Western History Association 62nd Annual Conference

The Police on the Little Mexico Beat: Early Twentieth Century Resistance to Police Brutality in Dallas, Texas

• In Event: Surveillance, Violence, and Removal in the Latinx West: Understanding Policing and Resistance through a Hardening Border

Abstract

This paper examines the role of the Mexican residents and the Mexican Consulate in the fight against police brutality in Dallas, Texas, during the 1920s and 1930s. Thousands of Mexican immigrants throughout the early twentieth century settled in the Little Mexico barrio just north of downtown, where they experienced the harshness of Juan Crow discrimination. As conditions worsened and Anglo hostility intensified, Mexicanas/os turned to the various Mexican consuls to help mitigate their living circumstances. This included ending police brutality. Residents complained that several officers of the Little Mexico beat routinely abused them and that police often acted violently and intimidatingly toward the barrio’s residents. As a result of these complaints, Mexican consuls acted as intermediaries between Mexican residents and the Dallas Police Department.

Author

• Katherine Bynum, Arizona State University