Chuck Lanehart
Editor’s Note: Jack Becker is the editor of Caprock Chronicles and is a librarian at Texas Tech University Libraries. He can be reached at jack.becker@ttu.edu. Today’s article about the lawsuit which brought racial diversity to the Lubbock City Council is the first of a two-part series by frequent contributor Chuck Lanehart, Lubbock attorney and historian.
When Gene Gaines’ wife died in the 1970s, he was told she must be buried in the segregated Black/Mexican-American section of the City of Lubbock Cemetery. Offended by the city’s racial discrimination, Gaines – Lubbock’s first Black lawyer – decided to take legal action to desegregate the all-Anglo Lubbock City Council, charged with cemetery policy.