Facts about Life.

 

The American Civil War had a serious history with Texas. There was massive slavery in Texas. There were false rumors of arson in Texas when the arson was falsely accused of being done by slaves and abolitionists. Racist terrorists (vigilantes) lynched between 30 and 100 black and white people in the so-called "Texas Troubles." These events agitated secession in Texas. One fire was proven to be caused by a new kind of match that self-ignited in that season's unusual heat and wind. That stopped the Denton lynch mob in that case. Many racists used slave to promote the cotton industry in Texas. By 1860, 30% of the total Texas population of 604,215 human beings were enslaved. In the statewide election on the secession ordinance, Texas voted to secede from the Union by a vote of 46,129 to 14,697 (a 76% majority). The Secession Convention immediately organized a government, replacing Sam Houston when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Texas declared its secession from the United States on February 1, 1861 and joined the Confederate States of America on March 2, 1861. With few battles in its territory, Texas was mainly a "supply state" for the Confederate forces until mid-1863, when the Union capture of the Mississippi River made large movements of men, horses, or cattle impossible. Texas regiments fought in every major battle throughout the war. The last battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Palmito Ranch, was fought in Texas on May 12, 1865. The 2nd Texas Cavalry Battalion (U.S.) (one of only two from the state) took part. Many Texas unionists supported the Confederacy after the war started. Yet, many others promoted unionism throughout the war, like in the northern counties, the German districts in Texas Hill Country, and the Mexican areas. 

Local officials harassed unionists and engaged in large-scale massacres against unionists and German immigrants. In Cooke County, 150 suspected unionists were arrested; 25 were lynched without trial and 40 more were hanged after a summary trial. Draft resistance was widespread, especially among Texans of German or Mexican descent; many of the latter went to Mexico. Potential draftees went into hiding, Confederate officials hunted them down, and many were shot. On August 1, 1862, Confederate troops executed 34 pro-Union German Texans in the "Nueces Massacre" of civilians. Texas's most famous unionist was state Governor at the time, Sam Houston. After refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, he was deposed as governor. The Union and Confederate forces battled each other in Texas, Arizona, and all over the Southwest. Black people celebrated the news of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston on June 19, 1865. This caused the celebration of Juneteenth. Texas had trade and finance disputed. Angry returning Confederate veterans stole state property. Then, Texas had a period of extensive violence and disorder. Much violence existed in Northern Texas. In Oklahoma, people plundered and were murdered without distinctions of party. 

President Andrew Johnson appointed Union General A. J. Hamilton as provisional governor on June 17, 1865. Hamilton had been a prominent politician before the war. He granted amnesty to ex-Confederates if they promised to support the Union in the future, appointing some to office. On March 30, 1870, although Texas did not meet all the requirements, Congress restored Texas to the Union. Many free black human beings were able to become businessmen and leaders. Through the young Republican Party, black people rapidly gained political power. Indeed, blacks comprised 90% of the Texas Republican Party during the 1880s. Norris Wright Cuney, an African American from Galveston, rose to the chairmanship of the Texas Republican Party and even the national committeeman. After the 1870's, white Democrats regained control of the state legislature. They passed a new constitution in 1876 that segregated schools and established a poll tax to support them, but it was not originally required for voting. Within the Republican Party, the Lily-white movement emerged, a movement to wrest control of the party from many whites and eliminate black influence altogether. The movement had its origins in Texas but spread across the nation. This in addition to wider efforts to restrict the influence of non-whites rapidly reversed the fortunes of the black population. Racists harmed black people in Texas during the 19th century and beyond. Also, black people created churches, formed organizations, made schools, and won political offices. More than 100,000 black people in Texas voted in state elections. In 1896 and 1898, Republican Robert B. Hawley was elected to Congress from the state by a plurality, when most white voters split between the Democratic and Populist parties. Democrats were determined to end competition by Republicans and Populists, and reviewed what other Southern states were doing to disenfranchise blacks and poor whites. Mississippi's new constitution of 1890 had survived a Supreme Court case, although in practice it was highly discriminatory against freedmen.

Land use, railroads, and other institutions expanded in Texas. The Morill Act used public lands to gain funds to invest in higher education. By 1876, the Agricultural Mechanical College in Texas was created. Seven years later, the University of Texas at Austin started to conduct classes. Large cattle ranches grew in Texas during the time of Governor John Ireland. Range wars existed, and people use barbed wire around public lands, to protect their access to water and free grazing. Railroads grew cities like Dallas. Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross had to personally intervene to resolve the Jaybird-Woodpecker War (1888-1889) among factions of Democrats in Fort Bend County; at bottom, it was a racial conflict. The majority population was black by a large margin and had been electing county officers for 20 years. But, the white elite Democrats wanted their own people in power. Conflict became violent and the Jaybirds ordered several black people out of town. Tensions increased and a total of seven people were killed. In the fall of 1889, the Democratic Party created "white-only pre-primary elections," which in practice were the only competitive contests in the county, and thus disenfranchised black human beings. This situation lasted until the US Supreme Court ruling in Terry v. Adams (1953) declared it unconstitutional in the last of the white primary cases.

Under Jim Hogg, the state turned its attention toward corporations violating the state monopoly laws. In 1894, Texas filed a lawsuit against John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company and its Texas subsidiary, the Waters-Pierce Oil Company of Missouri. Hogg and his attorney-general argued that the companies were engaged in rebates, price fixing, consolidation, and other tactics prohibited by the state's 1889 antitrust act. The investigation resulted in a number of indictments, including one for Rockefeller. Hogg requested that Rockefeller be extradited from New York, but the New York governor refused, as Rockefeller had not fled from Texas. Rockefeller was never tried, but other employees of the company were found guilty.

By 1900, a hurricane destroyed Galveston, Texas, the fourth largest city at that time. The water killed from 6,000-8,000 people. The city was rebuilt using tons of effort and had a city commission government. Houston grew. Black people still suffered the poll tax and other forms of racism in the state. The poll tax harmed the voting rights of black people, Mexican Americans, and poor whites. The Democratic Party back then in Texas as mostly white and conservative. By 1906, the number of black voters had dropped from more than 100,000 in the 1890s to 5,000. The state also passed a law for white primaries. In 1896, 86.6% of all voters in Texas voted in the presidential election; following disenfranchisement, voter turnout in 1904 was 29.2% and in 1920 was 21.6%. The Supreme Court in 1923 ruled that white primaries established by political parties were unconstitutional. So, Texas governmental leaders made political parties form their own practices. The Democratic Party reinstated the white primary. That law survived until 1944 before another Supreme Court case ruled that it was unconstitutional. After 1944, the NAACP and other organizations worked to register black voters and participation increased. But the major disenfranchisement continued until the passage in the mid-1960s of civil rights legislation, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to provide for federal oversight in areas in which historically minorities did not vote in expected numbers based on population. Texas saw skyscrapers, the expansion of the oil markets, the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl. Federal relief programs like FERA, WPA, and the CCC hired thousands of workers in the state. Farmers and ranchers struggled during the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl caused an exodus of people from Texas and other areas. Many left for California. 

By World War II, Texas saw tons of factories develop, POW detention camps were there, and military bases expanded. Army and Air Force training facilities were especially common in Texas during World War II. Tens of thousands of new migrants streamed in from rural areas, straining the city's housing supply and the city's ability to provide local transit and schools. For the first time, high-paying jobs went to large numbers of women, black people, and Hispanic people. The city's African-American community, emboldened by their newfound prosperity, increased its agitation for civil rights; they backed and funded the legal case of Smith v. Allwright (1944), in which the Supreme Court ruled against the latest version of the white primary in support of voting rights. Black people migrated all over Texas. Massive droughts in the late 1940's and 1950's caused an increase in mass urbanization in Texas. Water conservation plans were developed. Politically, African Americans and Mexicans Americans fought for human rights. Texas was involved in voting for JFK, and the Kennedy assassination took place on November 22, 1963. During World War II the main universities like the University of Texas and Texas A&M University gained a new national role. The wartime financing of university research, curricular change, campus trainee programs, and postwar veteran enrollments changed the tenor and allowed Texas schools to gain national stature.

From 1950 through the 1960s, Texas modernized and dramatically expanded its system of higher education. Under the leadership of Governor Connally, the state produced a long-range plan for higher education, a more rational distribution of resources, and a central state apparatus that managed state institutions with greater efficiency. Because of these changes, Texas universities received federal funds for research and development during the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations. As Jim Crow Apartheid ended in America, oppression continued in new forms. Many people joined the Republican Party making Texas even more conservative. The 2003 Texas redistricting of Congressional districts led by Republican Tom DeLay, was called by the New York Times "an extreme case of partisan gerrymandering." A group of Democratic legislators, the "Texas Eleven", fled the state in a quorum-busting effort to prevent the legislature from acting, but was unsuccessful. The state had already been redistricted following the 2000 census. Despite these efforts, the legislature passed a map heavily in favor of Republicans, based on 2000 data and ignoring the estimated nearly one million new residents in the state since that date. Career attorneys and analysts at the Department of Justice objected to the plan as diluting the votes of African American and Hispanic voters, but political appointees overrode them and approved it. Legal challenges to redistricting reached the national Supreme Court in the case League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006), but the court ruled in favor of the state (and Republicans).

In the 2014 Texas elections, the Tea Party movement made large gains, with numerous Tea Party favorites being elected to office, including Dan Patrick as lieutenant governor, Ken Paxton as attorney general, in addition to numerous other candidates including conservative Republican Greg Abbott as governor. That is why today in 2022, many people in Texas are fighting back against far extremism, so the future of Texas will be more progressive. This fight for justice is not easy as life is not easy. Yet, victory will come when it is all said and done. 

There is the event of the Artemis I mission. This NASA mission is about its goal to travel to the Moon. This is the first time in 50 years that a spacecraft is preparing to have a journey to the Moon. The uncrewed Artemis I mission, including the Space Launch System Rocket and Orion spacecraft, will come about from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is the first step in sending humans into the Moon. The Artemis project wants to send humans to the Moon and later send human beings to Mars in the far future. There will be a recording by the lightning protection system towers at Launchpad 39B. Jeff Spaulding is the Artemis I senior NASA test director. The Orion spacecraft will enter a distant retrograde orbit of the moon and travel 40,000 miles beyond it, doing further than any spacecraft intended to carry humans. Crews will ride on the Artemis II on a similar trajectory in 2024. The first woman and other people will first land on the Moon on the lunar south police in late 2025 on the Artemis III mission. The Orion spacecraft will last for 42 days as it traveled the moon, loops around it, and goes to the Earth. It will travel 1.3 million miles. The capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on October 10, 2022.

By Timothy