Author and historian Dr. Dwight Watson will discuss his book, Race and the Houston Police Department 1930-1990.
In Houston, as in the rest of the American South up until the 1950s, the police force reflected and enforced the segregation of the larger society. When the nation began to change in the 1950s and 1960s, this guardian of the status quo had to change, too. It was not designed to do so easily.
Dwight Watson traces how the Houston Police Department reacted to social, political, and institutional change over a fifty-year period—and specifically, how it responded to and in turn influenced racial change.
Watson’s study demonstrates vividly how race complicated the internal impulses for change and gave way through time to external pressures—including the Civil Rights Movement, modernization, annexations, and court-ordered redistricting—for institutional changes within the department.
Dwight W. Watson is an assistant professor of history at Texas State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston. He has previously worked as a correctional counselor, a prison grievance officer, a county probation officer, and state parole officer.
This talk will be moderated by Texas Southern University professor, Dr. Jesus Esparza.
Admission is free and open to the public. Guests will receive a private Zoom link so advance registration is required.