Texas Time Machine

By Richard Woodbury/Dallas

Dallas summers are usually notable for their scorching heat and blinding sun. This season the city is being treated to a spectacle that seems a throwback to an earlier age: small bands of angry civil rights demonstrators marching, rallying and disrupting public gatherings in an effort to gain a greater voice at city hall.

The immediate focus of the protests is a plan for restructuring the city council, put forward by Mayor Annette Strauss and the city council, that will be voted on in a special election this weekend. But black and Hispanic leaders say something more fundamental is also taking place. The civil rights movement that swept the South a generation ago somehow bypassed Dallas. Now, fueled by population shifts that have made blacks, Hispanics and Asians nearly half the population, the movement has finally arrived. Vows County Commissioner John Wiley Price, a black: "We're not going to sit back and let an Anglo minority continue to control most of the power."

Such sentiments are a far cry from the compliant attitudes of black leaders 20 years ago. To preserve racial harmony, the ruling white establishment offered token gains and piecemeal concessions. But the price for blacks was a slow pace toward integration. The city remains a bastion of housing segregation, with most blacks living south of the downtown business district and most whites to the north. Black leaders are pressing for more seats on the eleven-member city council, where, despite their 30% share of the population, they hold but two positions; Hispanics (16%) and Asians (2%) have none.

Strauss concedes that minorities are underrepresented on the city council, which has eight members chosen from single-member districts and two others (plus the mayor) elected from the city at large. She and the council have proposed a system of ten single districts, with four other members to be picked from large areas of the city.

This so-called quadrant plan has enraged nonwhite opponents, who contend that at-large voting is stacked against minorities because of the higher costs of mounting campaigns. Charges black Councilman Al Lipscomb: "It's a scheme to preserve Anglo business and political power." He and others contend that Strauss, who was twice elected with heavy black and Hispanic support, sold out to the Anglo establishment and then conspired to keep a minority proposal for all single-member districts off the ballot.

Strauss insists that having some broad, citywide perspective on the council is essential, "in contrast to having people that are singularly concerned about their own districts." The mayor's supporters are also counting on splits among minorities. Some Hispanics, for example, see no great benefits to more single districts because their population is not concentrated in any particular neighborhood.

With the backing of the Establishment and a $150,000 war chest that is ten times the size of the opposition's, Strauss's forces seem likely to win. If not, she warns, Dallas could be in for a period of uncertainty that it cannot afford. The city is confronted with a shrinking tax base and a looming budget shortfall. "There's a need for change to ensure fair government," says Strauss. "If we don't do this, there's a pretty good chance the courts will do it for us." In fact, a federal trial set for September seems to guarantee a prolonged period of discord. Two unsuccessful black office seekers are demanding exactly what minority activists could not get on the ballot: a system of all single-member districts.