Hightower Archives - People's History in Texas https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/uncategorized/hightower/ Tue, 25 Apr 2023 16:05:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-logo-32x32.png Hightower Archives - People's History in Texas https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/uncategorized/hightower/ 32 32 Cather Woods https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/cather-woods/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 08:17:10 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2617 “Jim Hightower was one of the best things for Texas in my experience, in my lifetime, and I’m 78 years old. So, I started working with farmers during that era. He was really nice. He worked hard to make sure that he made it better for blacks. By making sure that you knew what was there, by reaching out to […]

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]]> Ellen Widess https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/ellen-widess/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 08:14:58 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2613 “One of the provisions they (the Trump-era EPA) wanted to get rid of was the farmworkers’ right to have their doctors, or any other advocate, a lawyer, priest, worker center, anybody, union, get access to their pesticide safety sheets to know what they were exposed to, what the risks were and to be able to go after the company and […]

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]]> Brigid Shea https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/brigid-shea/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 08:04:15 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2589 “The (Clean Water Action) canvass had a unique ability to literally be this foot soldier army that could go out door-to-door and reach people who may not show up elsewhere, but who really agreed with the idea of better protections for the environment, and eliminating excessive use of pesticides that were poisoning people, and making opportunities for organic farmers to […]

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]]> Jesse Oliver https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/jesse-oliver/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:59:36 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2577 “(O)ne of my first formal relationships with agriculture was at the Black Farmers Conferences and getting some history of what was going on with them and what had transpired…The few who held on, who actually worked the land and stayed there, were still facing difficult times, mistreatment by USDA, especially with respect to support farm loans, crop loans, crop insurance, […]

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]]> Barbara Meister https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/barbara-meister/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:54:27 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2567 “It’s Hightower’s philosophy, go out and scour the countryside, find these folks who are doing these innovative things and bring them into the government structure.Give them a computer, give them a secretary, give them a travel budget, and say, keep doing what you’re doing. But do it in here, do it throughout the whole state. I remember that being a […]

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]]> Pauline Medrano https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/pauline-medrano/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:52:49 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2562 “We went door-to-door into the different neighborhoods and found out neighborhood associations, PTAs, we promoted them however we could. It was grassroots. It was churches, PTAs, neighborhood associations, neighborhood groups. We’d say, ‘We want to start a farmers market. What would be a good day? What would be a good morning?’ Olmos Park (San Antonio) said, Monday morning. And that’s […]

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]]> Pete McRae (D) https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/pete-mcrae-d/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:49:04 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2556 “In 1985 is when the entire ag industry, business leaders decided to come after Hightower and attempt to defund the agency in various components. Those guys hated (John) Vlcek and hated the marketing program. They just thought we were nuts and that Hightower was nuts by focusing on small farmers, which of course was exactly what Farmers Union wanted. Vlcek […]

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]]> Mack Martinez https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/mack-martinez/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:44:30 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2548 “I think Hightower has pushed and has made some headway, it’s an ‘us’ issue. Until we’ve all crossed that line, until we’re all equal, ain’t none of us equal. I think that came across, and that’s why he was respected by African American leaders and by Hispanic leaders. It wasn’t an accident that John Vlcek also happened to be gay. […]

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]]> Jim Marston https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/jim-marston/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:42:29 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2544 “Hiring an openly gay guy to do important work and interact with folks – it’s kind of a statement that the Department of Agriculture hadn’t had before. Our state government was generally very white, male, straight but the Ag Department was really that way. We started hiring people who didn’t go to Texas A&M. That was a shock to many, […]

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]]> Thressa Lockridge-Ali https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/thressa-lockridge-ali/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:38:56 +0000 https://www.dev.peopleshistoryintexas.org/?page_id=2535 “The story of the Department is really a big story. Before (Jim) Hightower took over, that agency was pretty white. There weren’t very many minorities in that agency and that’s one of the things that was a real concern to Hightower…I feel like, if you have a more diverse department, then you have a better department, because you have a […]

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