At the end of the Civil War, a new nation seemed to be on the horizon. Emancipation and the beginning of Reconstruction signaled a shift in national, state, and local institutions across the country. The Reconstruction Era, though certainly flawed, offered potential equality for Black and white citizens. During this period of immense change, Black men began to vote and entered positions of power previously denied to them. Formerly enslaved and freed men were elected to public office only a few years after the abolition of slavery.

In Texas, voters elected African American legislators throughout Reconstruction, including fifty-two at the state level. Comprised of farmers, businessmen, preachers, teachers, and lawyers, each of these men had different backgrounds. Though many were denied formal education by their enslavers, most were literate, and all joined the Republican, often referred to as the Radical, Party. Through their positions, they sought to improve the lives of Black people whose opportunities remained scarce after emancipation. For many, postwar freedom in Texas meant sharecropping and tenant farming for low wages, often under the supervision of former enslavers. Many Black officials during Reconstruction endeavored to address these oppressions and provide resources to those in need.

Shep Mullens, one of these Black officials in Texas, resided in Waco. Born enslaved in 1828 in Lawrence County, Alabama, Mullens’s white enslavers relocated to Texas in 1854. They eventually moved to Waco by 1860, where Mullens remained following emancipation. On August 23, 1867, he registered to vote in McLennan County. That same year, General Charles Griffin, a military leader stationed in the previously Confederate state, appointed Mullens to County Commissioner and Voter Registrar. Griffin, who worked for the Freedman’s Bureau of Texas, registered Black and white voters throughout the state, and refused to recognize public officials who had previously worked on behalf of the Confederacy.

After Mullens’s appointment in 1867, voters elected him to the Constitutional Convention of 1868-69, where he filled the seat of a deceased member who previously represented McLennan, Falls, and Bell Counties. There, he served as a member of the Public Lands, Commerce, and Manufactures Committees. Following this election, General Joseph John Reynolds, who succeeded General Griffin, again selected Mullens as County Commissioner of McLennan County. Republican Party members and local voters saw Mullens as a promising, rising politician.

In 1869, Republicans appointed Mullens to Republican Party leader of McLennan County, and voters elected him to a seat in the Texas House of Representatives. He took the oath of office for the Twelfth Legislature on February 8, 1870. That legislature included the largest number of Black senators and representatives as well as the only Republican majority in the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction eras. During his tenure, Mullens served on the Privileges and Elections Committee as well as the Federal Relations and Immigration Committees. He also advocated for integrated, state-funded public education. Additionally, he sought to establish the Texas State Police and a militia to subdue violence, often initiated by white Americans against Black Americans, throughout the state. In 1870, the New Era, an African American newspaper, praised his efforts and declared that “[there] is no more earnest worker in the Republican ranks, and no man in his district possesses the confidence of the people to a greater extent than does Mr. Mullens.”

Mullens also worked as a blacksmith in Waco. Local tax rolls convey that he owned $1,174 worth of property, including two lots in the city. County marriage records also report that Mullens married Sallie “Agnes” Downs, a formerly enslaved woman in Texas, on December 26, 1866. Together, they had a daughter named Mary, born prior on April 22, 1858.

On August 6, 1871, Mullens passed away unexpectedly at the age of forty-two. He was buried in Waco at First Street Cemetery, and his elected positions remained unfilled as Reconstruction fell apart in Texas and throughout the country. A result of the Compromise of 1877, Reconstruction ended with an informal agreement between Southern Democrats and the Republican Party. Republicans, seeking Democratic approval of the election of President Rutherford B. Hayes, agreed to remove federal troops stationed in previous Confederate states. Though roughly two thousand Black men held positions at the local, state, and federal levels throughout Reconstruction, those numbers dramatically declined following 1877.

After the Compromise, white Americans overthrew Reconstruction-era governments, disenfranchised Black voters, and removed Black men from public office. In some states, white leaders attempted to eliminate Black politicians’ names from the historical record. As a result, little information remains about many of these men, their time in office, or their lives in general.

In Texas, following Mullens’s passing in 1871, white leaders and voters removed all Black officials from office by 1883. Not until 1966, following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the election of Barbara Jordan, would Texas be represented by another Black American. Though some documentation remains, many of their legacies remain sparse, including that of Mullens. His story, in some ways, lost—like the Reconstruction efforts of the late nineteenth century.

Note: Different documents contain varied spellings of Shep Mullens’s name. These include Shep, Shepherd, Sheppard, or Shepart, and Mullens or Mullins.

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In July 1974, Leon Jaworski argued to the Supreme Court that not even the president of the United States was above the law. As the special prosecutor in the Watergate proceedings, Jaworski sought tape recordings made by President Nixon. The president claimed executive privilege, but the court sided unanimously with Jaworski, and the information on the tapes led to Nixon’s resignation in August. Leon Jaworski was a man whose experience taught him to both revel in the contest of public debate and believe in the integrity of the law.

Born Leonidas Jaworski on September 19, 1905, he was the third son, and first American-born child, of Central European immigrants newly arrived to Waco. His parents, Joseph and Mira Jaworski, immigrated to the United States in 1903 and settled into a life of pastoral ministry in the Evangelical Church. Eventually, Mira Jaworski’s ill health compelled her husband to seek a country pastorate, so the family moved from Waco to Geronimo, Texas, in 1907. However, she died only two years later. Both Leon’s parents were well educated, and Rev. Jaworski supplemented his children’s schooling by tutoring them. It was a desire to provide greater educational opportunities for his children that motivated Rev. Jaworski to return to Waco in 1914.

After finishing at Central Grammar School, Leon started at Waco High where he displayed the educational acumen to complete four years of study in three. An avid baseball lover, Jaworski’s small stature prevented him from competing in the game in high school, so the teenager joined the debate team. The experience sealed Jaworski’s love for verbal sparring, and he abandoned his earlier intention to join his older brother Hannibal in the practice of medicine to pursue law instead.

As a sixteen-year-old, Jaworski started college at Baylor. He completed one year of coursework before continuing his studies at the newly reopened law school. Jaworski graduated in 1925 with an LLB, the professional degree necessary at the time for practicing law. At nineteen, he became the youngest person admitted to the Texas Bar. To further cultivate his legal skills, Jaworski enrolled in George Washington University’s yearlong Master of Laws (LLM) program. His education now complete, Jaworski returned to Waco to practice law.

Jaworski cut his legal teeth in Prohibition-era Waco where the Ku Klux Klan still made its presence felt. He practiced alongside Tom Scott and Joe McNamara, and their firm handed several cases involving illegal spirits. Jaworski nevertheless tested the limits of community goodwill when he defended an African American man, Jordan Scott, charged with the 1928 murder of a white couple. He faced backlash from Wacoans for taking the case and believing the man was entitled to a strong defense. Though he lost, its publicity brought new professional opportunities Jaworski’s way. In 1930, he left Waco to practice with the A. D. Dyess firm in Houston where he stayed for a year before joining another Houston firm that would eventually bear his name: Fulbright and Jaworski.

With his colleagues—Fulbright, Crooker, Freeman, and Bates—Jaworski practiced corporate law, developing clients in the oil and gas industry. Over his five decades with the multinational firm, he handled clients such as Exxon and Shell. When World War II erupted, Jaworski joined the US Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps where he took part in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals, but declined participation in the Nuremburg trials. However, Jaworski was not an infallible attorney. One of his JAG convictions was later overturned, and his corporate ties and ambition left him open to accusations of conflicts of interest and ethics violations. Whispers of such conduct followed Jaworski through the most notable cases of his career.

Jaworski’s status as a litigator garnered the attention of politicians of both parties in Washington. In 1960, Jaworski argued fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson’s case to both campaign for his Senate seat and as John F. Kennedy’s running mate. A few years later, Attorney General Robert Kennedy tasked Jaworski with the litigation against Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett for defying a federal order to integrate the University of Mississippi. Jaworski achieved his greatest acclaim as the Watergate special prosecutor in 1974, and three years later he returned to Washington as the special counsel for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct charged with handling “Koreagate.” The matter involved Korean lobbyists’ attempts to gain influence over members of Congress. With that case, the most public portion of Jaworski’s career came to a close.

Jaworski died of a heart attack at his ranch outside Wimberley, Texas, on December 9, 1982. His legacy in the legal profession included not only his most public cases, but also his service as president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the State Bar of Texas, and the American Bar Association. Leon Jaworski debated his way from Waco to the top of the legal profession where he participated in one of the most significant legal cases of the twentieth century.

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On a hot Atlanta evening in July 1988, Ann Richards emerged from deep in the heart of Texas to address the Democratic National Convention as the keynote speaker. The Texas treasurer’s rousing and pointed speech—sprinkled with her characteristic one-liners—brought her national attention. It served as a turning point in her political career. Only three years later, Richards stood at another podium, this time in Austin, taking her oath of office as the forty-fifth governor of Texas.

Born Dorothy Ann Willis on September 1, 1933, in Lacy Lakeview, Richards developed an interest in civic engagement and public speaking from a young age. As a student at Waco High School, where she graduated in 1950, Richards actively participated in the debate team and in the Girls State (and Nation) program where she practiced politics in a mock government. That fall, she entered Baylor University on a debate scholarship. While at Baylor, she married fellow Wacoan David Richards and continued to hone her oratory skills. She and David graduated in 1954.

Moving to Austin expanded the young couple’s involvement in politics. While her husband studied law, Richards earned a teaching certificate from the University of Texas and worked as a social studies teacher at Fulmore Junior High School. In the mid-1950s, they also canvased for progressive candidates like Ralph Yarborough and honed ideas amongst the Young Democrats. After her husband took a job practicing labor law in Dallas in 1957, Richards kept house, raised their four children, and maintained her involvement in politics. During the 1970s, now back in Austin, the Richards’ home served as a hub for progressive Texas politics and the place where Ann organized political campaigns for female candidates like Sarah Weddington. Still, she never intended to run for office herself.

However, after David declined running for Travis County Commissioner, their friends urged Ann to consider. Relying on the networks and skills she spent years cultivating, she routed the longtime incumbent and took office in 1976. She served another term as a county commissioner before her 1980 election as Texas State Treasurer. During her two terms at that post, Richards streamlined Texas’ financial system. Her political acumen, oratory skill, and straightforwardness garnered the notice of the Democratic National Committee who invited her to give the keynote speech at the 1988 convention. Richards appeared on the rise.

But her political ascendency obscured a rapidly disintegrating personal life. For decades, alcohol lubricated the social and political circles in which Richards ran. Her heavy drinking turned her caustic wit mean and, while appearing to make her the life of the party, also endangered herself and others. In 1980, family and friends staged an intervention. Within the day she traveled to an out-of-state rehab facility. While improving many aspects of her life, Richards’ newfound sobriety could not repair the longstanding fissures within her marriage. She and David separated by the end of the year, divorcing in 1984. Whether astute recognition or self-fulfilling prophecy, Richards’ initial fears about the negative affect of her political career on her marriage came to pass. She spoke with candor about both experiences for the remainder of her political life.

With her rousing performance on the Atlanta dais in 1988, Richards opened a new avenue for herself. The political capital she garnered enabled her to mount a successful campaign for governor of Texas. While in office, Richards diversified holders of government appointments so they more accurately reflected the state’s demographics. Controversially, she banned the concealed carrying of handguns and limited access to assault weapons. Fiscal, education, and prison reform constituted significant portions of her agenda. Though popular, Richards lost in her 1994 reelection bid to George W. Bush.

After she left office, Richards worked as a political consultant, continuing to campaign for liberal causes and candidates. She also served as visiting professor at UT–Austin and Brandeis University. Richards died on September 13, 2006, after a brief battle with esophageal cancer. The spirited debater from Waco made her mark on Texas politics. Her election as state treasurer in 1980 marked the first time in half a century that a woman held a state-level position. To date, she remains the last Democratic governor of Texas and the first duly elected woman to hold the office.

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Eddie Bernice Johnson is a champion of minority and women’s rights representing Texas in the United States House of Representatives. Not only that, she fights to support the sciences and women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, medicine) fields.

Though a public servant of the 30th district in Dallas County, Eddie started her life in Waco, Texas. Born to Edward and Lillie Mae Johnson in Waco on December 3, 1935 (her childhood home pinned below on map), she attended A. J. Moore High School, the only school in Waco for African Americans at the time, where she graduated in 1952, third on the honor roll. Just as she would be very active in the community later in life, she participated in many organizations at A. J. Moore as well, including the Dramatic Art Club, J. A. Kirk Chorus, Book Lovers’ Club, National Honor Society, Student Council, library staff, Elm Wood Y-Teens, and editorial staff of the Moore Highlight.

Eddie came to her love of learning and community involvement naturally, as her parents emphasized such values. Her parents stressed education and culture, reading novels to their children from a young age and taking them to plays at Baylor University. These options were more limited, though, as the family could only attend plays on the designated “black days” at the theater. Both Edward and Lillie Mae then became activists after African Americans succeeded in breaking the state’s white primary system in 1944. Committed Democrats, they worked hard to educate fellow African Americans on the importance of voting and helped to get them to the polls. Eddie affectionately referred to her mother as a “little crusader,” fighting to better the rights of African Americans in Texas and in Waco. Her parents’ dedication to hard work and views of progress led Eddie to believe neither her race nor gender should ever hold her back.

Eddie then attended St. Mary’s College at Notre Dame and received a nursing degree. She would follow this degree with two more, a bachelor of science in nursing from Texas Christian University, and two decades later a master’s in public health from Southern Methodist University. Eddie was hired right out of St. Mary’s as a psychiatric nurse at the Veterans Administration (VA) hospital in Dallas. Little did she know, the administration did not realize she was black when they hired her. Upon her arrival, she had to fight to keep her job, and she was not allowed to live in the dormitory with the other nurses. She endured extreme racism from her colleagues and was continually denied the ability to help with projects. But soon her work spoke for itself, and a year and a half later Eddie was promoted to chief nurse, a position she would hold at the VA in Dallas for sixteen years. Early in her tenure at the VA she also met and married Lacy Kirk Johnson and had one son, Dawrence Kirk.

After the birth of her son, Eddie had her hands full with her job, her husband, and now a child, but she soon added activism to the list. While shopping in Dallas, she was barred from trying on a hat in a store because of her race. She discovered that as a rule black women were not allowed to try on certain clothing items in stores before buying them, and this infuriated her. She immediately organized a boycott of the department store and others with fifty other African American women. The boycott worked quickly, and soon those stores were allowing black women to try on items before purchase. Eddie had her first taste of activism, and she turned next to ardently supporting African American politicians. She would famously push young Dawrence, who goes by Kirk, in a stroller while passing out campaign materials for various African American candidates in shopping center parking lots.

Though this involvement was a far cry from running for office herself, circumstances soon changed for Eddie. After a painful divorce, a friend suggested that Eddie run for the Texas House. She originally rebuffed the idea, worried about caring for her son and maintaining the stability her career as a nurse provided, but the seed had been planted. The final push came in 1972 when Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus offered her an executive assistant job if she would run for office. Kirk even took cooking classes at school to be able to help his mother at home during her campaign. Eddie Bernice was officially set to run for House District 33.

Eddie was clearly the underdog with only $5,000 and no manpower. She set up shop in her own dining room, making campaign calls herself and going door to door with Kirk. She emphasized to the African American community that she was ready to fight for their rights, campaigning on her prior role as president of the National Council of Negro Women among other civic organizations. She also emphasized her career as a nurse and her service of veterans, wanting to fight for better health care if she were elected. She said of her campaign, “I [was] interested solely in the people and in reflecting the needs of the constituency.” Reflect her constituents’ needs she did, and she won in a landslide to became the first black woman to serve in an elected office in Dallas. From there she was the first African American woman vice chair of the Texas State Democratic Convention and helped to form the Black Legislative Caucus. She was also chosen to chair the House Committee on Labor, the first woman to ever hold this position. Her main issues of focus were health care, education and science, public housing, and women’s rights. Eddie’s work in the legislature did not go unnoticed, and after three terms in the House she was called up by the Carter administration in 1977 to be regional director of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the first woman and first African American in this position. After serving faithfully, her tenure ended with Carter’s defeat and she took a hiatus from politics.

But the call to serve came again in 1986 when Eddie ran for and won the senatorial position for the 23rd district of Texas. She was the first Dallas woman and first African American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction. Her concerns continued to be people oriented, as she focused on issues of health care, housing, race, gender, economic development, and employment. She served in the finance and education committees and chaired the subcommittee on health and human services. Opportunity then came knocking once more in 1991 when Eddie was chair of the subcommittee of congressional redistricting. The committee’s efforts created a new 30th district, one composed of mostly minority voters, for which Eddie decided to run in 1993. She again scored an astounding victory—107,830 votes to 37,853 votes—becoming the first nurse elected to the US Congress. Her work in Congress mirrored her work in the state legislature and her focus remained on equality and advancement for all people. Even after accusations of gerrymandering led to a Supreme Court ruling against the Texas legislature, Eddie continued to win her seat for the redrawn 30th district. She has served on and led several committees, and she is currently in her thirteenth term at the age of eighty-three.

Eddie Bernice Johnson has lived a life of many firsts and paved the way for many women and African Americans in politics. Her emphasis on STEM education, women and minority rights, and more have changed the face of Dallas County, and Waco is proud to claim her as one of its own.

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When Ramiro “Ramsey” Muñiz ran for governor of Texas in 1972, he became the first candidate of Hispanic descent to run for the state’s gubernatorial seat. Despite Muñiz’s controversial legacy, his career was, for many, as inspiring as it was polarizing.

Ramsey Muñiz was born in Corpus Christi in 1942 to Rudy G. Muñiz and Hilda [née] Longoria. One of five children, the young Ramsey worked to help make ends meet for his large family, sometimes picking cotton from daybreak until evening. The future candidate was exposed to Mexican-American politics from an early age and often volunteered his time to help with the campaigns of Chicano politicians as a teenager. As a student, Muñiz excelled both in the classroom and on the football field at Corpus Christi High School, and eventually received a scholarship to attend Baylor University. He graduated in 1967 with a bachelor of science degree and went on to attend Baylor University Law School. Muñiz, who had played football for the Baylor Bears during his undergraduate years, worked as an assistant coach to support himself through law school and graduated in 1971 with a doctor of jurisprudence. The new attorney stayed local after graduation to work as an administrator for the Waco Model Cities Program, then headquartered at 1818 Columbus Avenue.

Muñiz’s college and law school years coincided with the heyday of the Chicano movement in American politics, as a growing number of Mexican Americans united to call for economic, social, and political equality. Many Chicano activists felt that neither of America’s major political parties were prepared to fight for the Mexican American cause. La Raza Unida Party (RUP) emerged in 1970 as the answer to Chicano calls for a third party that would represent the interests of Mexican Americans in Texas. Thanks to leaders such as Jose Angel Gutierrez and Mario Compean, the party’s initial success at the local level in Crystal City inspired some RUP members to establish a party presence at the state level in 1972.

After several well-known Democratic politicians turned down the RUP nomination for governor, Ramsey Muñiz emerged as the party’s most viable gubernatorial contender. Muñiz had joined the party in 1968 while still a law student. The aspiring governor selected as his running mate journalist Alma Canales who, at twenty-four years of age, did not meet the minimum age requirement for lieutenant governor. Muñiz, however, felt that as a young, college-educated activist, Canales represented the RUP’s average supporter and would help to win the vote of the party’s female members. The duo’s platform centered around bilingual education, women’s and workers’ rights, and the establishment of Mexican American political power at the local level.

The Muñiz/Canales ticket brought in 6.28 percent of the vote in the November election, most of which came from smaller Hispanic communities in South Texas. While Democratic candidate Dolph Briscoe emerged victorious over Republican Henry Grover with 48.79 percent of votes cast, the RUP was so successful in siphoning off Democratic votes that Briscoe became the first candidate to win a Texas gubernatorial election without a majority. The 1972 loss deterred neither the RUP nor Muñiz from seeking the governor’s seat for a second time. Muñiz ran again in 1974, along with several other RUP candidates seeking state and local offices. This time, the RUP attempted to recast itself not simply as a Chicano party, but one that represented the everyman. The 1974 platform proposed improvements in medical care, transportation, education, environmentalism, and urban life. Muñiz, however, was unable to gain the support of many urban Hispanic voters, and received less than 200,000 votes when election day arrived. Dolph Briscoe nabbed an easy victory as a result.

In the years immediately following the election, the party suffered from internal divisions and lack of external support. This decline was exacerbated when Muñiz was arrested in 1976 for the attempted importation of over three tons of marijuana from Mexico. The former politician fled south to Mexico, but was apprehended five months later, and received felony drug charges for which he served five years in prison. During his time in prison, the RUP continued to suffer a string of political defeats and largely faded out of the public eye. Shortly after Muñiz’s release from prison, he was again arrested in 1982 for possession of cocaine, for which he served a two-year sentence. While he found work as a legal assistant following his second release, his career was short-lived. In 1994, Muñiz received a third charge for conspiracy to distribute drugs when, during a traffic stop, police located a large supply of narcotics in his car. Muñiz pleaded not guilty, insisting that neither the car nor the drugs were his and arguing that the traffic stop was without probable cause. Many others questioned the proceedings surrounding Muñiz’s conviction, claiming that evidence pointed to a set up. In the end, the former politician was sentenced to life in prison.

To many, Muñiz was a political prisoner, unjustly accused to silence an entire party. The “Free Ramsey” movement ceaselessly fought to liberate the politician in the decades following his imprisonment, and eventually secured his “compassionate release” on December 10, 2018. The persistence of this effort testifies to the lasting impact of Muñiz and the Raza Unida in Mexican American history and on the American political landscape.

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