We've Got to Try, page 6
The city fathers of Midland only named the school in 1961—a hundred years after the start of the Civil War, forty years after the heyday of the Klan in Texas, and just as African Americans in Texas began to make gains in civil rights. Brown v. Board of Education had been decided just seven years earlier. The year before, four students from North Carolina A&T College had sat in at the Woolworth’s in Greensboro. And in 1961, Freedom Riders were testing the limits of the Constitution for integrated interstate travel.
There had been no Midland, Texas, when Robert E. Lee was alive, no deep connection to the Confederacy in the Permian Basin.
The impetus for the name might have had more to do with the fact that Midland was one of the last school districts in the state of Texas to comply with Brown v. Board of Education and integrate public education, forced to do so by court order.
The school board at the time, forced to desegregate against their will, decided they’d enact a price, Courtney explained: “Okay, we’re going to name the school that these young Black kids are going to go to after Robert E. Lee. Your mascot is going to be the Rebels. Your school flag is going to be the Confederate battle flag. And your school band is going to play ‘Dixie’ after every touchdown.”
Courtney had taught at Robert E. Lee as an assistant band director. I asked him what that meant to him, as a Black man, to be teaching students who might not appreciate the full history contained in the name of their school.
“I taught in that school for a year; it was my first experience right out of college. We were playing a football game against the Dallas Kimball Knights—a predominantly African American school. When the Kimball band officers came over to greet our band, my director decided to dedicate a song to them and chose ‘Cotton Fields.’ I saw the faces of my students all looking at me at once, with some of them mouthing, ‘Mr. Ratliff, we cannot play this song for them.’ The kids realized what we were doing. Later, I asked my director why we had done that. He said it was spur of the moment—that Kimball had the championship football team, but he wanted to show off our award-winning band and this was one song he knew they could play without advance notice.”
In 1989, the school stopped flying the Confederate flag. In 2017, they stopped playing “Dixie.” But changing the name was the last important step to take.
They had put their all into two previous attempts, but were unable to rally enough support to convince the school board. It was tough, it might have even seemed hopeless, but they had to keep trying.
The third attempt turned out to be the charm—led by those who wrote hundreds of letters and emails to the school board on a daily basis, who reached out to family and friends to engage them in the campaign, who, just like Lawrence Nixon, had the courage to keep the faith. Together, they convinced the board that it was time.
And like the Gainesville City Council, those board members did the courageous thing and changed the name, in a 6–1 vote, to Legacy High School. The people gave those trustees the power, and they used it.
“People finally decided that Midland can do better,” Ratliff told me.
He also told me he’d received some threats and been harassed along the way. But he felt that the effort and the outcome were worth the hardship and the sacrifice.
“I’m so glad those kids don’t have to go through this anymore,” he told me.
I thanked Courtney and turned my attention to those leading the meeting at the park. Soon, the speeches began and we each took turns talking about why democracy was worth fighting for and worth saving. We committed ourselves to the work ahead, no matter how hard it would be.
As I gave my remarks to the people who’d come out under that beautiful West Texas sky, I saw Dee, the nurse from across the street.
She gave me a thumbs-up, ready to do her part.
* * *
Back in Gainesville, Jenika told me that while the Confederate monument in front of us was about to come down, it hadn’t been easy. But she knew why she had to keep trying. “I grew up a mixed girl in Texas. My dad was a second-generation Mexican American. Once I had children of my own, I knew I had to try to change at least our part of the world to make life better for them than it was for me.” At several key moments, she and her colleagues had to look up from defeat and find a way to keep moving forward.
“We pushed the county commissioners court to pull down the statue in front of the courthouse, but we couldn’t get them to change their minds. So we turned our attention to the city council because they have say over the parks. And after protesting and showing up to council meetings and organizing our fellow citizens, this Confederate statue will finally be coming down this summer.”
The citizens of Gainesville had been able to pull off a victory denied to every person who’d tried before them for the last 110 years. It was a feat of civic leadership, a resounding confirmation of the power of our democracy. People peacefully, nonviolently organized to put an end to the public praise of those who’d violently attacked our democracy in the past. They help us to understand that we can never condone, encourage, or celebrate sedition, whether it occurred in 1861 or 2021.
And yet—the reason we were talking in the first place is that she wasn’t even registered to vote.
Jenika apparently saw more promise and power in direct organizing than she did at the ballot box. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s harder than it needs to be to register to vote in Texas. At any rate, I helped her get registered and suggested that in addition to voting in future elections, there was even more she could do.
“What about running to serve as a county commissioner, so that you’re the one making the decisions for this community?”
She told me she’d think about it.
4
Pecos County
It was early August 2017 and I was on the trail with my family in West Texas. We’d just picked the kids up from camp in Jeff Davis County a few days before, and they were joining Amy and me on a few campaign stops in Fort Davis, Alpine, and Marfa.
Soon afterward, we pulled into the city of Fort Stockton, in Pecos County, without a planned event on the schedule, since it was supposed to be a rest day. But while the kids jumped in the hotel pool, I told the campaign team I thought we should organize an impromptu town hall meeting at the local Dickey’s barbecue restaurant. I recorded a quick video on Twitter and Facebook urging people in the area to come out. Around dinnertime, Amy and I gathered the kids, piled them back into the truck, and showed up to greet all the people who’d come to meet us.
But when we got to the Dickey’s, no supporters were waiting. No voters were wanting to ask me questions. No one. In fact, the only person in the restaurant was the manager—an immigrant from India, who was grateful we’d chosen his restaurant to hold our (so far) sparsely attended town hall meeting. I told him not to worry, folks would be here soon. In the meantime, I asked him for a recommendation about what to order.
“I’m a vegetarian,” he said. “But everyone seems to like the brisket.”
We took his advice, ate, and waited for people to show up. Eventually, we got a robust crowd of ten or twelve—essentially three families, one of which was just passing through Pecos County when they saw my video and decided to pull in off the main road. The county judge, Joe Shuster, also came out.
Now, finally, we had a real meeting on our hands.
I was no stranger to town hall meetings. When I served on the El Paso City Council, I held one every Monday morning for six years. I’d lay out what would be on Tuesday’s council agenda, answer questions, hear what people had to say about changes they wanted to see in their neighborhoods, or listen to their ideas about issues—like how we were going to create more jobs or preserve more acres of public land.
Sometimes I’d have a guest speaker, like the director of the streets department or the city manager. These weekly meetings made me a lot better at my job than I would have been otherwise. I knew I’d have to study that agenda carefully to make sure I could answer any question that came my way. I also knew I’d have to explain every one of my votes to my constituents the following Monday. It introduced a level of accountability that kept me focused on those I was elected to serve.
I did the same thing as a member of Congress, holding a monthly town hall meeting for the general public and a quarterly town hall meeting for veterans. It was all comers welcomed, no holds barred. Anyone could ask any question, level any criticism, offer any idea. I’d stay until the last person had their say. One time we kept the meeting going in the parking lot after getting kicked out of the high school auditorium because we’d been there for more than three hours and the custodian wanted to lock up and go home.
Just like the town hall meetings I held when I was on the city council, these congressional town halls made me a better representative. I had to justify my votes and what I was doing with this position of public trust. I couldn’t come back with excuses. I might have been a Democrat in a Republican-majority chamber, but that could never justify a lack of progress.
These meetings kept me laser-focused on my community and the people I served. They also produced a lot of helpful conversations. When veterans shared with me the challenges of trying to get an appointment at the local VA, I could use these details to help make significant changes that improved wait times and outcomes for them. I proposed legislation in Congress that was literally written in dialogue with community members on issues ranging from benefits for returning service members, to preservation of public lands, to improving immigration laws for the family members of U.S. citizens.
Some of these bills passed and some didn’t—but they all came from the community I represented and were all made possible by the open, honest conversations in these town hall meetings.
So I was looking forward to this impromptu town hall in Fort Stockton. I knew I’d learn something and come away a better candidate and a better person for it.
I shook everyone’s hand, told them how glad I was they came out, and expressed my gratitude to Dickey’s for hosting us and for their brisket, which turned out to be excellent. But before I could get much further, one of the attendees, a woman from Fort Stockton, stood up and asked:
“What are you going to do about Obamacare?”
She told me that she made too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford any of the plans on the Affordable Care Act exchange.
“Me and my spouse are lower middle class. We’re not able to afford health care. So we bypass that. We have to make the decision: Do we put food on the table or do we buy insurance that we probably won’t be able to use because, what doctor are you going to see here? Sometimes you have to travel hundreds of miles to see a doctor.”
I began to explain that because Texas had refused Medicaid expansion, even though the federal government would initially cover 100 percent of the cost, she was one of the millions of Texans left in the lurch. In fact, we were the least-insured state in the country, one where people died of diabetes, the flu, and curable cancers, all because our elected leaders wanted to make a symbolic stand against President Obama more than they wanted to save the lives of the people they represented.
“It doesn’t matter if they expand Medicaid,” she countered. “In a place like Fort Stockton, no doctor takes Medicare or Medicaid. I’ll never get the help I need. I’ll just keep working hard while the people who don’t take the benefits.”
We continued the conversation and I told her that even if we didn’t agree on every issue, including health care, it was important that we kept listening to each other. I told her that I appreciated her joining us and challenging me in a forum like this.
“This may not be easy or comfortable,” I told her, “but listening to each other is what we need to be doing.”
She agreed. “A lot of people, they just agree and shake their head and say ‘yes’ and just go with the flow. We have to have somebody that’s going to stand up and ruffle things up and move things in the right direction for everybody, not just certain people.”
And then, something pretty amazing happened. A young man, one of the few other people in the room, stood up and introduced himself. “I’m a doctor practicing here in Fort Stockton,” he said. “I accept Medicaid and Medicare. In fact, I’d be happy to see you, even if you don’t have insurance.”
If I’d had any doubts about the wisdom of holding a town hall meeting in Fort Stockton that day, or holding campaign events that were so open and unstructured, where really anything could happen, that moment answered my concerns. What was taking place before us was really special. We were bringing people together, folks whose paths might not otherwise cross, to have some tough but productive conversations. And we were also connecting people who could actually help each other, like this doctor who was going to be able to take care of this woman—a neighbor of his he’d never met and probably never would have met—who’d been forced to choose between putting food on the table and buying health insurance.
After the town hall was over, I introduced myself to the doctor and asked him to tell me his story. “I grew up here, graduated from high school here,” Auden Velasquez told me. “And I wanted to go to medical school, but there was no way I could afford it.” He motioned to Judge Shuster to come over. “But the judge found a way to help me out.”
Shuster shared with me how he and the commissioners court decided to pay for half of Velasquez’s medical school education and, thanks to the Outstanding Rural Scholar Recognition Program, the state of Texas would pick up the other half. They did this on the condition that after becoming a doctor, Velasquez would return to Fort Stockton and practice medicine for a minimum of six years.
In other words, the community would invest in his success if he’d commit to serving the town that made his success possible. The kicker: by the time I’d met him, he had already satisfied his six-year requirement and was in his eighth year in Fort Stockton, with no plans to leave. He’d married a hometown girl and they were raising their family together there.
He was focusing on the people he’d grown up with, the people who’d nurtured him and literally guaranteed his success by underwriting his education. For the bargain price of just medical school tuition, Pecos County got a homegrown doctor to take care of the people of the community.
What Joe Shuster did to address the needs of his community really made an impression on me. The creativity, the dedication, the fact that he was so personally invested in Velasquez’s success—that’s a real public servant in my book.
Unfortunately, the state program that Shuster used to grow more hometown doctors no longer exists. That’s too bad, because if ever there was a time to invest in more health care workers, it’s now. And if ever there was a place that needed them, it’s rural Texas.
I came back to Fort Stockton in 2021 and had the chance to meet with Judge Shuster and Dr. Velasquez again, along with some other local health care leaders, to see how they were doing. These were tough times. Covid, and the resulting strain of delivering care without enough doctors or hospital beds, had proved too much for some.
Fort Stockton, like much of the country, had been hit hard by the pandemic. The county hospital quickly filled up and because other parts of Texas were struggling as well, they were forced to transfer patients to Arkansas and New Mexico. They were short on supplies, ventilators, and providers. Nurses were forced to work outside of their scope of practice.
Dr. Velasquez told me that, for the first time in his career, he felt like quitting.
“I had patients die. I had to tell an eighteen-year-old kid that his fifty-two-year-old father had died. And I just felt like I couldn’t do anything.”
Compounding these challenges is the fact that Texas is also experiencing a staffing shortage in the health care industry. Big Bend Regional Health Center, for instance, covers a twelve-thousand-square-mile area that serves twenty-five thousand people, but since February 2021, more than half of their physician workforce had left the area.
Why?
According to Dr. Adrian Billings, one of the center’s family physicians, the answer is Covid. And stress. And not having enough other providers to help.
“It’s like running a marathon at a sprint,” he told me.
The half of workers who left still haven’t been replaced—leaving not just Fort Stockton and Pecos County, but also smaller surrounding communities like Presidio, which is on the border with Mexico in Brewster County, underserved. Dr. Linda Molinar told me that health care access was already so bad in Presidio that, because there was no doctor in town, her brother had been delivered by the town’s veterinarian. Like the folks in Pecos County, she is trying to solve the problem by encouraging local students—including her son—to pursue medical education.
But no longer able to depend on the canceled Rural Scholar program, her family has had to work hard to find the resources to get her son the education he and his community will need for their mutual success. He’s the exception, she said. Because rural communities are so medically underserved, it’s rare for kids in these communities to ever see a doctor. And therefore, they just don’t realize that it’s possible for them to someday be a doctor.
“The vast majority of the kids you see in medical school these days are from the big cities and suburbs,” she told me.
She suggested the state start a program that would target rural students for recruitment to medical school. I said I thought that was a great idea.
Dr. Billings told me that in the short term the solution is “expanding Medicaid, bringing in these federal funds so that local money can be used for…”
“For survival,” Judge Shuster said, finishing his sentence.
In fact, as of 2019, more than 30 of Texas’s 254, predominantly rural counties do not have even a single doctor. More than twenty other counties have only one. Seventy-one counties do not have a hospital. And many, like Pecos, are having to cut services like obstetrics to be able to stretch limited resources further and deliver basic services to more people.
