as a result of losing your job in Peoria?

A. Yeah. When I lost my job I couldn’t get another job right away. Caterpillar ran most of the town. When it folded up the whole town folded. There were no jobs, everybody was out of work. It was a loophole in our contract where we couldn’t draw any kind of employment benefits, and that screwed people around. I had two cars, one was paid for, and I was in the process of losing the other. I didn’t care as long as we had one left. Then bang! The house! Ten years of my life washed away as far as I was concerned. My house was being take away from me because I couldn’t finish paying for it. Once the house was gone I didn’t have no place for my family. That started marital problems. My wife and kids went one way and I ended up in the middle, all alone.

Q. How has being homeless changed you? Has it been hard to adjust?

 A. It was not hard for me to adjust to the situation, but it did change my thinking about things. When I working pretty steady, buying my cars and my house, I felt like I could do it. I had a whole different attitude, even though I had been homeless as a kid.

 ‘I don’t blame anybody but myself’

Carol Warner, a 22-years old White female, is outspoken, somewhat overweight, homeless and infuriated about her current situation. She is angry about the negative attitudes citizens have toward homeless people. Warner said she did not like how homeless people are looked at when they walk down the street, panhandle, or enter a place of business. She understands that some of the homeless men and women are rebuffed because they are belligerent, unkempt, and their behavior is frightening.

Warner said she hates the strict rules and regulations she has to follow while living at the Salvation Army in Austin. But it is the only place she can call home for now. Despite of her self-induced misfortune, Warner said she takes full responsibility for the mismanagement of her life. She has been on a homeless binge since age 18.

“My parents put me out of their house,” Warner said. “I didn’t listen to my mother and dad. So I ended up in some places I didn’t want to be. I don’t blame nobody but myself for where I am. But I can change that.”

Perched atop a plastic crate, looking like a cheerful, freshly scrubbed college student, Warner said she once dragged around everything she owned in the same kind of crate. She said when she was told to get out of her parent’s home she stayed in her hometown for a year, living here and there before she finally decided to leave for Minneapolis, where she lived for a year, floating in and out of shelters.

“I thought about my situation in Minneapolis, and I said, I ain’t going nowhere! But I left and come to Texas. I went to Dallas and then directly to Austin. I went to Fort Worth, and stayed there for a day. I went to this place and got enough money for a ticket to Austin,” Warner said.

When she arrived in Austin, Warner said, “I lived at the old Salvation Army on 6^th Street. They told me I couldn’t come back again because three days was long as I could stay.”

Warner said due to nourished misconceptions about homeless people, homeless women are often perceived as prostitutes, drug addicts and alcoholics.

“A lot of people shun homeless people. We get kicked out of restaurants because we don’t look like the average, normal citizen. We stand out more, but we can’t help that. We have to carry all of our belongings with us,” Warner said, a sad expression on her face.

She said people who are not homeless should “turn their hearts around, and realize we’re humans, too. We have rights just as well as they do.” Warner said being homeless forces a person to live by his or her wits in order to survive. “And pride ain’t got nothing to do with it.”

She said all too often homeless people have to resort to games of emotional manipulation and panhandling. Some women pair up with homeless men for protection. Some times that works, sometimes it doesn’t. Warner said a woman that she was friends with was killed by a man she paired with for protection.  They had been drinking all day, and he thought she drank more of the cheap wine than he did. He got angry and bashed in her head with a brick, killing her. Warner said she’s heard of homeless women getting gang raped and beaten, but they were too scared to make a police report.

“I had a puppy, and my puppy was my excuse to get money for something to eat.” She said people are more drawn to hungry animals than they are to hungry humans. “I didn’t buy dog food. I bought hamburgers that I shared with my dog. That was how I survived for a while,” Warner revealed.

Warner, who lived in many shelters, observed that the shelters are doing a very good job of helping the homeless. “Places like the Salvation Army enables people to stay homeless so they can stay open.”

Warner said she is on her way to Waco, Texas where she intends to enroll in a computer training class. Warner said she wish she had money enough to build a shelter in which the homeless would be treated fairly and with dignity.

‘Jane Doe’ was on a journey in search of  something

Jane Doe had a different experience. She asked that her name not be used when this article was written. Jane is a Black female and mother of five.

“I lived at HOBO (Helping Our Brothers Out) for seven months. They’re real good. Marion Morris is over it. When I was down there we didn’t have to worry about nothing. The people were so nice to us. The Stouffers Hotel donated over two or three hundred pillows, because they knew we had to sleep on the floor. They donated foam mattresses; they bought us food, clothes, tooth paste and tooth brushes. They gave us everything we needed.

“On Tuesdays they took us to West Lake Hills, where we showered and had breakfast. Our dirty clothes were dry cleaned for us. Everybody pitched in and helped the homeless at HOBO. Sometimes the men fought a lot amongst themselves because they were so full of anger. I truly thought somebody was gonna get killed. They never did bother us ladies. You know how men are. They’re rough. I went to a church mission run by Brother Jones. The people there helped me,” Jane recalled.

Jane said that she was on a “this journey.” She had a reason to call her homelessness a journey.  She expected to walk into world of danger and destitution. She did not expect to find kindness from strangers.  “I found people are very giving. They were sometimes overly giving. Sometimes it made me sick. It truly did. Sometimes I used to watch people pass by, and they’d throw food on the ground.

“Well, at the time I really didn’t know what that meant. So I got to thinking, maybe that meant eating food off the ground. Well, you see that’s wrong. You never know when you might be down.” Jane Doe reasoned that no one should throw food away. Food is the key to surviving when you’re homeless.

“My five children were with me at first; and at first it was scary and exciting. Kids are very flexible. Nothing bothers them. So the ripping and running was fun to them. It was exciting to me, too. But the only thing is we never knew what was going to happen from one day to the next day. This is going on my fourth year, but now my kids are with relatives. I’ve been by myself for about a year now.

Jane recalled the time someone gave her and her kids a box of doughnuts to eat. “Like I asked this man here the other day . . . I said, ‘Don’t you remember me? A couple of years ago when me and two little bitty kids come to the Salvation Army, and it was the day before Christmas, and you all gave us a giant box of doughnuts?’ He said, ‘I remember you’! That was all we had to eat all day long. But at least we had something to eat. We rode the bus all day long, and then we found a place to stay.

“When this happened to me, I said I’m not going to get in contact with any of my friends. I wanted to see what this was all about. I’m a very independent person. I have friends I can call, but I’m happy. When people look at me and say I look bad, I tell them I’m happy with myself.

 “I didn’t decide this was going to be my life. It just happened. Me and my kids got evicted, and everything happened so quick. It was nothing for us to do but live from day to day.”

Tom and Dick are not happy campers 

Tom and Dick are two homeless White males, willing to be interviewed but like all the others, did not want to talk freely about their personal lives.

Tom: I stayed at one place one time on a alcoholic ward, and they put you to work, and gave you a lowly two dollars at the end of the day. I’ve been to New Orleans and San Francisco. I’ve seen women and kids turned away ‘cause they didn’t have no I.D. card. Most of these places charge. In New Orleans it’s five dollars to stay at the Salvation Army. If you ain’t got the five dollars you can’t stay there. These Baptist missions are the same way. They’re cheap, and to a lot of people two or three dollars don’t sound like much, but unless you get in a labor pool it’s hard to come up with that kind of money.

Dick: The shelters are supposed to be free, but the majority of them aren’t free.

 Tom: You see people bringing all this food and clothes and stuff and these people give it to the churches, and stuff like that. People that really need it can’t get it. They hand out a few things to people that are down and out, but most times you don’t get nothing. In New Orleans I went to one of those homeless programs for Vietnam veterans, and it’s the same problem they have here, getting stuff from different organizations, and by the time it get to the people it’s nothing left. It’s no good that way.

Dick: You get day old doughnuts and powdered milk and a bowl of very runny oatmeal.

Tom: That homeless veteran thing didn’t work either. You could stay in the place for 30 days, but while you were there you couldn’t work. There’s no way to get out of one of them places. But, yet, they was drawing in all that money. They hadn’t told anybody that. That’s like the churches and these places. They’re not just getting donations, they’re getting government grants. That’s why they want to keep you coming in here. They have a day labor program here, but the fact that it’s coming out of the Salvation Army, and it’s a joke.

Dick: This place does more for you than the majority, but it still comes down to the same thing. I stayed in one shelter in Las Vegas for a while and it was really bad. Every six months they gave you a card. You could stay there 14 nights, but your chances of getting a bed for more than two nights was virtually impossible. They’d have a freezer full of meat there: chickens, ham, beef, turkey and the like. I talked to the cooks that worked there, and they told me a couple of times a year the director’s wife would pull the van up in the back of the kitchen and start loading it up with meat.

Tom: I think they should set up a program where they can take these guys, clean them up and get them onto a job. I think that would really help instead of giving these places government grants. Soon as they get the grants and these donations they could care less about you.

Dick: It’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. But it’s something I wish more people would experience for a week or two to see what it’s like, to take just a couple of days to come down here.

The more Republicans pretend to change, the more they stay the same for their own benefit

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas)

The more things change the more they stay the same, so goes the old adage. This 1994 interview with Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), confirms the adage is true. Doggett began his political career in 1973 when he was elected to the Texas State Senate. He served until 1985. In 1989 he became a justice on the Texas Supreme Court, and an adjutant professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He served both positions until he was elected to Congress.
 

Doggett gained national attention in 1979 when he and 12 Texas Democrats, dubbed the “Killer Bees” walked out of Chamber, leaving the Senate two members short of a quorum to pass legislation that would have changed the date of the Texas primary to March 11.

To make a long story short, the "Killer Bees" skipped town and hid out until the proposed legislation failed to pass after five days. The GOP’s goal was to help former governor of Texas John Connally get the nomination for president in 1980. The "Killer Bees" wanted a closed primary. Their suggestion was rejected by Republicans.

The following interview is just as relevant today as was it was 17 years ago. Although there was no Tea Party Republicans, those who were newly elected or won re-election took plenty of attitude to Washington. They immediately began playing dirty politics in the name of the "American people."

Dorothy Banks: Returning to Austin to keep contact with your constituents. Is this going to be a regular thing with you?

Doggett: Well, I’m sure gonna try. What brought me to Austin this time was the Martin Luther King celebration. So I think being actively involved in that, and in addition, to use time to meet with Police Chief Elizabeth Watson, and her staff to talk about some crime problems. I met last night with the Hispanic Contractors Association. I’ll be going to Wesley United Methodist and to David Chapel on Sunday. The key of what Jake Pickle (his predecessor) did was to be assessable and available to people. And I want to let people know that I am there for them, not for me.

Dorothy: Do you think you will be politically strong in Washington as you have been here in Austin? What is the political climate there right now?

Doggett: Well, it’s very unsettled. You got a lot of guys up there that’s been in power so long they don’t quite know how to adjust to being in the minority. It’s not a big adjustment for me because, even though I’ve been able to have some influence in Austin, usually I’ve been in the minority. By the time I was in the kind of Democrats who run it were not people that necessarily agreed with me on things. On the Supreme Court I did more descending that I did being in the majority.

I’m already equipped to take on Newt Gingrich if that’s what we have to do. Some of the things Republicans have done to shake up Congress are not bad. I think it needed shaking up. There were some things that might never have gotten changed had we not had this shake up. It created some opportunities for newcomers. That’s why I got a chance to get up on the floor, and join in the debate within an hour of being sworn in.

While I expect to be in Washington again this next week on some matters that will be coming up in Congress, I feel the leadership in the Democratic party is much more receptive to me as a newcomer, letting me come in and have a role. I was also real fortunate in getting the committee assignment of my choice-- the House Budget Committee. It was really one of the committees I campaigned to get on. I think that is where a lot of the action is gonna be if they start talking about balancing the budget. I think we have to give high priority to these federal deficits. I don’t want to see all the burden placed on the backs of the people who didn’t get the budget out of balance in the first place. They don’t have a lobbyist up there in Washington. I’m afraid that’s where some of the Republicans are headed. I don’t want to see huge cutbacks in Medicare. There are enough people out there who don’t have health care coverage, much less getting cut back some more.

The second committee I sought and was able to get on was the Science Committee. It used to be Science and Technology. I think with the University of Texas and the Pickle Research Center which we need to defend, as well as Motorola putting this lab up on Ed Bluestein. That’s kind of where our economic future lies, and I want to be there shaping that policy.

Dorothy: I’ve been looking at C-Span to see how they are going to fix the budget, but no one has come up with anything. Is this just a lot of Republican posturing, giving all kinds of excuses? I say okay, put it on the table and tell us what you’re going to do. They just keep going around and around.

Doggett: I think we have to hold them accountable for that. It was within the week that Dick Armey, the congressman from up in Arlington, Texas, the Majority Leader there, said 'Well, you know, if we go on and spell out where all these cuts are gonna be, some of these members of Congress . . . their knees are gonna buckle.' If their program is not good enough to put on the table and let everybody know who is gonna get hit by this, maybe they ought to rethink it. I think Republicans are trying to keep us in the dark about this, because if everybody knows what the changes are they may not want to make some of them.

The other side is the budget balance amendment I don’t support. As much as I would like to see our budget more balanced, it is really a way of deferring the problem to the future. Instead of doing something right now, they said, 'Well, you know let Joe do it in the year 2002, maybe we won’t be here. He’ll have to make the painful choices.' That’s why we keep saying, lay out the plan; show us over the next several years what the cuts are gonna be, and they keep saying, 'Oh, no. We don’t want to do that.'

Dorothy: Do you think when they authored the Contract with America, Republicans actually had no idea they would be in power?

Doggett: Well, there is a little bit of that. You know the way they did that Contract with America is, they first got some campaign consultants to sit around with people and focus groups and tried out different phrases, and different promises to see which ones sounded the best. Then they put it all together, announced it on the Capital steps, and printed it in TV Guide. Now they’re kind of stuck with that. Some of the things in there are not very practical. Some of them are more talk than anything else. I just don’t think you can govern the country strictly based on campaign gimmicks.

***The Contract with America was written by Larry Hunter and passed with the help of Newt Gingrich, Robert Walker, Richard Armey, Bill Paxon, Tom DeLay, John Boehner and Jim Mussle. The Contract was introduced six weeks before the 1994 congressional election. It was the first mid-term election of President Bill Clinton, in which Republicans scored a victory similar to the 2010 mid-terms election.

Dorothy: I see Newt Gingrich is backing down on some of the things in the Contract. I personally think he wants to be president. Is he a lot of fluff or is there substance to him? Where does he want to take the United States?

Doggett: Well, I think he is very smart, just in terms of intelligence. I think he is very committed; very hard working, bordering on ruthless in his approach. He made some conciliatory comments on the opening day. I would like to work with him if he wants to work together. And then he turns around appoints a woman as House Historian, who said Congress didn’t give enough attention to the views of the KKK and Nazis. One of her associates said Newt knew all about that before he appointed her. I’m glad he unappointed her.

It’s like the book deal. He backed down on that too, getting this $4 million from this guy from Australia, but only after it was brought to light. I think you can see on both the House Historian and on the book deal, that unless we’re up there being very vocal and holding him accountable for some of this stuff, he’s gonna go off to benefit himself personally, and on a really far right tangent. Even on these orphanage comments, which I think is outrageous. He said we would pull children away from their mothers and put them in an orphanage. I think he is committed to a far-right agenda that is out of the mainstream. And in fact, they keep trying to move the mainstream farther to the right. People like Bob Dole, who is kind of an old fashioned conservative, was being viewed as a moderate, because Republican take it so far to one side. You can’t get to the right side of them.

Dorothy: What kind of changes would you like to see take place?

Doggett: I believe changes to our welfare system, for example. It’s not inappropriate to focus on the need for change. I don’t believe that system is serving the taxpayer, or the people it’s designed to help. It is, perhaps, cheaper to keep them on a subsistence level, where they just barely get by, than it is to go in and spend the money to provide quality child care, training and the skills they need to get ahead. 

I am all for reforming welfare, for putting some incentives against welfare usage, but only if we go the first half of the way. And that’s to get people the assistance they need to get a job. I can see that as a real battle with the Republicans, who don’t believe their own campaign speeches. Sometimes they are caught up in their own speeches--the welfare stuff--they can’t quite translate it back into the real world.

Dorothy: The problem with people on welfare is jobs. It’s up to the people to educate themselves and not depend on the government to educate them. Where will the jobs come from?

Doggett: I think individual responsibility is very important, and the government can’t take the place of that. But if we really want to solve the problem now, we’ve got to go back and do something. I think the first step to jobs is people having the skills that are needed.

Dorothy: What about some kind of discount for people wanting to go to college but can’t afford it because it’s so expensive.

Doggett: My battle this time is to prevent them from eliminating what we’ve already got. No cuts in the Pell grants program to give people the opportunity to go to Houston Tillotson College or Austin Community College or University of Texas. Those programs are very much in jeopardy under the Contract with America. I am very determined to see that those opportunities are not denied. How can you talk about people having personal initiative, taking personal responsibility for themselves, and then cut out the key to them being able to exercise that responsibility.

Dorothy: What about the brouhaha about raising the minimum up another dollar?

Doggett: I think Congress will look at that later on in the year. The question is whether it has any real chance for approval. The Republican leadership have already come out with a over my dead body position. I will say now as I did back during the campaign, I would have rather see if there are going to be some additional employer participation; that it first be on health care. The problems with getting off of welfare is, if you take a minimum wage job, and then you lose all your health care benefits, that doesn’t get you anywhere. You’re working harder and getting less. I am concerned about many of the minimum wage jobs. Whether it’s a dollar more than we get right now--is there going to be any health care benefits for many of those jobs? That would be my first preference. If we can’t make any headway there, then I think we should look at the minimum wage as a sub-minimum wage.

Dorothy: I saw some Republicans on C-Span talking about a meeting that was taking place, but they shut out the Democrats. Are you beginning to feel ostracized?

Doggett: There is no doubt that Republicans are enjoying their victory. They are trying to run the show. I think when these 100 days are over, there is going to be a recognition that it takes two parties to govern the country. There has to be some shared participation here. In some of the meetings with Republicans I have been encouraged, particularly with some of those from the mid-west and northeast, that there are some people with open minds. On the other hand, I have met some from California and from the south that I think are lost causes. It’s like talking to the wall. They are not going to be willing to change.  They have a whole different view of the world. So I have to offer them respect but vigorous disagreement.


***This article was initially posted July 19, 2011

Jailhouse Poets

Our Secret
Hey, Lord.
We have a secret.

There are some things about
Being old that are fun, yes fun.
The world gets off your back.

They neglect you.

You don’t have to keep up appearances.
You can go back to the fun of being a child,
Watching a spider spin a web.
Making shadow pictures against the light,
Exploring the backyard
As if it were a new country.
Eating applesauce with cream
Instead of dinner,

Dawdling, staying up all night

Counting stars.
Staying home from a dull party
To play chess with an old friend,
Wearing a funny hat.

Why didn’t you tell me
That besides all the things I hate
About old age,
There’s some fun in it?

I know.
I wouldn’t have believed you.

A Sense of Love

The children haven’t turned out
The way we thought they would..
Their parents are hurt and angry,
Ashamed and worried about it.

I’m not.

I like these kids the way they are:
Open and honest, disorganized and gentle,
Scruffy and kind.

They don’t seem to mind spending time with me.
We talked about real things,
Dreams, peace, the sky.
They tell me that living is more important
Than accomplishing things.

I agree.

Their parents are outraged by this,.
So I don’t go into it.
I say, “The kids came.”

The parents say, “Good. At least
They have s sense of duty.”

I think they have a sense of love.

poems by Sandra

So I swung

I saw a swing
so I swung.
I saw the cigarette
so I smoked it.
I saw the drug
so I did it
and did it.
I saw the gun
so I took it.
I saw the store
so I robbed it.
I saw the police
so I ran.
I see my mother cry

but I gave it another try,
another fix, another store.
I saw a lawyer.
I saw a judge.
I saw the jury.

Now all I’ll see is more bars.
I’ll see the prison.
Maybe one day

poem by Peggy Sue

It Is Nothing I Do

It is nothing
I do
that makes me different
from anyone else

It is the events:
random and
sometimes
savage that
happened to me
that made me
what I am

poem by Stephanie

Emergency

I really don’t think we should go through
with this you guys.
I have a feeling we’ll be sorry.

You always have your funny feelings.

Okay smart ass, go ahead.
But don’t forget I warned you.
Hurry up and get it over with.

O HOLY SHIT!
Spread legs, hands on the car.

        You were right. I’m sorry.

        Just shut up, Okay? Sorry isn’t going to help  now.
       
        Sitting in the cop car i felt for this man.
        I turned to him and said;
        Don’t worry love.

        One day we’ll laugh at this shit.
        One day we’ll write a book.

I Seek Peace

Why do you hide from me?
I look for you in my God.
I look for you in pleasure.

I seek you, for I need you.
Peace, restore my soul.
I see you in my child’s face,
In families that gather together.

I see you when two young lovers
Gaze into each others eyes.
So, why Peace,
Do you hide from me?

The doors of my heart
Are open to you.
Won’t you please come in?

poems by Yvonne

All of the above poems were written by women in prison in a book called: “So I Swung” which is an anthology of work by women in the Travis county Jail, 1978.