Lesson Plans: The Vietnam War and American Society
Lesson Plans: Protest and Social Unrest
Lesson Plans: Radio and Communications Technology
The Long-Lasting and Perpetuating Effects of Lynching Postcards and Photography
Throughout U.S. history, Black Americans have been victims of a range of violent and coercive systems, including slavery, segregation, and state-sanctioned violence, leaving enduring strains on the nation’s past and present. Among the most overt and brutal manifestations of this history was lynching, which made racial domination visible through public acts of terror. Emerging in the early nineteenth century, lynching in the United States functioned as widespread extrajudicial violence, most often carried out by White mobs against Black Americans and other marginalized groups[SH1] .[1] These killings typically involved an accused individual being seized by a mob and publicly executed, often after prolonged torture that included burning, cutting, drowning, or shooting. Victims were frequently left hanging in public spaces as a warning to others.[2]Such acts were routinely justified under the language of “social justice” and rarely resulted in legal consequences for perpetrators.[3]
Dogwood trees in bloom in Dixieland, postcard. Ca. 1930
Crucially, lynching was not only enacted as violence but also staged, documented, and circulated. Many of these events were photographed, with images reproduced as postcards and distributed among White communities, extending the spectacle beyond the immediate site of the killing and embedding it within a broader visual culture of racial domination.[4]
Since the mid-nineteenth century, photography has played a significant role in shaping popular culture and historical memory through the use of violent imagery. [SH2] During the American Civil War, photographs of battlefields and soldiers’ daily lives were widely produced to document the conflict. Yet Black soldiers, who also fought in large numbers, appear only rarely in this visual record. Instead, Black people were more often depicted as civilians attached to the military or as refugees, a pattern that reinforced racial hierarchies by presenting Black subjects in subordinate or dependent roles relative to their White counterparts.[5]
Postcards, known as “Patriotic Covers”, started appearing at the end of the Civil War era in 1865, with portraits of White patriots to commemorate and honor them for their service and sacrifice.[6] To most people during the late nineteenth century, postcards were a modern form of visual communiqué mainly marketed to White audiences as pictographic collectibles of important places, events, and individuals. By 1908, 677 million postcards were mailed, increasing to nearly one billion in 1913.[7] Picture postcards became a popular visual communication medium in the United States and are often used as a tactile method to commemorate leisure outings and activities.[8]
Papa Jony, Farmers City, IL sitting in a store, which sold postcards. Source: Wikimedia Commons
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Purchasing and collecting postcards became a way to signal taste and social identity, with the style and quality of the images reflected in the postcards people possessed, mailed, and exchanged with others.[9]Within this broader visual culture, racialized imagery also circulated widely. Some postcards depicted Black figures deliberately darkened with ink and positioned alongside White subjects, reinforcing racial hierarchy and representations of Black inferiority.
Therefore, postcards produced and disseminated racist stereotypes, particularly through images of Black children depicted as primates or ape-like figures in degrading and stylized poses, such as eating watermelon, sitting on the ground, or walking barefoot in cotton fields.[10] Consequently, since the 1860s, lynchings also started being photographed across the country, especially in the South. These visual depictions of racial violence were widely reproduced and sold on the streets and local shops, primarily to White southerners from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.[11] These states, where most lynchings happened, sold postcards for an average of ten cents each, which would later be sent throughout the country to relatives who shared the same racist views.[12] The dissemination of these postcards conveyed the message of the superiority of White individuals in the picture, who often posed in front of the camera with a grin of satisfaction.[13] These expressions not only asserted White superiority and power but also framed Black suffering as an expected outcome for those accused of defying the dominant group, regardless of guilt.
The Dogwood Tree, 1908. Credit: Without Sanctuary
In Sabine County, Texas, in 1905, the lynching of Will Manuel, Cleve Williams, Moses Spellman, Will Johnson, Jerry Evans, and a male whose last name was [SH3] identified as Williams was preserved in postcard form (See Figure above) and remains one of the few surviving examples to include pro-lynching poetry. Such postcards often featured explicit language that endorsed and reinforced White supremacy, whether through printed text or handwritten annotations. Not only did these postcards show the contemporary mindset of that time, but they also influenced future generations and their connotations of non-white people, as families often saved these postcards as memorabilia. Indeed, the writer’s supposed sense of righteousness and objectivity present in their words are material proof of their views and attitudes toward minorities and their support for a White supremacist America and the perpetual subjugation of Black people.
Public understanding of lynching remains uneven, and discussions of this history are often avoided or marginalized within broader narratives of the nation’s past.[14] Many White Americans have the perception that extremist racist behavior in society is an issue of the past and that the nation is long past violent and racially driven crimes and behaviors.[15] However, the legacy of lynching, and particularly its visual documentation, has influenced public policy and social attitudes, with lasting consequences for Black communities. Public lynchings continued until the mid-twentieth century, and so did the dissemination of postcards and photographs through the mail, even after the outlawing of their mailing in 1908.[16] Presently, lynching postcards and physical souvenirs of the deceased, such as clothing items, locks of hair, and bones, can be found in family albums, attic trunks, online sales, thrift stores, pawn shops, and flea markets, with some selling for up to thousands of dollars. Therefore, this indicates that objects considered to be lynching memorabilia were frequently hidden among family possessions or discarded as a means of avoiding the law or, in contemporary times, out in society, ready for acquisition by those who actively seek the items out.[17]
While the historical contexts differ, scholars note that visual documentation of racialized violence continues to shape public perception today. Similarly, lynching photographs have given way to “othering” of Black Americans in the US by the general population and the police force. The brutality shown in those postcards can still be seen today in the proliferation of images featuring police violence against Black people. Historically, many police forces have been “official” perpetrators of violence against African Americans in the South. In some cases, law enforcement agencies carry out a brutal and lengthy legacy of maintaining peace through state-sanctioned coercion and fearmongering among the minority population because of preconceived, racist, and stereotypical notions that are woven into the threads of American society.[18] For example, in contemporary conversations around police body cams, the proliferation of images of police violence against Black people is evident. The evidence can tell us that this Black person is doing nothing and is not a threat, yet they are handcuffed, or worse, their lives are taken from them.[19]
Memorial Corridor at The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Source: Wikimedia Commons
The photographs act, still to this day, as a moment frozen in time where lynching victims were suffering at the hands of the White mob and are a permanent display of power, race, and White supremacy. Indeed, lynching photographs today stand as tokens of the most sensationalistic aspects of lynching: photographers selling torture and death through pictures and postcards for profit and spectators who bought them, sent them to friends and family, and preserved them for generations. Nevertheless, at the turn of the last century, they served as “proof” of something more; the shots photographers chose to take, develop, and sell, and how senders chose to present themselves through writing, ultimately came to visually substantiate the ideologies of White supremacy and White solidarity that both justified and incited lynching.[20] These images have allowed racist individuals throughout time to rationalize or obscure the brutality of lynching by reframing it as social justice or civic duty. In this sense, lynching photography not only documented racial terror but also functioned as a tool of denial—reinforcing the shared narratives and symbols of the past that both celebrated White dominance and concealed the depth of Black suffering. Regardless of the era, whether it involves a lynching postcard or the killing of a Black individual at the hands of the police, visual evidence of outright violence against the Black community struggles to raise awareness of the structural problem in a society that has long been accustomed to the inequalities and subjugation of Black Americans. Treating and understanding lynching photography as historically rooted yet still active in shaping the present enables us to recognize its enduring influence on the way race is perceived. Confronting these images, therefore, is not only about acknowledging a dark past but also about addressing the ongoing structures of racism they helped create, to prevent their repetition in new forms.
Alejandro Soto Camacho is a Ph.D. student in sociology at The University of Texas at Austin. He earned his BA in Sociology and Anthropology with a minor in Forensic Science from North Carolina State University. Currently, his research interests are in historical and environmental sociology.
Rasul A. Mowatt is the Department Head of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management in the College of Natural Resources and Affiliate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at North Carolina State University. His interests and concerns are strongly centered on critiquing society for issues that are most prevalent in impacting quality of life.
Full article link: https://www.proquest.com/openview/240faeda045d4a5bb108212017cc5541/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=5531555
References:
Brown, Kimberly J. 2024. “The Absence of Black Soldiers in Civil War Photos Speaks Volumes.” The MIT Press Reader, June 19. https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/theabsence-of-Black-soldiers-in-civil-war-photos-speaks-volumes/.
Haydel, Nia Woods. 2007. “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, a Case Study of a Higher Education Partnership for Social Justice Education.” PhD diss., Georgia State University. ProQuest (3301005). https://www.proquest.com/dissertationstheses/without-sanctuary-lynching-photography-america/docview/304843783/se-2.
Jordan, Meghan Lynn. 2017. “Lynching Photographs and Their Aftermath: The Overlay of the Gaze.” PhD diss., The University of Arizona. ProQuest (10622868). https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/lynching-photographs-theiraftermath-overlay-gaze/docview/1966211490/se-2.
Mowatt, Rasul A. 2012. “Lynching as Leisure.” American Behavioral Scientist 56 (10): 1361– 1387. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764212454429
Natividad, Ivan. 2022. “Confronting America’s Traumatic History of Lynching.” Berkeley News, June 16. https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/06/16/confronting-americastraumatic-history-of-lynching
O’Neill, Aaron. 2024. “Lynchings by State and Race in the U.S. 1882–1968.” Statista, February 2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1175147/lynching-by-race-state-and-race/.
Raiford, Leigh Renee. 2003. “‘Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare’: History, Memory, and the Photography of Twentieth-Century African American Social Movements.” PhD diss., Yale University. Pro Quest (3084356). https://www.proquest.com/dissertationstheses/imprisoned-luminous-glare-history-memory/docview/305285177/se-2.
Scott, T. A. 2015. “‘Don’t Fail to See This’: Race, Leisure, and the Transformation of Lynching in Texas.” PhD diss., The University of Chicago (3725551). https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/dont-fail-see-this-race-leisuretransformation/docview/1734444871/se-2.
Staff, Frank. 1966. The Picture Postcard and Its Origins. Frederick A. Praeger.
Stewart, Amy R. 2014. “Witnessing Horror: Psychoanalysis and the Abject Horror of Lynching Photography.” Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 19 (4): 413–434. https://doi.org/10.1057/pcs.2014.40.
Tucker, Linda. 2005. “Not Without Sanctuary: Teaching About Lynching.” Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 16 (1): 52–69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/trajincschped.16.2.0070
Wood, Amy Louise. 2005. “Lynching Photography and the Visual Reproduction of White Supremacy.” American Nineteenth Century History 6 (3): 373–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664650500381090.
[1] Haydel 2007; Jordan 2017
[2] Haydel 2007; Jordan 2017; Mowatt 2012.
[3] Haydel 2007; Jordan 2017; Mowatt 2012.
[4] Raiford 2003; Stewart 2014.
[5] Brown 2024.
[6] Brown 2024.
[7] Scott 2015.
[8] Scott 2015
[9] Staff 1966.
[10] Scott 2015.
[11] O’Neill 2024; Scott 2015
[12] O’Neill 2024; Scott 2015
[13] Mowatt 2012.
[14] Jordan 2017; Tucker 2005
[15] Jordan 2017; Haydel 2007
[16] Scott 2015
[17] Jordan 2017
[18] Raiford 2003
[19] Natividad 2022.
[20] Wood 2005.
The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.
Lesson Plans: The Cold War
Lesson Plans: Civil Rights and Civic Participation
The Spanish Empire’s Hidden Hand: How the Gálvez Network Turned the Tide of the War of Independence
An Independence Within an Empire
When the thirteen British colonies declared their independence in 1776, the world witnessed not only the birth of a new nation but also a decisive shift in the balance of global power. As historians such as Jeremy Adelman, J. H. Elliott, and Anthony Pagden have noted, the American Revolution unfolded within a wider imperial struggle stretching from Canada to the Caribbean.
Within that contested Atlantic world, Spain played an important—but often underappreciated—strategic role. Its intervention did not single-handedly determine the American victory, but it helped reshape the wider war against Britain by opening new fronts, redirecting British resources, and strengthening the Franco-American effort. What was celebrated as liberty in Philadelphia was, in Madrid, recognized as an opportunity: a calculated move by the Bourbon monarchy to check British expansion after the Seven Years’ War. Scholars such as Thomas E. Chávez and Gabriel Paquette have emphasized that weakening Great Britain was essential to safeguarding Spain’s Atlantic dominion.
It was in this environment that the Gálvez family of Macharaviaya in Málaga—José, Matías, and Bernardo—rose to prominence. Alongside figures such as Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga, Admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova, and the financier-administrator Francisco de Saavedra, they formed a transatlantic network of reform, diplomacy, logistics, and military coordination that altered strategic realities on both sides of the ocean.
However, Spain did not aid the rebellion out of sympathy for revolutionary ideals, but to preserve its position within a competitive imperial system. Yet the outcome was paradoxical: by helping secure the independence of others, Spain accelerated the erosion of its own imperial logic. The story unfolds in four movements—José de Gálvez’s reforms, Unzaga’s clandestine diplomacy, Bernardo de Gálvez’s Gulf campaigns, and Córdova’s naval pressure—culminating in Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris.
A map of North America (1779) during the American Revolutionary era, illustrating the extent of Spanish possessions and the multiple theaters of war. Source: Wikimedia Commons
José de Gálvez: Architect of a New Imperial Order
Before Bernardo de Gálvez became known for his Gulf campaigns, José de Gálvez had articulated a new vision of imperial governance. Trained in law and seasoned within the Bourbon administration, he arrived in New Spain in 1765 as visitador general, charged with cutting through entrenched privileges and bureaucratic inertia. As Allan J. Kuethe and Gabriel Paquette note, the visitador embodied the most ambitious edge of Bourbon reform.
His mandate was to implement the centralizing reform agenda of Charles III: enhanced administrative efficiency, tighter fiscal controls, and strengthened military defenses. Gálvez reorganized the Treasury, bolstered provincial militias, and promoted the system of intendencias—administrative districts designed to tighten royal oversight from Madrid. These reforms marked a broader shift from negotiated colonial authority to a more centralized model.
He also played a central role in one of the most controversial decisions of the era: the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. Intended as a demonstration of royal authority, the expulsion dismantled the most cohesive educational and intellectual network in Spanish America. Jesuit colleges had shaped generations of criollo elites; their removal widened the cultural and emotional distance between Crown and colony. David Brading and Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra have shown how this rupture reshaped the relationship between faith, knowledge, and civic identity in the late colonial world.
By 1776, as Minister of the Indies, Gálvez envisioned an Atlantic strategy grounded in centralization, preventive diplomacy, and trusted family networks. He placed his brother Matías as Captain General of Guatemala and his nephew Bernardo as acting governor of Louisiana, creating a chain of command aligned with Bourbon priorities. The Gálvez family came to embody an imperial project confident it could still contest British influence.
Portrait of José de Gálvez. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Luis de Unzaga: Secret Diplomacy Before the War
If José de Gálvez was the architect, Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga was the first to put the strategy into practice. Born in Málaga to a Basque family, Unzaga represented a generation of officials who blended bureaucratic discipline with political pragmatism. As Thomas E. Chávez and Daniel C. Richter suggest, Unzaga recognized early that British vulnerability offered Spain an opening.
As governor of Louisiana from 1769 to 1777, he established covert channels of support for the North American rebels. While Madrid deliberated cautiously, concerned about revolutionary contagion, Unzaga built a clandestine network of intelligence, correspondence, and supply routes from then-Spanish-controlled New Orleans up the Mississippi River and onward to the insurgent colonies. Shipments of gunpowder, lead, muskets, and provisions, often disguised as commercial cargo, ultimately reached George Washington’s army. As Gabriel Paquette and Manuel Covo note, this assistance reflected strategic calculation more than ideological sympathy.
Unzaga’s diplomacy extended beyond logistics. In late 1776, General Charles Lee informed Washington that he had received a letter from “Don Luis Venzaga (sic), Governor of New Orleans,” addressing Washington as “General of the United States of America.” Preserved in Founders Online, this reference does not amount to formal diplomatic recognition—Spain would not recognize the United States until 1783—but it suggests an early informal acknowledgment of the rebel leadership and a purposeful signal from Spanish Louisiana. Although Unzaga’s original letter has not survived, Lee’s reference shows how informal contacts were already testing the boundaries of imperial diplomacy.
By the time Spain prepared to enter the war formally, Unzaga had already laid critical groundwork. When Bernardo de Gálvez replaced him in 1777, he inherited a stabilized province and a mature intelligence-and-supply network. The discreet official from Málaga had provided the foundation for Spain’s military escalation.
Commemorative plaque dedicated to Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga on the Alameda Principal in Málaga, Spain. The plaque reads: Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga (1717–1793) was an inspiration behind the name of the United States, Captain General and Governor of Louisiana. He promoted the construction of the Alameda Principal, including this building, where he lived and died. Credit: Daniel Capilla
Bernardo de Gálvez: The Atlantic War
Bernardo de Gálvez arrived in Louisiana in 1777 as the conflict reached a turning point. Following the victory at Saratoga, the rebellion had gained momentum, France was moving toward open intervention, and Spain—guided by José de Gálvez and the Count of Floridablanca—was preparing to enter the war. As Chávez and de Covo note, the Bourbon court increasingly viewed the Gulf of Mexico as a decisive front.
At just thirty-one, Bernardo combined ambition with political acuity. His objective was clear: to prevent Britain from consolidating control of the lower Mississippi and secure the southern flank of the rebelling colonies. After Spain entered the war in 1779, Bernardo launched a coordinated campaign that would become one of the most effective—and most overlooked—of the American Revolution.
Leading a diverse force of regulars, criollos, free Black soldiers, Indigenous allies, French volunteers, and American frontiersmen, Gálvez captured Baton Rouge, then Mobile, and ultimately Pensacola—Britain’s most fortified position in the Gulf. Storms, disease, and supply shortages complicated the campaign, yet its success reshaped the geopolitical map: Spain secured the Mississippi, and Washington’s vulnerable southern flank was stabilized.
While Washington fought in the north, Gálvez’s victories disrupted British supply lines and undermined their southern operations. Jonathan Dull and David Head emphasize how combined pressures—Spanish in the south, Franco-American in the north—strained Britain’s capacity to sustain multi-theater operations.
Gálvez excelled not only as a commander but as a mediator, organizer, and governor. His inclusive policy—arming and promoting criollos, mestizos, and free Black soldiers—reflected pragmatic, Atlantic-minded governance. His victory at Pensacola in May 1781 was a strategic turning point in the Gulf theater: it removed Britain’s principal stronghold on the Gulf Coast, protected the lower Mississippi, and helped prevent British forces from concentrating fully against the Franco-American campaign that culminated at Yorktown. Charles III rewarded him with the title of Count of Gálvez and the motto Yo solo (I alone).
Strategically, Pensacola demonstrated that Spanish power remained effective across the Atlantic. Without Gálvez’s successes—and without the silver shipped from Havana that helped finance crucial phases of the Yorktown campaign—American independence would have faced far greater obstacles. Washington commanded the army; Gálvez commanded the Gulf.
Spanish sculptor Salvador Amaya works on a statue of Bernardo de Gálvez. Amaya is known for his sculptures of historical figures, including several busts of King Felipe VI of Spain. Photograph reproduced with permission of Salvador Amaya.
Luis de Córdova: A Decisive Blow
While Gálvez secured the Gulf, Admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova struck at Britain’s global lifelines. A veteran naval commander from Seville in his seventies, he led the combined Franco-Spanish fleet during a critical phase of the conflict. Historians such as Chávez and Dull have reexamined his role, highlighting its strategic weight.
In August 1780, Córdova captured a British convoy of more than fifty ships loaded with troops, military stores, commercial cargo, and specie bound for Britain’s imperial war effort. The loss was a significant financial and logistical setback. Contemporary accounts described a deep shock in London’s mercantile circles when news of the capture arrived; the convoy’s loss deprived Britain of supplies and reinforcements intended for several theaters and exposed the vulnerability of its Atlantic supply lines. Though often minimized in British accounts, the episode demonstrated how Franco-Spanish naval pressure could complicate Britain’s ability to sustain a global war.
Córdova aimed not at spectacle but at suffocating enemy commerce. His actions—from supporting operations around Gibraltar to controlling access to the English Channel—forced Britain to disperse its forces across the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Indian Ocean. Henry Kamen and Stein & Stein note that these operations reflected the maturity of Bourbon naval reform. In the Caribbean, Francisco de Saavedra ensured the financing and rapid dispatch of funds that sustained key phases of the Yorktown campaign. Without this support, the broader Allied strategy would have lacked its material foundation.
By the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the Atlantic map had been redrawn. Spain regained territory and prestige, but the conflict also strengthened a rising power: the United States.
Portrait of Luis de Córdova y Córdova. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Conclusion: Spain at the Threshold of a New Atlantic Order
The American War of Independence was both the beginning of a nation and a turning point for the Spanish Empire. As Elliott and Paquette argue, the Revolution must be understood within an Atlantic contest in which Spain sought to redefine its position after the Seven Years’ War.
Guided by José de Gálvez and executed through figures such as Bernardo de Gálvez, Luis de Unzaga, Luis de Córdova, and Francisco de Saavedra, Spain helped dismantle key elements of British Atlantic supremacy through a calculated mix of diplomacy, logistics, finance, and naval action. The achievement was considerable—and paradoxical. By supporting the rebels, Spain weakened the rival that threatened its flank while contributing to a political vocabulary of self-government that, as scholars from Elliott to Janet Polasky note, would echo across the Americas within decades.
The Atlantic system that Gálvez and Córdova served became a space where former viceroyal territories absorbed principles that the Bourbon reformers had tried to regulate. The Gálvez family embodies that contradictory moment: an enlightened elite able to conceive the empire as a system, yet unable to foresee its unraveling. José designed the framework, Unzaga set it in motion, Bernardo defended it, and Córdova consolidated it with a strategic victory. Together, these historical figures showed that Spain remained capable of shaping the Atlantic conflict in meaningful ways, especially as Britain was forced to fight on several fronts. Yet that achievement came at a cost. The war expanded borrowing and debt, placed new pressure on the fiscal resources of the Spanish Monarchy, and exposed the limits of the imperial system Spain sought to defend. Spain’s success was therefore real, though not unlimited: it weakened Britain, secured important territorial gains, and helped sustain Allied pressure, while also revealing the financial and political strains placed on Bourbon power as it sought to preserve Spain’s position in the Americas. Spain’s role in the American War of Independence was therefore not a footnote to someone else’s revolution. It was one of the last great demonstrations of Bourbon imperial capacity in the Atlantic world. Yet that success carried its own irony: Spain helped weaken Britain and sustain the birth of a new republic, even as those efforts exposed the limits of the imperial order it sought to defend. Its victory was real, but it belonged to a world already beginning to change—one in which the United States, born as a republic in 1776, would become a central force in the Atlantic order Spain had helped to reshape, at the threshold of Spain’s long nineteenth-century imperial decline.
José A. Adrián is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Málaga (Spain), specializing in language as a cognitive phenomenon and in its oral and written disorders. In addition to his academic work, he maintains a strong interest in history and the role of Spain in the Americas.
The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.
The Politics of Catastrophe: A Brief History of FEMA
As the nation celebrated the 2025 Fourth of July, flash flooding swallowed the Texas Hill Country. An entire summer’s worth of rain fell in the area, causing the Guadalupe River to rise dramatically in mere minutes. This disastrous deluge tragically claimed the lives of over 100 people.
President Donald Trump declared the flood a major disaster on July 6, which allowed the affected areas to receive federal relief funding via the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Critics have charged FEMA with moving too slowly. Such charges are nothing new. The story of FEMA’s creation and track record is a quintessential example of the ongoing tension between the local and the national in political matters.
Since the dawn of the twentieth century, disasters have become problems for which the technocratic ranks of society tried to solve by employing methods of social engineering. These solutions were frequently intertwined with the political beliefs, ideologies, or agendas held by respective actors. Federal officials began funding and organizing disaster relief operations through the American Red Cross. Prior relief operations were piecemeal, ad hoc, and mostly viewed as local, not national issues. When the Red Cross became a federally funded organization in 1900, this changed the way the U.S. administered disaster relief. The Red Cross acted with a large degree of autonomy because of a substantial donor base made up of private citizens and did not necessarily need a federal mandate to alleviate suffering from a flood, earthquake, or hurricane.
A load of supplies being shipped by the American Red Cross at Dallas, Texas. 1918. Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
The Red Cross’ increased role directly stemmed from a national humanitarian awakening during the Progressive Era (1880-1920). Progressive Era ideals about social control, societal uplift, and racial hierarchy guided how the Red Cross prioritized those who needed aid after a disaster. Frequently, African Americans, Latinos, and those in colonized spaces like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, etc., were continually excluded from receiving disaster relief from the Red Cross during this era. The most egregious instances of neglect came in Puerto Rico when several hurricanes devastated the archipelago in 1899, 1928, and 1932. On the mainland, African Americans were forced to perform manual labor to receive aid, were ushered into segregated relief camps, and those who perished were buried in unmarked mass graves following a hurricane in Galveston, Texas, in 1900 and after the Mississippi Flood of 1928. These precedents established by the Red Cross continued to guide the U.S. federal government’s approach to disaster relief throughout the rest of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.
Despite administering millions of dollars of aid and deploying the Red Cross on thousands of missions, a consistent disaster policy proved elusive. All previous relief needed Congressional approval, which significantly delayed response times and almost always resulted in a less-than-desired funding package. The Federal Disaster Relief Act of 1950 or Public Law 875, as it became known, changed that. The Act allowed the President to declare a state of disaster and disburse funds directly to the afflicted area instead of waiting on Congress to vote. This proved a double-edged sword because while federal disaster relief responses were more efficient, this Act allowed the President to wield significant executive power over the states and overseas territories. Thus, a new “social contract” was forged between the federal government and the citizenry, where the former assumed more responsibility for what previously had been state or local issues.
Under the Eisenhower administration, disasters truly became a federal responsibility by appointing the Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA) as the lead federal agency in disaster response. Previously, the Red Cross was the only quasi-federal agency mandated to handle disaster relief, but because of the highly politicized Cold War fervor and fear of nuclear attack, the FCDA assumed the responsibility. Suddenly, “tornado drills” began to look eerily like “air raid drills.” This linkage between disaster and national security could have only taken shape in the political milieu of the Cold War. This dramatic change in disaster policy strengthened the centralized power of the federal government over the states and territories. However, by the late 1970s, this arrangement lacked efficiency and coordination.
A product of the US Federal Civil Defense Administration, c. 1954. Source: Wikimedia Commons
The Carter administration recognized that by 1978, over twenty federal agencies were planning, training, and executing disaster relief missions. In addition, the Love Canal toxic waste disaster in New York and the Three Mile Island nuclear accident became part of the national conversation in the 1970s as citizens lobbied for more government accountability and adherence to disaster relief resilience. Love Canal was originally built to connect the upper and lower Niagara Rivers, but the project failed and became a chemical dumping site for the Hooker Chemical Company. The company sold the land to the city, filled in the toxic waste, and the city developed houses and schools on top of the land. The conditions in the area were already poor because of the chemicals left behind, and excessive rains in 1978 exacerbated the situation when floodwaters carrying the chemicals spread throughout town. Women and children bore the brunt of this disaster as initially many received chemical burns, and long-term impacts included birth defects and miscarriages. Neighborhood women spoke out against these conditions and became the face of the local and national movements to mitigate these types of disasters.
On March 28, 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant nearly experienced a meltdown after a valve was accidentally left open. The incident threatened immediate consequences to public health and risked escalating into an explosion. Harmful levels of radiation were released around the site and this led to a public outcry against nuclear energy, which questioned the preventative strategies employed by the federal government. A federal hearing about Three Mile Island took place, and it was determined that the site should be shuttered and a massive cleanup effort ordered. In the age of nuclear technology, this proved a massive failure on the part of the U.S. federal government.
The political fallout from the tragedies at Love Canal and Three Mile Island prompted the federal government to take disaster relief and mitigation more seriously. President Jimmy Carter created FEMA in 1979 by executive order. Carter envisioned a single government entity that oversaw all aspects of disaster relief, the funding, coordination, and on-the-ground operations. However, FEMA was built on a shaky foundation. When consolidation occurred in July of 1979, it became a bureaucratic nightmare. A 1980 intergovernmental report described how FEMA was supposed to operate and listed 24 bullet points outlining FEMA’s responsibilities. These ranged anywhere from delivering disaster assistance to developing policy related to riot insurance. In addition to providing on-the-ground relief operations, FEMA also developed a new process for individuals to file claims to receive increased aid in the form of grants. However, the process to apply for this aid proved extremely cumbersome and intricate. These seemingly unnecessary steps to obtain aid continue into the twenty-first century, with the process still proving difficult for many ordinary Americans living in both the domestic U.S. and the territories.
![Hurricane Frederic. Two days after the hurricane struck President [Jimmy] Carter and a number of other White House officials, senior Corps officers, and representatives from FEMA and other federal agencies surveyed the area. Twenty-nine counties in three states were declared disaster areas. [President Jimmy Carter (left) talks to Mobile District Engineer Col. Robert Ryan about the devastation of Hurricane Frederic and the Corps recovery operation plans in Mobile, Ala., in 1979 (Chief of Engineers Lt. Gen. Joseph K. Bratton and Director of Civil Works Maj. Gen. Elvin R. Heiberg look on].](https://notevenpast.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/image-8-1024x701.png)
President Jimmy Carter with Mobile District Engineer Col. Robert Ryan, Mobile, Alabama, 1979. Source: Wikimedia Commons
People found ways to work through these systems or to go around them. Through local activism and community solidarity, certain areas afflicted by disasters attempted to eschew federal disaster relief and FEMA altogether because they believed that aid did more harm than good. In the case of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in 2017, Puerto Ricans developed local networks of relief to sidestep FEMA and exercise disaster relief sovereignty instead of relying on federal assistance that was delayed, or, in some instances, never came.
Disaster relief in the United States evolved from the ad hoc efforts of the Red Cross to the centralized bureaucracy of FEMA. Despite these profound changes, there are recurring patterns, most notably the ongoing tension between local needs and national responses. As the recent floods in Texas show, the questions raised a century ago remain unresolved today: who is responsible in moments of crisis, and how can that responsibility be exercised both effectively and equitably? The history of disaster relief in the United States reveals that technical solutions are often entangled with political decisions.
Ian Seavey is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley. His research centers on the intersection of U.S. foreign relations and disasters.
Colton de los Santos is a student of Religious Studies in the Liberal Arts Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin.
Antonio Arguelles is a student at the University of Texas at Austin.
The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.
What is MACRI? Meet the Organization Showcasing Mexican American Civil Rights History in San Antonio and Beyond
This article is part of the series: History beyond Academia
MACRI Executive Director Dr. Sarah Z. Gould will be at UT Austin on February 19th, 2026. You can find more information about her talk at the end of this article.
Nestled in the heart of San Antonio, Texas, just west of downtown, lies the Mexican American Civil Rights Institute (MACRI), an organization dedicated to chronicling and sharing the history of Mexican American civil rights in the United States. It lies within the field of public history, which moves history beyond university classrooms and academic journals, bringing it into museums, community spaces, and online platforms where the public can engage with it directly. On October 22, 2025, I sat down with its executive director, Dr. Sarah Zenaida Gould, to talk about the organization, its beginnings, and its mission.
“2018 and 2019, these were two big anniversary years in San Antonio,” Gould said, explaining that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Hearings had been held in December of 1968 in the city. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was established in 1957 by the federal government to address issues like discrimination that concern race, ethnicity, and culture in the United States. The 1968 hearing in San Antonio was “one of the first times that the federal government officially heard testimony about experiences of discrimination that Mexican Americans had throughout the Southwest” specifically. The hearings occurred just a few years after the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which were aimed at reducing discrimination for African Americans and set a precedent for civil rights to later be expanded to other minority groups. A conference was held in November 2018 in San Antonio to commemorate the event.
This was followed by a second conference in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the Edgewood school walkouts, an event that took place in May of 1968, when over 400 Mexican American students protested for better and more equitable education by walking out of Edgewood High School in San Antonio. The conferences were significant as people involved in both the walkouts and the commission hearings gave testimonies about their experiences and how the events got more people involved in the Chicano Movement, politics, and community activism. These back-to-back conferences reignited interest in Mexican American history and, more importantly, in how to preserve it.
For Gould, the conference was not just a spotlight on San Antonio’s Mexican American civil rights history, but also a race against time. “At the next big anniversary,” she warned, “most of those people would no longer be with us.” The question was simple and urgent: “how do you keep that history alive?” That question ultimately led to the creation of MACRI. The initial plan was just to create an exhibit that depicted Mexican American civil rights icons in San Antonio, but support from the city council, Mayor Ron Nirenberg, and the community was much more substantial than anticipated. Gould explained that it was at a cultural moment when a lot of people were thinking about equity within history. “One thing that we kept hearing from city council members and members of the public was why haven’t we had this before?”
National Farm Workers Association protest buttons. Source: Wikimedia Commons
MACRI began organizing itself with funding from the city and was officially incorporated on May 29, 2019. Gould was involved from the beginning and was asked to step into the position of Executive Director in 2020, partially to help the organization transition into a virtual space during the pandemic. This was when MACRI first began to flourish in its engagement and reach, creating a community despite everything happening in the world at the time. They began by having conversations about Mexican American civil rights in online events with historians and other experts, and noticed that over half the viewership was from outside the San Antonio area. “They were from all over,” Gould said. “That was particularly exciting.” Even when MACRI began to transition to having mostly in-person events as the pandemic eased up, they still received emails from people across the country, asking that virtual involvement remain in some form so that they could continue to participate in Mexican American history.
One of MACRI’s goals is to make San Antonio’s role as the birthplace of Mexican American civil rights to the general public. This is already happening among guests who attend MACRI’s in-person and virtual events, celebrating moments when people stood up against injustice. Gould discussed how “for so many people, this history is part of their living present moment,” as they often had a personal connection to the stories MACRI was telling. Still, others were learning about it for the first time. Nearly all wanted to learn more.
MACRI hosts a number of different events, including talks and exhibits with historians, activists, and more. These usually have themes, such as civil rights trailblazers or landmark court cases involving Mexican Americans. Their September 27 to November 26, 2025 exhibit was on Cisneros v. Corpus Christi ISD, an important civil rights case that extended school desegregation from Brown v. Board of Education to Mexican Americans. Brown occurred in 1954 and Cisneros in 1970. “So it takes a while for these things to happen,” Gould said. “You have to have those precedent-setting cases so that you can move the legislation forward.”
Gould is already planning events well into next year, which will be the 250th anniversary of the United States. The events will aim to “[make] sure we’re inserting Mexican Americans into how we understand America.” They will start with Spanish colonial Texas and will move forward in time over the course of the year. The events and exhibits will include discussions of important court cases involving due process, and in the summer of 2026 they will host screenings for the 30th anniversary of the Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement documentary series that originally aired on PBS in 1995. Gould will also be visiting a number of universities throughout the state, including the University of Texas at Austin, where she will be sharing more about what MACRI does with current students.
In the old Mexican market area just west of downtown San Antonio. Source: Wikimedia Commons
When creating their in-person exhibits, MACRI tries to identify a scholar for whom that area of history is their subject matter expertise, whom they consult with. Their first exhibit was based on Dr. Cynthia Orosco’s biography Pioneer of Mexican-American Civil Rights: Alonso S.
Perales for their trailblazers series. For the current exhibit on Cisneros, MACRI worked with Dr. Isabel Araiza at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi. Their goal with each project is to make the information accessible. “The idea with most exhibits is to give people just a slice of what that is, so that they have a basic understanding,” and then if they are interested in learning more, MACRI points them to more resources.
MACRI has also done exhibits that were created through collaborations with local schools. Earlier in 2025, they did an exhibit for Dolores Huerta’s 95th birthday. Huerta is a Mexican American civil rights activist who is best known for being the co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association, a labor rights organization, alongside Cesar Chavez. MACRI’s exhibit on Huerta was created by sending out a call for art submissions to schools across the San Antonio area. “I have to thank the teachers whom we sent this out to, because clearly they talked to their kids about who she was,” Gould commended. “A number of them incorporated quotes from her into their artwork, and in their artist statement… You could just tell that they had been really reflecting on ‘Why does she matter to me?’ ‘Why does she matter to my family?’ ” She praised the teachers multiple times, stating that MACRI had only given them parameters and a brief synopsis of Huerta’s life, but she “could tell the teachers went above and beyond what we provided them, because the students clearly put a lot of thought into what they were drawing or painting, and connecting that to her life.” This was part of an initiative to get students more involved with history museums, which tend to cater to and attract an adult audience, unlike art and science museums. But the success of the project showed that it is far from impossible to get children to engage with history.
Gould also discussed the challenges and opportunities that working beyond academia brings. The most difficult thing she cited was the lack of infrastructure available to her and the other employees at MACRI, including things like access to research databases. But there are positives too, the most prominent of which is the freedom from constraints of university timelines. Historians who work for universities are tied to both the academic calendar and making sure they are hitting the goalposts in their careers, such as tenure review. But as a public history organization, MACRI can do things on its own time.
Still, Gould has hope for bridging the divide between the two fields. “I would love to see more collaboration between universities and people who are independent historians outside of academia,” Gould said. “Because you know, the universities do have resources that public historians could really benefit from, and public historians do have typically… connections to real grassroots-type history that could be of a benefit to students to know about.” With its exhibits, events, and media outreach, MACRI is working to bridge the gap. But to reach this goal, universities and historians within academia have to do their part to connect with public history as well. By remaining dedicated to continued collaboration between the public, academics, and everyone in between, MACRI is a model example of what these types of connections can look like, reshaping how American history is told.
Kara Alexandra Culp is a current history PhD student at UT Austin, focused on Latina/o history in the 20th-century United States. Her dissertation project aims to explore the effects of education policy and law on Latina/o immigrant students in the borderlands in the 1970s and beyond.
Sarah Zenaida Gould, interview with author. October 22, 2025.
The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.
Review of Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City 1940-1977 (2022).
In Puerto Rican Chicago: Schooling the City 1940-1977, Mirelsie Velázquez provides an eye-opening account of Puerto Ricans’ relationship to colonialism and education as they migrated to the city of Chicago in the mid-twentieth century. The book presents a thorough examination of how these migrants built and fought for a community through the lens of K-12 and postsecondary education systems, showing how colonial education policies and principles followed Puerto Ricans in their schooling across the United States. It fits well within the literature of Latino education history, specifically involving civil rights, alongside books like Brown Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston by Guadalupe San Miguel Jr., while also providing an important contribution to the growing field of Latino studies in the Midwest, and it aims to bring public schools into the discussion as a transformative force in the region.
The book is shaped by the author’s experiences as a Puerto Rican woman who spent her formative years in Illinois and now teaches at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Velázquez states that intersectionality (the interconnectedness of different social categories which lead to discrimination) “of schools, oppression, and liberation” was a guiding influence for the diasporic Puerto Rican community and argues that its history cannot be separated from its relationship to colonialism (p.19). She uses this to analyze the intersection of concepts such as Coloniality of Power (the understanding of power structures that remain after decolonization) to diaspora studies as well as urban history, as the Puerto Rican communities she studies only formed in the large cities of New York and Chicago.
Puerto Rican Chicago is the product of archival and oral history methodology. Velázquez notes that a challenge she encountered was the silences in primary sources directly depicting Puerto Ricans during the early decades of their mass migration. This created gaps in the narrative “from the community’s own voices,” something she skillfully supplemented with oral interviews (p. 20). The strength of her use of the archives is found in her sources from the 1960s—discussed most heavily in chapter five—which delves into print media produced by and for Puerto Ricans in their own words. The methods she uses shape her argument that schools were an essential place of the community fighting against inequality by providing the personal reasons and motivations behind their actions.
The author emphasizes the connectedness of Puerto Rican civil rights movements in Chicago to other cities and movements by other groups, including African Americans and Chicanos. She depicts the Chicago community as intricately connected to New York City, both as a legacy of migration and an ongoing relationship that tied the two communities together through familial relations, organizations like the Young Lords, and print media. By placing her own findings within the context of existing literature on New York’s Puerto Rican communities and other civil rights movements, especially those where African Americans and Chicanos fought for their right to a just education, she further solidifies this connection.
Midway of Riverview Park, Chicago ca. 1950s-1960s. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Velázquez frames her study as an effort to center women and their activism, but the source material she draws on more often reveals the limits placed on women’s participation in community organizing, a limitation she herself acknowledges. For example, even Que Ondee Sola, a newspaper that she states was notable for its inclusion of women, did not include the depiction of women as part of its mission, nor were women “equally represented on the writing staff” (p. 149). This also remains true for the women depicted in the involvement of schools, who were exceptions to the rule rather than the norm. Her argument could have been strengthened by reframing her claim to emphasize that women’s involvement was silenced even by their contemporaries as it aligns more with the information she presents on women’s sidelining in their participation in community organizing and activism.
The book is organized into five chapters. Chapters One and Two discuss Puerto Ricans’ historical relationship with colonial schooling and argue that the school system in Chicago is a continuation of Americanizing practices. In both, she discusses that schools were a reflection of the community’s struggles with issues of adequate housing and labor. She also creates a cyclical narrative of how Puerto Ricans adjusted to the city, how the city responded to them, and how the group reacted to their systematic treatment. Chapters Three and Four focus on school systems, with the first depicting community involvement in K-12 public schools and the latter on universities. Velázquez stresses the importance of student involvement in both, as students and their communities fought for adequate services and against discriminatory practices. Chapter Five discusses Puerto Rican newspapers and journals in Chicago and across the country, which highlighted community voices and needs with varying degrees of radicality.
Paseo Boricua in Chicago. Source: Wikimedia Commons
As debates over education and immigration continue to shape American politics, understanding the fight for civil rights in the nation’s public schools remains essential. Puerto Rican Chicago is an important contribution to the intersection of education, immigration, and cultural history, all in the burgeoning field of Latinos in the Midwest. It is also a beautiful exploration of the strength of the Puerto Rican immigrant community building in the face of systemic oppression, which in their case uniquely stems from the United States in both their place of origin as citizens of a U.S. territory and their destination as migrants to Chicago. The book can easily find a home on immigration, Latino, and education history syllabi, as well as on the bookshelf of anyone who has faced their own experiences with the U.S. education system as part of a diaspora. As this book importantly reminds us, Americanization is something that is constantly occurring in U.S. schools, a continuing legacy of colonialism and empire. But it is not the unstoppable force that it strives to be.
Kara Alexandra Culp is a current history PhD student at UT Austin, focused on Latina/o history in the 20th-century United States. Her dissertation project aims to explore the effects of education policy and law on Latina/o immigrant students in the borderlands in the 1970s and beyond.
The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.