The version of Texas history taught in school is often anglicized and sanitized. We examine how one textbook falls short.
Slavery
Descendants of slaves who escaped across the southern border observe Texas’s emancipation holiday with their own unique traditions.
When Given Kachepa first arrived from Zambia as a young boy, he expected to sing in a choir and gain an education. Instead he was forced into servitude.
As Austin honored a former slave, Panola County celebrated the Confederacy and ignored his brother.
How one woman’s fight for freedom inspired Houston’s lawyers and artists more than a century and a half later.
The secret history of cotton, the crop that transformed the global economy—and kept Texans in poverty for generations.
Journalist Chris Tomlinson delves into the parallel histories of two Texas families with the same last name—one black, one white.
The senior editor on following the paper trail of Texas history, learning about Jack Johnson sparring with “Chrysanthemum Joe” Choynski, and researching his own family roots.
Houston attorney Bill Kroger and state Supreme Court chief justice Wallace Jefferson are on a mission to rescue thousands of crumbling, fading, and fascinating legal documents from district and county clerks’ offices all over the state. Can they save Texas history before it’s too late?
The senior editor on attending a Civil War reenactment, preserving history, and standing inside the Globe of Death.
Sorry, T. R. Fehrenbach: the new Texas historians don’t care about Davy Crockett or other old icons. To them, the real heroes are women, blacks, and yes, Mexican Americans.