Members in the News
Author doesn’t throw book at Dallas Citizens Council
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 30, 2008
James Ragland, The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Citizens Council still holds considerable sway.
It's just more open about it.
But few folks know how the organization, once a clandestine club of elite businessmen who got things done, evolved from an "oligarchy" of white businessmen to a diverse cabal of nearly 200 chieftains.
In his new book – Dallas Citizens Council: An Obligation of Leadership – Darwin Payne ushers us behind the curtains, letting readers see how the gears have been turning for 70 years and counting.
Let's be clear. This isn't a titillating, tell-all tale of an organization long given credit and blame for transforming Dallas into the city it is today, for better or worse. (Make that for better and worse.)
No, this is more nuts and bolts, a coffee-table-style book that chronicles the Citizens Council's history without slinging mud or pointing fingers.
It is largely uncritical for a reason: Dr. Payne, a professor emeritus of communications at SMU who has written extensively about Dallas, was commissioned by the Citizens Council and given unprecedented access to its records.
So Dr. Payne walked a fine line, occasionally pointing out how a Citizens Council-backed initiative fell flat, such as the organization's ill-fated push to merge the upscale Park Cities into Dallas, only to see voters in University Park and Highland Park vote down the annexation plan in the early 1940s.
He also recounts how the Citizens Council dealt with racial tensions in Dallas, from pushing for a grand jury investigation of the bombing of black residents' homes in South Dallas in the early '50s to its efforts to make sure the city's public schools and lunch counters integrated peacefully.
Dr. Payne points out that while many of its leaders were urging social changes, the Citizens Council mistakenly clung too long to separate-but-equal doctrines of accommodation.
But he stops short of condemning or criticizing the Citizens Council for the paternalistic way it handled some matters.
Case in point: The Citizens Council and the Dallas Chamber of Commerce pressed then-District Attorney Henry Wade to appoint a special grand jury to investigate the series of bombings in the early '50s, particularly 11 that occurred in June 1951.
The city was on edge. By September, 10 men had been arrested and indicted in connection with the crimes. And the grand jury said the men were part of an "overall plot" that "reached into unbelievably high places."
But, as Dr. Payne points out, "No one of status was ever indicted despite the grand jury's inclination to indict a South Dallas Baptist minister who had been a leader in supporting the sanctity of an all-white neighborhood."
Mr. Wade said there was "insufficient evidence." Only one person indicted stood trial, and he was acquitted.
But the bombings ended, and the powers that be seemed content with that.
Except that I'm left with a gnawing feeling of injustice to this day – and a better sense of how many minority residents came to distrust the accommodating posture of those in power. Essentially, no one was held accountable.
Dr. Payne didn't take the Citizens Council to task for that. He just explained how it all went down.
"I saw my job as writing the history as I saw it, without putting any negative connotations," Dr. Payne said, adding later that he didn't want to "draw any conclusions."
Few people could have handled this task as artfully as Dr. Payne, who has written several books about Dallas, including Big D: Triumphs and Troubles of an American Supercity in the 20th Century. Still, his new book is sure to raise the eyebrows of those with a more pointedly skeptical view of the Citizens Council.
"The Citizens Council is one of several factors that make Dallas a very different kind of city," said Harvey J. Graff, a former University of Texas at Dallas history and humanities professor now at Ohio State University.
"The Citizens Council was able to develop a degree of consensus publicly that would not have happened without challenges in other cities."
The problem, he said, is that the Citizens Council's exclusive membership created an unrepresentative and "narrow view" that was left unchecked for decades.
Dr. Graff, whose latest book focusing on Big D is called The Dallas Myth: The Making and Unmaking of an American City, said self-publishing a book about your own history "is such a Dallas thing to do."
"If it's commissioned, it's not going to be very critical."
True. But to borrow a phrase from an old Oldsmobile ad: This really isn't your dad's Citizens Council anymore.
One of the agents of change is Tom Dunning, immediate past chairman of the Citizens Council, who pushed the book idea.
"What was such a pleasant surprise to me is just what the Citizens Council was all about," Mr. Dunning said. "And they were concerned about social issues even back in 1937."
Back then, of course, it had a firm grip, meeting in downtown hotels to set an agenda that elected officials embraced.
Its grip isn't as tight now. But make no mistake: Its fingerprints are still all over the place, including City Hall – where yet another mayor, Tom Leppert, sprang from its ranks.
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