"Writing about Texas, Mexico, and Texan-Mexican relations for over four decades, Dick J. Reavis is one of the most poignant political voices of Texas-not as a politician, though his writings are infused with politics, but as a candid, unsentimental, probing, journalist. Author of ten books and hundreds of articles, Reavis has worked as a reporter, features author, and staff writer (San Antonio Express-News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dallas Observer, San Antonio Light), as an Senior Editor of Texas Monthly, and as a professor of journalism (North Carolina State University). Throughout his award-winning career, he has returned consistently to investigate the lives of everyday Texans, insistently challenging prevailing political assumptions. It was precisely this commitment that prompted him to investigate the federal government's siege of the Branch Davidians in 1993 outside of Waco, TX, which led to perhaps his most notorious publication, The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation (1995). That project, however, needs to be contextualized in relation to the greater body of his writings, which includes investigations of Mexican guerillas and Texas biker-gangs, the struggles of urban day-laborers and of undocumented immigrants in rural areas, the politics of Texas Radicals during the Civil Rights movement, and the activities of the Klan across the state, to identify but a few. This collection of Reavis's writings brings into focus the voice and political commitments of this critical, contemporary, Texas writer"--
For over four decades, Dick J. Reavis explored the lived experience of people too often overlooked or marginalized to tell extraordinary stories about ordinary people. This collection brings into focus the voice and political commitments of this critical, contemporary, Texas writer.
Writing about Texas, Mexico, and Texan-Mexican relations for over four decades, Dick J. Reavis is one of the most poignant political voices of Texas—not as a politician, though his writings are infused with politics, but as a candid, unsentimental, probing, journalist. Reavis has worked as a reporter, features author, and staff writer (San Antonio Express-News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dallas Observer, San Antonio Light), as a Senior Editor of Texas Monthly, and as a professor of journalism (North Carolina State University). He has authored six books and translated two from Spanish. Throughout his award-winning career, he has returned consistently to investigate the lives of everyday Texans, insistently challenging prevailing political assumptions and mythologies. It was precisely this commitment that prompted him to investigate the federal government’s siege of the Branch Davidians in 1993 outside of Waco, TX, which led to his best-known work, The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation (1995), a book that challenged government accounts and mainstream media. This anthology demonstrates the range of his writings, which include investigations of Mexican guerillas and Texas biker-gangs, the struggles of urban day-laborers and of undocumented immigrants in rural areas, the politics of Texas radicals during the Civil Rights movement, and the activities of the Klan and other far right groups across the state, to identify but a few. This collection of Reavis’s writings brings into focus the voice and political commitments of this critical, contemporary, Texas writer.
