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Texas

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Texas.

161Documented
23In custody
104Released
3Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Texas

Where Texas’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1910s 49 2020s 29 2000s 20 1970s 19 2010s 12 1930s 8

Documented cases

161 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

I
Ihsan Elashi
Released
Ihsan Elashi, 46, Infocom systems consultant/sales rep, sentenced January 2006 to 72 months federal prison con...
J
Jack Elder
Released
Catholic layman who directed Casa Oscar Romero in San Benito, Texas (Diocese of Brownsville) from 1983 — a ref...
H
Henry G. Esau
Released
Henry G. Esau was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Texas imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed...
M
Marvin Fentis
Released
Marvin Fentis was a Black Texan who, The Black Panther reported, was already serving two life sentences for de...
C
Claude Frost
Released
Claude Frost was a member of the Houston chapter of the Black Panther Party who, with fellow members James Aar...
M
Mickael Gedlu
Released
Mickael Gedlu, age 36, a former Marine Corps service member, was indicted in 2019 for threats against the Pres...
A
Ana Lucia Gelabert
Released
Cuban-born political prisoner held in Texas state custody at the Mountain View / Gatesville women's unit. Iden...
A
Ana María Gelabert
Puerto Rican independentista identified as a political-prisoner petitioner in the 1990 Special International T...
T
Tiffani Shea Gish
Released
Tiffani Shea Gish, age 49, of Houston TX, called a federal judge in Florida three times in 2022 threatening to...
J
Janette Goering
Awaiting Trial
Janette Goering is the eighteenth person arrested in the Prairieland prosecutions that grew out of the July 4,...
D
Delia Gonzalez
A 39-year-old Chicana activist in Del Rio, Texas facing a 13-count federal indictment (up to 65 years) for all...
W
William Grove
Released
William Grove was a militant Black worker jailed with the movement's leaders in Dallas, Texas in 1931; after a...
B
Bartee Haile
Released
Bartee Haile was a white Houston revolutionary, a member of the John Brown Revolutionary Party allied with Car...
J
J. E. Harvey
Released
J. E. Harvey, a farmer from Tyler, Texas, served in Atlanta Penitentiary from September 20, 1918, to October 1...
T
Thomas Coleman Hawkins
Released
Thomas Coleman Hawkins Private of the 24th Infantry Regiment. Soldier of the 24th Infantry hanged with twelve...
V
Vida Henry
First Sergeant Vida Henry, a nineteen-year veteran of the all-Black 24th Infantry Regiment and a leader in Com...
T
Thomas Aloysius Hickey
Released
Thomas Aloysius Hickey, known as Red Tom, was an Irish-born socialist journalist and labor organizer who edite...
T
Thomas Hirschi
Released
Thomas Hirschi was one of the "Moody Park Three," members of People United to Fight Police Brutality charged w...
H
Henry Howe
Released
Second Lieutenant Henry H. Howe Jr. was a U.S. Army officer stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, and one of the fir...
L
Lt. Henry Howe
Released
Second Lieutenant Henry H. Howe Jr. became a notable early example of uniformed dissent during the Vietnam era...
L
Lewis Hurst
Released
Lewis Hurst was a white leader of the Dallas unemployment-insurance fight against peonage and segregation in D...
F
Frank Johnson
Frank Johnson Private of the 24th Infantry Regiment. Private of the 24th Infantry among the soldiers who took...
L
Lee Otis Johnson
Released
Lee Otis Johnson was a Houston civil-rights organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC...
O
Otis Johnson
Prisoner sentenced to 17 years for allegedly stealing $17 and a TV set in Texas, listed by Amnesty Internation...

Institutions in Texas

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Texas that appear in the census’s case files.

Fort Sam Houston Disciplinary BarracksSan Antonio, Texas
17 cases
Tarrant County JailFort Worth, Texas
10 cases
Federal Correctional Institution, Seagoville
5 cases
Texas State Penitentiary, HuntsvilleHuntsville, Texas
5 cases
Federal Correctional Institution, TexarkanaTexarkana, Texas
4 cases
Fort Sam HoustonSan Antonio, Texas
4 cases
Prairieland ICE Detention CenterAlvarado, Texas
2 cases
Harris County District CourtHouston, Texas
2 cases