8 February 16-22, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents but the museum did not reply. We also con- tacted the governor’s office to inquire about the possibility of a truth and reconciliation commission, but the governor’s office did not respond. As Gonzales describes it, a truth and recon- ciliation commission could be led by one Dem- ocrat and one Republican. The two parties would investigate the history of state-sanc- tioned violence in Texas, then make recom- mendations for how to “rectify those wrongs.” “I know I want an apology, but I don’t have all the answers yet,” Gonzales says. Many people have advocated for the Texas Rangers baseball club to change their mascot, as San Antonio College recently did after a student-led campaign. Yet the base- ball club has indicated it has no plans to change its name. “The name change isn’t gonna happen anytime soon,” says Christopher Carmona, an author whose descendants fled to Mexico to escape Ranger violence. “We barely got the Redskins to change their name,” he notes, “and that was a 30-year campaign.” When the topic of justice comes up, Car- mona says it’s ultimately about doing what- ever is going to bring descendants peace. That means something different for each community. He cites the example in San Diego, Texas, in Duval County. Three San Diego men were murdered by Rangers in 1920, and recently the town invited Carmona to speak at an of- ficial county proclamation acknowledging the killings. More than a century after the deaths of their grandfathers, three women in their late 80s finally heard local officials say, “This happened.” “That was a huge step for the family,” Carmona says. “They were satisfied they got that documentation.” Carmona is working on the next install- ment of his young adult series El Rinche, a collection of novels set during the time of La Matanza. It’s always a delicate balance to take these stories to a younger audience, he says, but it must be done. Plus, his books include a Latino superhero: a rare sight for his readers. When it comes to depicting violence like, say, a lynching, Carmona says he leans into his background as a poet, describing the effect of the violence on the people exposed to it with- out delving too deeply into gory descriptions. “The most challenging part of writing this is being respectful to the victims of these lynchings and murders,” he says. “As a writer, we need to present what happened. At the same time, we need to respect the dead. So that is the biggest challenge for me: balancing the respect for real-life victims and telling the stories.” His books incorporate real-life characters, too, including the poet and folk hero Aniceto Pizaña, who pops up in the second El Rinche adventure. After delivering a presentation in Brownsville about the first book, a boy ap- proached Carmona to ask if he knew Pizaña. The boy didn’t know the revolutionary would soon appear in the second El Rinche novel, but he had a special connection to Pizaña. “He was my great-great-grandfather,” he told Carmona. Years later, Carmona still marvels at the conversation. “Our people are still here,” he says, “and these stories are a part of us.” ▼ HISTORY FREEDMAN’S FIRES HOUSES ARE BURNING IN TENTH STREET, DALLAS’ HISTORIC FREEDMAN’S TOWN. BY JACOB VAUGHN S everal houses have caught fire in Dal- las’ Tenth Street Historic District in recent months. The Tenth Street Historic District was established by the city in the early ’90s. Freed slaves began to occupy the area in East Oak Cliff after the Civil War. Many of them were likely former slaves of William Brown Miller, a prominent Dallas cotton farmer. Some of them are buried in a section of the Oak Cliff Cemetery that sits in the heart of the neighborhood on East Eighth Street. Today, the district is often referred to as the most intact freedman’s town in the country. It’s likely the only such one with an intact slave burial ground, according to Rob- ert Swann, who owns a house in Tenth Street and is the landmark commissioner for this part of town, Dallas City Council Dis- trict 4. He spends a lot of time at the ceme- tery trying to maintain it the best he can. Swann has become increasingly inter- ested in the history of the freedman’s town since he started fixing up a house in the neighborhood about 15 years ago. Swann was working at the Oak Cliff Cemetery the morning of one of the fires. He got to the cemetery around 11 a.m. on Friday Jan. 27. “I smelled smoke almost immedi- ately when I got out of my car,” he said. Swann left the cemetery to find where the smell was coming from. Eventually, he saw a Dallas Fire-Rescue (DFR) firefighter on the roof of 1225 Boswell St. A fire had started and spread from the house next door. Swann said the house fire seemed to have been ex- tinguished, but flames continued spewing from a gas meter between the two houses. DFR was able to extinguish the remaining fires after the gas was turned off, but the two houses were left with significant damages. Seven days earlier, the house at 1014 Bet- terton Circle caught fire. About a month be- fore that, the same happened to the house at 1414 E. Clarendon Drive, leaving behind a lot full of trash. A house at 1023 Church St. also caught fire recently. There are plenty of possible causes for these fires. Some of the houses in the neigh- borhood are abandoned and become occu- pied by homeless people, some of whom may start open fires in the houses or tamper with a nearby gas line for warmth. But whenever there’s a fire in the Tenth Street Historic District, Swann said, people in the neighborhood suspect arson. Swann said he wasn’t speaking for the landmark commis- sion and his comments about the fires and their cause are completely speculative. People often suggest that fires in the neighborhood might be economically moti- vated, he said, and that the people behind them just don’t want to deal with restric- tions surrounding historic structures like the homes in Tenth Street. “That’s probably all I should say about that,” Swann said. “I’m not alleging this.” Larry Johnson, a part-time resident in the neighborhood, said he believes the fire at 1023 Church St. was accidentally started by home- less people staying in the house. But, when asked about the others, he’s certain they were set intentionally. “Those [fires] were set on purpose,” Johnson said. He thinks someone used the natural gas line to try to burn down the houses on Boswell Street. “It was inten- tionally done,” Johnson said. “You don’t access gas lines on accident on a house that’s been va- cant for as long as I’ve been involved, which is well over five years.” Johnson is a member of the Tenth Street Residential Association and a representative on the Tenth Street task force for the land- mark commission. Investigators have yet to determine the cause of the fires, Jason Evans, a DFR spokes- person, told the Observer. Here’s what the fire department knows about the fires. Around 8 p.m. on Dec. 26, DFR responded to a 911 call about a structure fire at 1414 E. Clarendon Drive. When firefighters arrived, the house was engulfed in flames. “Firefight- ers initiated an offensive attack on the house and had the flames extinguished within an hour after arriving on scene,” Evans said. “Thankfully, there was no one at the house at the time of the fire, so there were no injuries reported.” The fire was reported by a neigh- bor across the street who said they heard a loud boom that shook their house. “Believing it was a car accident, she looked out the front door of her home and saw a large fire at the house across the street,” Evans said. The house hasn’t been occupied since the previ- ous owner died about two years ago, but the back door could always be seen open, accord- ing to the neighbor. “While investigators believe the fire began in, on or around the rear of the home, they were unable to rule out multiple potential ig- nition sources,” Evans said. “Therefore the cause of the fire is listed as undetermined.” Less than a month later, DFR would re- spond to another 911 call about a structure fire in the neighborhood. Firefighters arrived at 1014 Betterton Circle around 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 20 to find the vacant one-story structure fully engulfed in flames, which resulted in “fire suppression efforts going defensive early on,” Evans said. The fire was extinguished less than a half hour later. Evans said neighbors re- ported homeless people frequently going in and out of the house, but no one was there when firefighters showed up. One neighbor said they heard a popping noise outside, and when they got up to look the house was already on fire. DFR investi- gators believe the fire started along the back of the house and spread upward and later- ally in both directions. This damaged most of the structure and the exterior paneling of the home next door. “There were no injuries reported as a result of this fire, and the cause is undetermined due to investigators’ inabil- ity to detect multiple possible sources of ig- nition,” Evans said. A week passed before the houses on Bo- swell Street caught fire. DFR showed up around 11 a.m. on Jan. 27, responding to a 911 call about a structure fire at 1223 Boswell St. When firefighters arrived, they saw flames coming from the side window of the home. “In fact, the flames were so intense that they caused significant exposure damage to the neighboring home, at 1225 Boswell St.,” Ev- ans said. Inside 1223 Boswell, DFR found a fire in a bedroom along the side of the house. Firefighters were able to extinguish the house fire pretty quickly, but flames contin- ued spewing from the gas meter between the two homes. This continued to cause damage to the houses until Oncor turned off the gas. Seven people live at 1223 Boswell St., but only three were home when the fire began, Evans said. All made it out safely, but one was taken to a local hospital after being ex- posed to smoke from the fire. The two peo- ple who live in 1225 Boswell weren’t home at the time of the fire. The American Red Cross was called out to help all the affected residents. Evans said investigators were told that one of the residents at 1223 Boswell St. smelled smoke coming from one of the bed- rooms. When they went to check on it, they found the fire. The resident tried to put out the fire but it got out of control and everyone left the house. “Investigators believe the fire began in the reported bedroom then spread Robert Swann This is one of several houses that have burned in recent months in Dallas’ Tenth Street Historic District. >> p10 Unfair Park from p6
