Winner of the Caughey Western History Prize Winner of the Robert G. Athearn Award Winner of the Lawrence W. Levine Award Winner of the TCU Texas Book Award Winner of the NACCS Tejas Foco Nonfiction Book Award Winner of the María Elena Martínez Prize Frederick Jackson Turner Award Finalist
“A page-turner…Haunting…Bravely and convincingly urges us to think differently about Texas’s past.” Texas Monthly
Between 1910 and 1920, self-appointed protectors of the Texas–Mexico borderincluding members of the famed Texas Rangersmurdered hundreds of ethnic Mexicans living in Texas, many of whom were American citizens. Operating in remote rural areas, officers and vigilantes knew they could hang, shoot, burn, and beat victims to death without scrutiny. A culture of impunity prevailed. The abuses were so pervasive that in 1919 the Texas legislature investigated the charges and uncovered a clear pattern of state crime. Records of the proceedings were soon filed away as the Ranger myth flourished.
A groundbreaking work of historical reconstruction, The Injustice Never Leaves You has upended Texas’s sense of its own history. A timely reminder of the dark side of American justice, it is a riveting story of race, power, and prejudice on the border.
“It’s an apt moment for this book’s hard lessons…to go mainstream.” Texas Observer
“A reminder that government brutality on the border is nothing new.” Los Angeles Review of Books
Monica Muñoz Martinez is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas, Austin. She is cofounder of the nonprofit organization Refusing to Forget, which calls for a public reckoning with racial violence in Texas. In addition to winning six book prizes, The Injustice Never Leaves You in 2019 was named a Five Books Best Book on White Supremacy and Texas Observer Best Texas Book of the Decade.
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