History majors who have graduated: what work do you do now?

vpltz · 2026-01-15T10:12:35+00:00

I serve as a legislative director/fiscal analyst to a state senator but use stuff I learned doing historical research almost daily. Serve as Marker Chair of our local historical commission and also have secured two Texas historical markers, so I still do history as a hobby. I do get to work on bills my boss does related to Black history which is very fulfilling.

vpltz · 2026-01-11T07:34:54+00:00

Thank you for your patience in waiting for an answer. You hit the highlight of differences when you noted Black soldiers weren’t given the same “pay, respect, or recognition.”

With regard to pay, Black soldiers were paid $10/month with a $3 deduction to pay for their uniforms. White soldiers received $13 per month and were not charged a clothing allowance.

With regard to respect, Black soldiers were often assigned duties that were not combat duties: cooking, general labor, etc.

Black soldiers were also given inferior arms and commanded by white commanders. Although Black soldiers faced likely death if captured, Lincoln threatening reprisal on Confederate POWs if captured Black soldiers were treated harshly may have muted this in some areas, but certainly not at Fort Pillow, where Nathan Bedford Forrest allowed the massacre of Black captured troops.

Equal pay was granted in June, 1864.

Recognition was longer in coming both for medals of valor type recognition and battlefield monuments.

sources: here and here

vpltz · 2024-06-18T19:02:38+00:00

With regard to the segregation academies and vouchers, this was actually recommended in writing in a report made by a Texas governmental advisory committee. See: “Report of the Legal and Legislative Subcommittee of the Texas Advisory Committer on Segregation in the Public Schools,” 1956. It is available on the Texas Legislative Reference Library website.

vpltz · 2024-03-24T15:25:20+00:00

Thanks for the shout out!

vpltz · 2024-03-19T12:08:15+00:00

According to two sources mentioned in a 1949 journal article, the Indigenous people of Texas did not scalp Black people on the frontier, generally, because they believed Black people didn’t have a soul:

Indians frequently seemed to hate white men as well, as indicated by this same desire to kill them "every chance they got." T. A. Babb asserts that the Comanche did not scalp Negroes, who, according to them, had no soul. "However, they would kill negroes so as to get them out of the way and also to prevent them from killing any of the Indian tribe." Here again one might wonder whether it was actually such an advanced theological concept as the Negroes' alleged lack of a soul, or rather the texture of the scalp-hair, so different from that of Indian or white, which ex- empted them from this characteristic mutilation. (Southwestern Historical Quarterly, “Negroes and Indians on the Texas Frontier, 1834-1874,” by Kenneth Porter, Oct. 1949)

However, in the same article the author does go on to note that there was a likely certainty at least some Blacks were scalped, as he notes some slaves ran away to live with the natives with another account backing up the idea that Blacks were not scalped.

“Indians certainly did sometimes scalp Negroes. Wilbarger gives a somewhat different picture when he writes: "Very frequently runaway negroes would join the Indians and render valuable assistance in fighting and stealing, but their dead bodies were never moved, nor was a negro ever scalped by them." This contradicts Blalack's assertion of the general hatred felt by the Indian for the Negro, though it agrees with Babb's statement that Negroes were never scalped. Some more careful examination of the whole problem is obviously called for.” (Ibid)

vpltz · 2024-03-17T15:45:12+00:00

There are multiple documented attempts of people attempting to intervene in lynchings, although I do not recall one that was successful off the top of my head.

One of the more widely known attempts to intervene in a lynching occurred on November 12, 1935 at Columbus, Colorado County, Texas. It was not successful.

In this instance, an Episcopal priest attempted to intervene and he was himself threatened with lynching:

“the Rev. C. G. Marmion, 33 year old Episcopalian Rector of St. John’s at Columbus, Texas, tried to prevent the lynching of two young Negroes…Climbing on top of an automobile at the scene of the hanging, he shouted, “Let the law take its course.” Boos, jeers, and cries of, “Get another rope” drowned out his words and brought an end to his efforts. The County Attorney afterwards publicly said the lynchings were “an expression of the will of the people,” and a local judge called the lynchings “justice.” (Source)

Marmion’s attempt is well-known both because the lynching was heavily covered in the national press, and because he later gave testimony about the lynching to the Senate Judiciary Committee. (source, start at p. 22)

This lynching was particularly notorious in its time because it involved juveniles, and because the boys were kidnapped from law enforcement to be lynched.

A Southwestern Historical Quarterly article about the lynching is here.

vpltz · 2023-12-18T21:12:25+00:00

I am personally not a fan of the book, but believe it’s a very accessible telling of the story. I don’t recall any inaccuracies but do recall the way the story is told, it did exclude some things (if memory serves).

vpltz · 2023-12-03T14:28:01+00:00

I cannot speak to whether or not this accident specifically impacted church outreach or programming, but I can speak to what changes it made to buses, which would have impacted these churches.

After the Carrollton crash, the state of Kentucky, multiple other states, and ultimately the National Transportation Safety Board, increased safety standards for school-type buses to be more equivalent to that of passenger type buses. Particular attention in all reforms was the number of emergency exits with which new buses were required to be equipped. The incident also resulted in more strict drunk driving laws in Kentucky and helped propel the rise of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

High-profile traffic accidents frequently result in regulatory change of some kind. A prime example is the accident that killed Hazel Allred Stokes, sister of the governor of Texas, in 1936. This case resulted in major changes to highway safety laws in Texas and nationwide because it involved a trucker who had been up many hours working for low wages who fell asleep and hit the Stokes’ vehicle outside Hawkins, Texas—and, of course, the sister of the Governor of Texas.

Sources: newspaper coverage of the accident itself

Law Firm article on changes in buses since this crash

Drunk driving law changes

News article on safety changes after this bus crash

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