Pubdate: Sun, 30 Jun 2002
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Webpage: 
www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/063002dntextulia.15de6.html
Copyright: 2002 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author:  David McLemore
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/tulia.htm (Tulia, Texas)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)

TOWN STILL DEEP IN RACIAL DIVIDE

Days Of Harmony In Tulia Gone Since '99 Drug Arrests Of 43 Blacks

TULIA, Texas - Driving in from the interstate, Tulia is a bump on the 
horizon, dwarfed by a landscape hard and flat as a skillet. Even at a 
distance, it's clear that this small Texas Panhandle town has seen better days.

The only movie house is closed. The Dairy Queen shut down for lack of 
business. Tulia's faded neighborhoods and empty storefronts on the town 
square aren't the only sign of the bad times bedeviling Tulia.

The racial divide, nearly three years after a controversial drug raid, has 
widened. Neighbors in this town of 5,100 who once talked to each other now 
nurse racial wounds and parse out blame. Tulia, the little town proud to be 
one of the first towns in Texas to integrate its schools 50 years ago, 
can't figure out why it is in the crosshairs of racism.

Black residents' anger bubbles up over lengthy prison sentences resulting 
from the 1999 drug busts that ensnared nearly 10 percent of the town's 
small black community of about 430. Particularly galling, some black 
residents say, is that all arrests stemmed from the uncorroborated word of 
one white free-lance police officer.

CHERYL DIAZ MEYER / DMN

Tulia, a small Panhandle town, was one of the first Texas towns to 
integrate its schools. But some blacks are still upset over the drug 
arrests, while some whites wonder what the fuss is about. Hispanics raised 
their voices in May, saying they, too, were singled out by authorities 
after a raid for under-aged drinking at a high school graduation party in a 
private residence.

For longtime resident Thelma Johnson, the one certainty in Tulia is that 
skin color is just too convenient a target.

"I can't say what happened came as a surprise," said Ms. Johnson, whose 
nephew was caught in the drug raid. "You could see it coming. ... The jury 
just decided that if it was black people, they had to be dealing drugs."

Meanwhile, whites express perplexed concern, wondering what the fuss is all 
about. They insist with almost painful sincerity that outsiders have 
unfairly besmirched their town's image.

There is no ghetto, no barrio in Tulia. Anglos, blacks and Hispanics live 
next door to one another, work together and get along generally peacefully, 
they say. The ugliness of racial discord has, however, shattered the 
coziness of small-town unity, raising uncomfortable questions.

This place has changed, and people don't like it.

"When problems arise, this community takes care of each other. It has 
nothing to do with race or color or religion. But nobody outside sees 
that," said Bob Colson, a local businessman and elder in the Central Church 
of Christ. "We'd just like the news media to go away and leave us alone. 
We're just trying to heal."

The trouble began July 23, 1999, when drug raids netted 46 people in Tulia, 
purportedly as cocaine dealers, including 43 blacks. The other three - two 
Anglos and one Hispanic - were closely associated with Tulia's black 
community. The protests spawned by the arrests and trials put Tulia in the 
national spotlight.

All the arrests followed drug buys made by Tom Coleman, an itinerant 
undercover agent brought in by Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart to 
clean up the town. There were no surveillance videotapes, no audio 
recordings and no other police testimony. Just Mr. Coleman's recollections 
from notes he said he wrote on his leg after drug buys.

During the last session of the Legislature, partially in response to the 
uproar in Tulia, lawmakers enacted new limitations, halting prosecutions 
based on the uncorroborated testimony of a single peace officer.

Mr. Coleman, who has left law enforcement, lives in Waxahachie. He could 
not be reached for comment.

The Tulia case raised uncomfortable comparisons in Dallas this year when 
the district attorney's office dismissed dozens of drug cases against 
predominantly Hispanic suspects. Most of the arrests were made based on the 
word of undercover Dallas police informants. In more than two dozen cases, 
the purported drugs turned out to be chalk or gypsum, an ingredient used in 
Sheetrock.

Swisher County Sheriff Stewart declined to discuss the Tulia investigations 
or the resulting controversy, citing continuing criminal trials, a Justice 
Department civil rights investigation and pending actions brought by the 
NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union.

CHERYL DIAZ MEYER / DMN

Freddie Brookins, with his wife, Pattie, and grandson Coy Sutton, says the 
20-year sentence levied against his son, who was caught during the raid, 
was unfair. "People know my son didn't use no drugs and never was in 
trouble," he said. Black residents, however, are not hesitant to speak. 
They are particularly angry that the arrests appear to have singled out 
many young black men and women with minor or no criminal records and no 
history of drug use.

For Freddie Brookins Sr., the 20-year sentence levied against his son, 
Freddie Brookins Jr., 24, was more about the consequences of flouting 
community standards than criminal activity.

"People know my son didn't use no drugs and never was in trouble. But he 
had a child by a white woman, and the people in power didn't like that," 
Mr. Brookins said. "They made an example of the white people for mixing 
with blacks and the blacks for mixing with whites."

Blacks in Tulia talk about the stares that mixed-race couples get when they 
walk down the street. Many whites cite the prevalence of mixed-race couples 
as evidence of the town's racial tolerance.

Ms. Johnson, the aunt of one those arrested, said there are a number of 
whites in Tulia who voice support. They just didn't make themselves too 
visible.

"I had a number of white people come up, pat me on the back and say, 'You 
go, girl' but they didn't say it too loud," Ms. Johnson said. "If a white 
person speaks up for a black in Tulia, he's going to lose his white ticket."

Hispanic discontent bubbled up in May when Texas Alcoholic Beverage 
Commission officers, accompanied by Tulia police, raided the graduation 
party in a Hispanic neighborhood. Some of the Anglo kids were released, 
residents said, while about two dozen Hispanic youths were cited for 
underage drinking.

Mario Rosales, who organized the party for his son and friends, disputed 
TABC agent reports that teens were drinking illegally. "This wasn't a wild 
party. It was a family thing," he said.

Anger in the Hispanic community compounded when agents forced pregnant 
women and children as young as age 6 to kneel with hands above their heads 
while officers checked IDs.

"We've never really had any problem in Tulia, not even with the cops. But 
they came in the back yard that night like on TV, yelling and making 
everyone kneel, even little kids. That's wrong," said Monica Montes, whose 
son was detained by TABC officers. "It's like they went after the blacks. 
And now, the Hispanics are next."

The raid was a "basic graduation party investigation," one of a many that 
the commission conducts statewide each spring, Capt. Dell Drake said from 
TABC headquarters in Austin. The complaints stemming from the incident, in 
which 22 minors were cited for illegal possession of alcohol and three 
people were jailed for disorderly conduct, is under investigation, he said.

Anglo residents bridle at the charges of racism. They recall that Tulia 
voluntarily integrated its schools in the 1950s. They point with pride that 
the chief deputy sheriff is Hispanic and that the Tulia Chamber of Commerce 
named a black police sergeant from the seven-member police force as its Man 
of the Year in 2000.

"Racism is a false trail. This was never a racial problem," said Chamber 
Executive Director Lana Barnett, a lifelong Panhandle resident. "These are 
problem kids and the truth is, they're guilty."

Such strongly divergent views demonstrate the rapid acceleration of social 
and cultural change that swept Texas in the last quarter-century. It 
greatly upset the community equilibrium in towns such as Tulia, said Peter 
J. Petersen, who taught history for more than three decades at West Texas 
A&M University in Canyon.

"This is a community overwhelmed by change and the uncertainty they've 
experienced in recent years," Dr. Petersen said. "Everything they've held 
onto is changing. They don't seem to be in control. They're scared of the 
future."

CHERYL DIAZ MEYER / DMN

Swisher County Sheriff Larry Stewart hired the officer at the center of the 
divisive busts. He declined to discuss the issue. Racial diversity came 
slowly to Tulia. Like much of the Panhandle, whites were the dominant 
population until World War I, when grain and cotton cultivation brought in 
a handful of black workers. In the 1960s, Hispanic workers began moving in 
to take jobs in the large feedlots and nearby packing plants.

Anglos now make up about 51 percent of the population, while Hispanics make 
up 43 percent and black residents are about 6 percent, according to the 
Panhandle Planning Commission.

Tulia faded amid a decline of agriculture and cattle business. In the 
1980s, Interstate 27 bypassed Tulia. Traffic that once cruised through town 
went elsewhere. Many residents commute to Amarillo for work.

Like many Panhandle communities, Tulia's small-town character was shaped by 
the virtues of hard work and a hard-edged Protestantism.

While Tulia boasts nearly two dozen active churches, including Roman 
Catholic and nondenominational evangelical congregations offering sermons 
in Spanish, the Southern Baptist and Church of Christ churches of early 
settlers still serve as Tulia's spiritual bedrock.

Alan Bean, an ordained minister from Canada, and his wife Nancy, a teacher 
whose family has lived in Swisher County for generations, embraces a hope 
for racial equity in Tulia. They helped form Friends of Justice, a 
community advocacy group.

"In this community, 'drugs' is code for blacks and 'gangs' is code for 
Hispanics. Race has become a wedge in the community," Mr. Bean said. "I 
don't think the whites in Tulia hate blacks or Hispanics. They like them 
fine as long as they act white. They don't want to change for anyone."

Mr. Colson, the church elder, disagrees.

"Change is inevitable. But it takes time. And it comes from within, not 
forced on you," he said.

Jeff Blackburn, a city rights attorney in Amarillo for more than two 
decades, has launched a long-term campaign, he says, to protect the 
interests of the Tulia 46.

Twelve of those arrested faced jury trials, were convicted and received 
sentences of 20 to 99 years. Thirty pleaded guilty as part of plea bargains 
with prosecutors, mostly, they said, out of fear of what jurors would do.

"When the defendants started seeing those big sentences, they realized it 
didn't matter what they had done," Ms. Johnson said. "Whether they had used 
drugs or not, they were going to pay a price."

One suspect died of natural causes. Charges were dropped against the other 
two after evidence emerged to show that they could not have been buying 
drugs at the time Mr. Coleman, the informant, said they were. One 
defendant's trial is pending.

Mr. Blackburn acknowledges that many of the people arrested were involved 
in drug use - primarily crack cocaine.

"It didn't make sense. These people lived in hovels and couldn't afford a 
decent car. In a town that size, who can believe there were 46 dealers? 
Whom were they selling to?" Mr. Blackburn said.

For many Tulia residents, there is no doubt about the guilt of those 
convicted. For them, attacking the scourge drugs is the highest good.

"We don't want drugs in our community. The jurors believed those people 
were guilty, and I have to agree. I don't have any doubts," Mr. Colson, the 
church elder, said. "Each of us in this town are doing what we know how to 
do for the best of our children. All our children, whether black or brown 
or white. It doesn't matter. They're all our kids."

Tulia has always prided itself on taking care of its own, Ms. Barnett of 
the Chamber said. The annual Love Fund draws thousands of dollars and 
hundreds of volunteer hours to provide Christmas gifts for about 300 of the 
poorest residents. Those who don't help are noted.

"When I was a kid, people took pride in their home. They kept the yards 
mowed and the fixed up their house," she said. "Now, there's a disregard 
for community standards among younger blacks and Hispanics. They have their 
own culture and their own ways of doing things. We'll never be the small 
town we once were. And that's sad."
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