Black Life Texas
Judgment Day – Part Six

A Mother’s Justice – A Short Story by Caleb Alexander
Every time Vivi walked past the all-Black jury, she would cut to me and roll her eyes. I had relayed the message to Tenayson, and she said that she would lay back, but somehow, someway, on this day, all of the ‘random’ jury summons sent out by the DMV’s computers miraculously went out to only Black women.
“State’s witness,” Phillipa declared.
Genevieve rose. “What was the reason for the initial stop, Deputy Lee?”
“My wife was planning on buying the new Ford Bronco, and I just wanted to ask him about his,” Deputy Harvey Lee explained. “He had a really nice one, with the giant 46-inch tires, the offroad package and all. So, I just wanted to know what he thought about it.”
“So, it was an illegal stop?” Genevieve asked.
“Yes.”
“How often do you make illegal stops?”
“Objection!” Kline said. “Relevance.”
“Are we going anywhere with this?” Phillipa asked.
“No,” Genevieve replied.
“Sustained.”
“Have you seen the body cam footage?” Genevieve asked.
“I don’t need to see it,” Deputy Lee answered. Beads of sweat started pouring down his face, and he loosened his collar.
“Are you okay, Deputy?” Genevieve asked.
“Get some water, please,” Phillipa ordered her bailiff. “Do you need to take a break, Deputy Lee?”
“I’ll be fine,” Deputy Lee said just before he started shaking.
I knew what it was. My mother-in-law had been diabetic. I reached into my purse and pulled out some peppermint candy, and tossed them to Genevieve. She rushed them to the Deputy, who immediately unwrapped them, stuffed them inside of his mouth, and chewed them. He then guzzled down the cup of water handed to him by the bailiff.
“Are you okay, Deputy Lee?” the judge asked.
Deputy Lee wiped away the sweat pouring down his face and stared at me. “You’re just like him.”
“I’m sorry?” Genevieve asked, stepping in front of me.
“Your son, I see where he got it from,” Deputy Lee said, sitting up in his chair. “I hadn’t eaten that morning because I was running late for work. I thought if I grabbed some coffee and a donut, I’d be okay until lunch.”
“I object!” Kline said, standing.
“To what?” Phillipa asked.
“She’s not even asking him a question!” Kline answered. “He’s just rambling.”
“He’s the defense’s witness!” Phillipa told him. “Do you need a moment, Deputy?”
Deputy Lee shook his head. “I’ve had enough moments. Plenty of enough moments to think about this, and I can’t do this anymore. A young man is dead, who shouldn’t be.”
“Shut up, Harvey!” Officer Mayorga shouted.
Phillipa pointed her finger at Officer Mayorga, warning him.
“Your son was trying to help me that morning.” Deputy Lee said. “I got out of my patrol car to go and talk to him about his car, and my sugar dropped, and I collapsed. Your son was kneeling over me, giving me some of the orange juice he had just bought.”
Deputy Lee broke down into tears and turned toward Officer Mayorga. “And you shot him. You pulled up, jumped out of your car, and you shot that kid. You didn’t give a warning, you didn’t hesitate to see what was going on, you just shot him. He was saving my life, and you shot him!”
“Object!” Kline shouted.
“Really, Gabe?” Genevieve said, tilting her head toward the defense attorney. “Really?”
All of the police officers in the courtroom stood in unison, turned their backs toward Officer Mayorga, and walked out of the courtroom. It was over. The look on everyone’s face in the courtroom said that it was over. The look on the faces of those nine sisters sitting in that jury box said that it was over. My son was going to get the justice he deserved.
“I’m sorry,” Deputy Lee said to me, wiping away his tears. “I never meant for this to happen. Your son is a hero. He wasn’t trying to hurt a police officer, he was trying to save a police officer’s life.”
I stood. “I forgive you. Tyree loved cars, and he would have understood why you pulled him over. He would have talked your ear off about that darn Bronco.” I knew that I had to forgive this man. I knew that I had to let go of my anger so that I could find my own peace.
I gathered my belongings and left the courtroom, as there was no need for me to stay. I had my justice, and my son was vindicated.
To Be Continued ….
Black Life Texas
The Real History of Thanksgiving


The history of Thanksgiving cannot be discussed without recognizing the reality of genocide committed against Native Indigenous people. Free land was the enticement for European settlers to come to the Americas. The Native populations on these lands would have to be removed or conquered to accomplish their goals.
Many foreigners were already slave owners who wanted to plant cash crops using Black slave labor. The history of the United States cannot be fully understood unless one examines “settler colonialism.” Settler colonialism was founded on the ideology of land theft, genocide, and slavery. Those who have written American history with an eraser of bias have found it easy to perpetuate the Thanksgiving myth of Europeans sitting down with Native Americans and enjoying a food feast together—nothing could be further from the truth.
What came before this so-called “Thanksgiving” was murder, genocide, and slavery of Native people before and after the mythical thank you dinner. Puritan settlers came up with the idea of the “Doctrine of Discovery,” a racist law enacted by the Pope of that time and brought to America by the less-than-honorable Christopher Columbus. This is the part of the American origin myth that professors and teachers still ignore to be accepted in the world of historical falsehoods. Settler colonialism is a genocidal policy of murder and land theft to satisfy a false religious belief in racial destiny (also called Manifest Destiny). Settlers required violence to realize their dreams of wealth. No community will willingly give up their land, children, resources, and dignity without a fight, and Indigenous people did not go down without a fight against these ideals that were rooted in a colonial agenda that had a religious spin on it. When European settlers were crossing the ocean and illegally crossing borders, it was something supposedly legal and sanctioned by God.

America was not a virgin land or wilderness filled with wild animals but a land tame to Native people. It was a network of native communities that linked people through roads and trails they carved themselves, which they built long before Europeans arrived. Native people cultivated farmland and crops to survive the harsh winters in the northern parts of America. The Native people knew where the oyster beds were, the water routes, and what plants had medicinal value. Settlers came to America with a culture of conquest and killing that they experienced in hundreds of years of religious savagery between Catholics and Protestants, especially the killing and exploitation of the Irish by the English and Scottish. White supremacy can be traced to the Christian Crusades against Muslims and not to capitalism, though capitalism exploited the idea to the fullest later.
These Europeans did not tame the wilderness. They invaded and murdered the original inhabitants. There are many fake origin stories from one country to the next, as apartheid South Africa once claimed and is now claimed by Israel using similar tactics for decades in a systematic way to force Palestinians from their homes, according to Amnesty International.

The fake Captain John Smith story never mentions his threat to kill all Native women and children if the Native people would not help feed and clothe the settlers from England and provide free labor for the English settlement. When Native people refused, the settlers burned their crops in an attempt to starve out the so-called “Indians.” This would result in the Pequot War, in which settlers would slaughter the Pequot tribe in the 1600s. Unknown to many, this was the first “Thanksgiving,” according to research by historians, in which settlers had a celebration thanking God for their murderous exploits. Scalp hunting was brought to America’s shores by the Scottish Protestants, who also invented the term “Redskin” to describe the bleeding head of one of their victims. Mutilated bloody corpses, which Puritans scalped, were the origin of the term “Redskin.” It was not developed as an indication of “race.” Later in history, the practice of scalping and gutting pregnant Native women would be carried out by the Scotsman Andrew Jackson, whom many now call the “Hitler of America.”
The Thanksgiving Myth is that of smiling “Indians” welcoming the European explorers to America, showing them how to reside in this ‘wilderness,” and sitting down to dinner with them. They supposedly hand their lands off to “frontiersmen,” so these invaders can create an incredible country committed to freedom, opportunity, and Christianity until the end of the world. That is the story — it’s about Native People yielding to settler colonialism. The myth is bloodless and, in numerous ways, an argument for the racist idea of Manifest Racial Destiny. Thus, the Thanksgiving myth was created to present a false history to deny the horrors of American origins and later to invent a fake ideology coined “American Exceptionalism.” American Exceptionalism was derived from these false ideas, created by criminal or ignorant historians, which claim that America is an “Innocent Nation” while other nations may have blood on their hands. Nothing could be further from the real history of America and the truth about Thanksgiving. Today, many of us celebrate family and friends and want nothing to do with the invented narrative. We can always choose to provide our own meanings and, at the same time, educate our community about the lies.
Art
Downtown SA Lights Up for the Holidays

Downtown San Antonio will sparkle this holiday season with an array of lights and holiday events.
Set against the backdrop of one of the city’s most historic and charming walkways, five blocks of Houston Street will buzz with twinkling lights, decorations, entertainers, and vendors from Nov. 24 and runs through January 2.
Additionally, on Nov. 24, kick off the holiday festivities with the Annual H-E-B Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony at Travis Park. Festivities begin at 4 p.m. and include live entertainment, food trucks, letters to Santa, giveaways, holiday crafts, a special visit from Santa, and a movie screening of “The Grinch.” The tree-lighting ceremony begins at 6 p.m., followed by the movie at 7 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.
Get front-row seats to the 42nd Annual Ford Holiday River Parade, which offers a spectacular one-hour parade along the San Antonio River Walk starting at 6 pm at the Tobin Center. This year’s theme, “Holiday Stories,” will kick off the San Antonio tradition. Always held the day after Thanksgiving, the parade and river lighting ceremony will feature 28 illuminated floats and over 100,000 lights (2,250 strands) illuminating the River Walk. The lights turn on from sundown to sunrise every day until the weekend following New Year’s Day. Seating ranges from $15 to $40. It is broadcast live at 7 p.m. at the Arneson River Theatre.
The Rotary Ice Rink, presented by Valero, will also return this fall at Travis Park in downtown San Antonio. Since 2019, nearly 200,000 people have enjoyed the rink and surrounding festivities. For more information, including hours of operation, pricing, and specials, visit (rotaryicerink.com).
For more events, go to (VisitSanAntonio.com).
Black Life Texas
Black Soldiers’ Convictions Overturned – A Century Later!

More than 100 years later, the U.S. Army recently overturned the convictions of the 110 Black soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment (also known as the Buffalo Soldiers), who were falsely found guilty following the World War I-era Houston Riots.
The records of these soldiers will be corrected, to the extent possible, to characterize their military service as honorable. Seventeen of these men are buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs unveiled a sign telling the story of these men to educate visitors about what happened.
Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said, “After a thorough review, the Board has found that these soldiers were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials. By setting aside their convictions and granting honorable discharges, the Army is acknowledging past mistakes and setting the record straight.”
The Houston Riots took place on Aug. 23, 1917, following months of racial provocations against members of the 24th — including the violent arrest and assault of two Black soldiers. Following the assaults and amid rumors of additional threats to soldiers, a group of more than 100 Black soldiers seized weapons and marched into the city, where clashes erupted. The violence left 19 people dead.
In the months that followed, the Army convicted 110 soldiers in a process that was, according to historians, characterized by numerous irregularities. Ultimately, 19 men were executed in the largest mass execution of American soldiers by the U.S. Army. The first set of executions occurred in secrecy and within a day of sentencing, leading the Army to implement an immediate regulatory change that prohibited future executions without review by the War Department and the President.
In 2020 and 2021, the South Texas College of Law petitioned the Army to review the convictions. Shortly after, the Army received petitions from retired general officers requesting clemency for all 110 soldiers.
“As a Texas native, I was grateful to participate in this process early in my tenure at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, and I am proud that the Army has now formally restored honor to soldiers of the 3-24 and their families,” said Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo. “We cannot change the past; however, this decision provides the Army and the American people an opportunity to learn from this difficult moment in our history.”
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been deeply involved as this case has unfolded and is prepared to assist any family members upon receipt of the corrected records. Relatives of the soldiers may be entitled to benefits. Family members or other interested parties may request a copy of the corrected records from the National Archives and Records Administration, in accordance with NARA Archival Records Request procedures found at (archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records).
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