The Accommodation: The Politics of Race in an American City

by Jim Schutze, John Wiley Price (Foreword)

The powerful, long-repressed classic of Dallas history that examines the violent and suppressed history of race and racism in the city. Written by longtime Dallas political journalist Jim Schutze, formerly of the Dallas Times Herald and Dallas Observer , and currently columnist at D Magazine , The Accommodation follows the story of Dallas from slavery through the Civil Rights Movement, and the city’s desegregation efforts in the 1950s and ‘60s. Known for being an uninhibited and honest account of the city’s institutional and structural racism, Schutze’s book argues that Dallas’ desegregation period came at a great cost to Black leaders in the city. Now, after decades out of print and hand-circulated underground, Schutze’s book serves as a reminder of what an American city will do to protect the white status quo.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, Politics, Social Justice, Book Club, Historical

267 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

Reviews

[Bill Christman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book that the Dallas elite supposedly stopped printing in 1986. They had good reason. This is a blunt look at the history of the City of Dallas during Civil Rights years with the question of why were there no riots? Large protests? despite Dallas being an extremely segregated city.

Jim Schutze goes into Dallas' history to tell the story and the terrorism of the white community to keep the blacks in line was as bad as any where else in the south. The book opens with terror bombing of blacks who moved into white neighborhoods in the early 1950s. The Dallas business elite immediately did what they had been doing which was to work to get the problem to stop. A grand jury was investigating and were seeing scary links within the white working class community. To avoid become a news story, bringing bad publicity to Dallas, promises were made to both the black community and the working white community settled the issue. The grand jury never said where the investigation led.

This is how the business elite handled Dallas from the 1920s until the 1970s. The solutions often kept the segregation. One could not be on the city council without this group's approval. The business elite held the power and ran the city in much like a 'totalitarian city state.' This group only had the concern to make Dallas a world class city and therefore they endorsed programs that were for Dallas as a whole, caring little about particular communities. At times this meant negotiating with the black community and at other time using eminent domain power to take their land for developments.

MLK and members of the SCLC would come to Dallas and what they found was the local Dallas black leaders working in an accommodation to the business elite. Over and over they see Dallas as 20 years behind the times. At the same time, as one of the SCLC leaders would admit later, they put no resources into Dallas because they did not consider it southern. The problem is despite seeming like a Southern city, Dallas is considered by many to be a western city. No riots came at a cost of no unity within the black community.

Fair Park groups eventually took on the at large representation for Dallas through the courts. The business elites were able to control this council but the courts ruled it unconstitutional thus bringing about a electoral districts. Changing the politics of the city and taking away the business elites' power. This is shown in the 1980s when the developers can no longer develop a section of Dallas due to opposition from the city council. The power elite had been broken by the Fair Park black community.

Dallas is a city that has built a mythology about its past. About the peaceful place it has been and how the city has conducted itself like a business to create this great place. The truth, as always, is far messier and darker than the story Dallas tells itself. This is an excellent look at the true story of Dallas through the middle part of the 20th Century.

[Mellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Overall Thoughts:

I waited seven months to receive this book from the Dallas Public Library. It was worth the wait. The Accommodation tells the story of Dallas’s history, particularly in the 1950s - 1960s and how race and class shaped the city then and now. It’s a must read, especially for those who currently call Dallas home.

Who I Think Would Enjoy This Book:

Anyone who enjoys learning about history, race, culture and politics.

[Jessie Light-Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the most important book I read all year, The Accommodation remained out of print for over 30 years because of the danger it posed to the Dallas oligarchy. Schutze details the bare bones (and long suppressed) story of racial injustice in Dallas, positing that because of the city’s undemocratic form of governance, those with power created an “accommodation” which allowed segregation, redlining, and structural racism to pervade, unchecked and swept under the rug. Weaving in commentary on the role of Dallas’s charged culture in JFK’s assassination, Schutze does not mince words and is not afraid to point fingers at the elite corporate leaders who for years carefully dictated the culture of our city. One chapter details a black community - “Little Egypt” - that existed without running water, electricity, or sewage well into the 1950’s and was ultimately sold and leveled when white neighborhoods were built in proximity. Our house is in said white neighborhood, and the remains of Little Egypt are just yards away from our backyard Talk about a wake up call. I hope that all who call Dallas home will take the time to learn our history, to confront the ways in which racism has infected our life together, and to take steps to make real reparations.

[Ayo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book regarding race relations in my hometown. Fond remembrances of the people mentions. I live through this period and it’s accurately told.

[Daniel Penrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was told that if I ever wanted to understand race relations in my adopted home city of Dallas, I must read Jim Schutze’s 1986 book, The Accommodation. After a 2 month long search, I was finally able to obtain a copy.
The gist of this book is that Black and white residents of Dallas made an accommodation with each other in the early 1950s. Even with extensive police patrols, whites were bombing homes owned by Black residents in white neighborhoods — and getting away with it. In return for the bombings to stop, Black residents were allowed by white leadership to move into a newly created Black neighborhood, Hamilton Park. Because of this deal, the civil rights movement was not nearly as aggressive as it was in other American cities, setting the cause of civil rights in Dallas back decades. It details how entire Black neighborhoods were razed to benefit whites. How Black residents were denied the right to buy homes in most of the city and earn equity. How the white power structure only recognized certain conservative Black residents as city leaders, and how the purpose of the police was to protect whites from Black residents.
Aside from the shocking stories, this book is extremely well-written. The author was decades ahead of his time, and his work is worthy of accolades. It feels as if it were written yesterday, as opposed to over 30 years ago.
This book is a must-read for anyone interested in race relations, or understanding the power structure of the 9th largest city in the US.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book (and the story behind its recent publication through Vellum Publishing after being killed by Dallas elites in the ‘80s) was incredible. It’s a blunt look at the history of race in Dallas through the civil rights era as well as the political machinations that led to the geographical demographics that still exist prominently today. So many surnames—to me, just the names of highways I drove in my formative years—are familiar. If you have a connection to Texas, especially Dallas, this was a fascinating read that filled in so much context for a landscape I know well but a history I was ignorant to growing up, a history shrouded by pro-Texas rhetoric.

[Catrina Berka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a highly narrative piece of non-fiction about the history of race relations in Dallas. Originally published (and quickly pulled from shelves) in 1986 and republished in 2021, the book is being featured as the Big D Reads selection for September and October. It was very easy to read and enlightening to better understand the context for how Dallas has arrived at this point in our racialized history. My biggest complaint is that Schutze sacrificed sources for readability. There are no footnotes or references to back his research - which I am confident he has. But because the book is sourced like a magazine article instead of a book, it leaves the history up for debate and interpretation. I wish the 2021 publisher had made that correction before reprinting the book. Additionally, I'd love to see Schutze publish a follow-up on what has happened in Dallas between 1986 and today, filling in the gap of those 35 years.

[Kenton Self · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dallas History

Definitely a book with local (Dallas) appeal. Part of my rating is that the story hits close to home. My mother lived near where the bombings occurred when she was a little girl. I was a little curious why the history of Forest Ave. High school was left out. (IYKYK) It would have fit right in.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a perfect book but a really important perspective on the history of race relations in Dallas. Worth reading if you can get your hands on a copy (the library wait list is months long).

[Kim Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

An absolute must-read for fellow Dallasites! The Accommodation is an important, yet harsh, tough read. It is a blunt, harrowing look at the City of Dallas' history during the Civil Rights years, and how big business and the Dallas elite shaped the city.
Originally published in 1986, printing was quickly halted under pressure from the city’s establishment, until 2021 when a new publisher stepped forward to reissue.
It was interesting to read about the Dallas leaders whose names now adorn highways, schools, parks, buildings, libraries, etc.
The book was hard to rate. The actual story/history gets 5 stars, but the writing is choppy and sometimes repetitive, so I lowered it to a 4. The fact the author did not provide any research/references lowered it to a 3. Still, a very important read.

[Franklin Phan · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started going to Dallas book clubs, this book was recommended to me by friends who cared about governing and policy in the city as opposed to most of the millennials I met that were rather apolitical or indifferent to the inner workings of Dallas. This is the first book I've read about Dallas and it will forever influence how I feel about my home city, the wicked city.

[Alli]

Looking forward to reading this again - using a legit text and not a bootleg PDF: https://store.deepvellum.org/products...

[Ali Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read if you live in Dallas. Schutze's book is a long piece of investigative journalism that examines the racist history of Dallas's systemic structure, the effects of which can still be felt today. One of the few books that documents key events of Dallas's role prior to and during the Civil Rights movement, as well as the polarized forces that led to Kennedy's assassination, 'The Accommodation' gives a look into the lives of Dallas's residents that we seldom see in narratives of Texas, from the black homeowners whose houses were dynamited to the slaves who were forced there prior to emancipation.

I understand why the book is written the way it is, but I do wish there had been a stricter editorial process when publishing this. Many sentences took multiple reads to deconstruct because they either ran on too long or substituted big words where simplicity would have gotten the point across much more effectively. Other than that, however, I thought the book was well-written and impactful.

[Stevie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t grow up in Texas, so I didn’t realize the full extent to which the education system would teach and altered history. Jim Schutze approaches the tale of Dallas in the 1940s - 1960s with a journalistic curiosity. It is an eye opening account or how the city was built and founded on racist ideals that continue to affect the most vulnerable today, some sixty odd years later.

While I did find the subject matter extremely powerful and interesting, I found the delivery to be quite dry. As more of a fiction reader, I prefer my nonfic to come with a narrative quality that pulls me into the story. I found that to be severely lacking in this book, and unfortunately found myself zoning out and having to reread pages over and over. All in all it is an interesting read for anyone, especially those interested in Dallas history.

[Kennedy Plains · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an amazing history of race relations in my home city — I never read nonfiction about history here in Dallas, and as a black native of the area I was surprisingly shocked at the blatant systemic redlining and subjugation of the black community here, as well as bombings of black neighborhoods that I have never heard about?? I grew up around so many white people that have the “slavery wasn’t that bad in Texas” mindset, and this book was seriously helpful in articulating exactly why that’s BS and how this city was built on the backs of black labor, gerrymandering, oppression and redlining, only making “progress” socially when it’s profitable and beneficial for optics.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard one for me to rate. I give the story/history 4 stars. It’s an important and interesting history of Dallas & how big Dallas business shaped race relations and the communities of Dallas. If you are from Dallas or interested in the history of Dallas, I highly recommend this book. But the writing was choppy, sometimes hard to follow. And I feel like critical info was left out. So I give the writing 3 stars.

[Liz Curfman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Required reading if you live in Dallas. The history of the city I live in and it’s blatant racism is one that will stay with me. It’s not an easy thing to read, but it’s very well done and highly interesting. My one complaint is that I wish there was an updated version of how things have stayed the same or changed since the book was originally published.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me less than 24 hours to get through this book. And Wow. If you live in Dallas and are a social justice warrior, you might need to read this book.

I lived in Dallas most of my life, and the history I learned was simply mind blowing.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, written by a Dallas journalist, was published in 1987. Deeply offensive to the city's powers-that-be, it disappeared quickly from the shelves of local bookstores, and was unable to find a publisher for a second printing. Yet somehow, it has survived.

Essentially an overview of Dallas' history and self-image, and how the city treated the disenfranchised people who did not fit into Dallas's comfortable picture of itself, the book is deeply fascinating and sometimes terrifying.

By the 50's, business leaders in Dallas had worked together to consolidate power and create a power structure with a success-oriented, can-do attitude, focused on wealth, power, and the trappings of success. Every problem was viewed as an obstacle to that success, the solution a question of what was best for the city.

Or rather, for the White elite of the city. This meant that if the city wanted to build on a piece of land owned by Black property owners, they found a solution - which often meant forcing those property owners to move to another, less desirable property.

When the homes of middle-class blacks who dared to move into white Dallas neighborhoods were bombed in the 50's, the city saw it not in moral or human terms, but as a problem that needed to be solved, to protect the city's interests. When Blacks in the rest of the country began protesting, in Dallas it was a business problem.

And, in typical Dallas fashion, the problem was "solved" by working with the more conservative leaders of the Black community to find an accommodation that allowed the Black leaders to feel that they had made some sort of progress, while allowing the White power structure to continue to control the narrative. This accommodation, which is at the heart of the book, may have prevented some of the violence seen elsewhere in the 60's, but set Dallas race relations back by decades compared to the rest of the country.

Occasionally a little hard to follow, and sometimes a bit of a screed, the book is nonetheless deeply fascinating, and worth a read not only for Dallasites interested in understanding the history and nature of their city, but for anyone interested in the history of race relations in our country.

On a strictly personal note, as a Californian who moved to Dallas around 1980, I found it fascinating to learn about the people whose names appear on Dallas landmarks - highways, bridges, luxury stores. In the book, some appeared as villains, others, sometimes surprisingly, as heroes. I have to confess to a growing admiration for one person I had already considered - based on the words of a friend - as a true gentleman.

Equally fascinating to me is the history of the book itself. While it struggled to find a publisher for its first edition, which quickly disappeared from Dallas shelves and has not yet been reprinted, it has become a bit of an underground phenomenon, appearing online in everything from legally questionable PDFs to hourly, sentence-by-sentence tweets. And now a small Dallas publisher has acquired the rights and will be reprinting it soon, with the proceeds going to a local non-profit. I was fortunate enough to find a library copy to read, but have already pre-ordered my own copy.

[Andrew Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first book about Dallas I have ever read, and possibly the best I ever will?

Between its discussion of race relations, the Dallas oligarchy, and the city's undemocratic at-large council member system, this book does for Dallas what dissidents like Noam Chomsky do for the country as a whole.

The book criticizes the myth Dallas maintains about itself - that it is a city built in the middle of nowhere, made out of nothing more than sheer willpower and entrepreneurism - and argues for a sense of self based in the concrete forces of power at play in the city. These forces ultimately serve to keep racial tensions and social unrest simmering below a well-crafted surface of middle-class housing deals (displacement) and PR stunts. How the book puts it: an accommodation with the Black leadership class in Dallas.

As a white person born in Dallas in the 90s, I can say that this book penetrates deeply into something about the Dallasite psyche that persists to this day.

[Mack Simpson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the most important book I've read in five years. Maybe a decade.

[Mark Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting deep dive into Dallas history. This book was given out free by the Dallas Puublic Library (yay!) And crazy to think that when it was first printed in the 1980s the white power structure pulled its release, afraid it would hurt Dallas' image. The book is filled with so many startling facts--white bombings of black neighborhoods was the most striking. The TLDR is that Dallas, unlike most other cities in the South during the 1950s and 60s, avoided the rioting and largescale protests (though the white violence and deep rooted racism were certainly just as present!). This was done thanks to a deeply entrenched white power structure that ran the city (the Citizens Council being one of its forms) with the tacit approval by the few token Blacks and the conservative black organizations (the black churches esp.). For example, during school desegreagation, Dallas waited years after Brown v. Board to comply with the decision, dragging its feet, and finally settling for a watered down token integration in schools that still reverberates today. Besides this tokenism to "accommodate" new civil rights laws, white leaders in Dallas did other shameful things. For example, the book points out that leaders simply lied (to the world and to themselves) that the Texas State Fair was not segregated...even when it had been and still was! They just denied objective fact! It is truly a dark time in Dallas history and many of the city's problems still can trace their roots to this strange and unique city dynamic.

My one critique is that the last two chapters talks about how black people led to changes in the city, but this seemed contrary to the entire rest of the book, which partially blamed blacks in Dallas for not being as demanding of their rights as blacks in other cities. The black church, the token black political leaders, and even the everyday black community was said to be living 20 years in the past. The book does talk about one SCLC organizer who came to Dallas to try to stir up black activism, but even he admitted having little luck--the Fair Park meeting with the Mayor was the only significant event mentioned. This is when the organizer worked with the black homeowners of Fair Park who were having their homes taken by eminent domain for a pittance. They threatened to disrupt the Cotton Bowl parade in order to force the mayor to meet with them. The mayor did. Unfortunately, they still ended up selling/losing their homes but for more than originally proposed. Not a very feel good book that's for sure but should be required reading for everyone in the Dallas area!

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been searching for this book since I heard an interview with William Jackson Harper about the play he wrote based on it, but until recently this 1980’s look at structural racism in Dallas has been out of print. With @deepvellum ‘s reprinting, I finally had a chance to dig in to the history of my city a bit more.

Starting with a string of bombings targeting Black residents in white neighborhoods in South Dallas, Schutze tells the engaging and damning story of how Dallas navigated the Civil Rights movements of the 50s and 60s. Instead of following the footsteps of their southern neighbors as they desegregated, Dallas relied on back room deals between the various business interests of the region in a way that helped Dallas miss much of the violence seen in other cities, but all at the expense of real change for the city’s Black residents.

An absolute necessity of a read for anyone who lives in the DFW region or Texas as a whole, Schutze’s book shines a glaring light on the parts of itself Dallas would prefer remained hidden. My only wish is that the reprint included more information about Dallas in the post-1980s eras. The city did erupt in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and I think an update at looking at the special accommodation of Dallas is long overdue.

An excellent nonfiction read that I highly recommend

[Maham Amina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was handed out to me while I was on Katy Trail. I was nervous to take it because I figured anything with Big Dallas Corporations’ approval would end up being something religious, borderline racist, or MLM-y. I did not know the history behind this book or the author.

After reading it, I wish this was mandatory reading for anyone in Dallas, or anyone interested in anti-racist work. This book was written in the 80s, but helps explain why Dallas looks the way it does in 2023. Being raised in the suburbs of DFW, we’re taught so many myths around slavery, segregation, and Dallas’s overall relationship towards African Americans. What you think you know is actually way worse. This book calls it all out plainly and factually- Dallas’s foundation upholds a structure that continues to oppress poor African Americans all in the name of business. Dallas has never truly atoned for setting back so many families financially and socially. The effects remain with us today. I am leaving this book with an entirely new perspective around how we are all complicit to oppression when we maintain the status quo for our own individual gains (even if we ourselves are of a marginalized group).

My only regret is I wish I followed the instructions of the re-print and read this book with a community of people.

[Neil Krasnoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was essentially banned in Dallas by the very power structure that the book portrays. As a resident of Dallas, I was quite interested in this history of the city and I thought it would be a very dark tale of racism and abuse of power. In actuality the book is fair and balanced and not entirely dark. The white oligarchy that ran Dallas certainly needed to go, but in many ways, the white men were fairly benevolent and far-sighted who really did believe they considered "Dallas as a whole," a phrase the book frequently repeats for emphasis. In the interest of economic development the oligarchy did put a stop to much of the racist violence and intimidation by KKK and other White Citizens groups. In doing so they paved the way for prosperity that created a black middle class, but left behind a legacy of de facto segregation that survived the civil rights movement with much of the non-white population languishing in poverty and subject to arbitrary abuses by city government. Even though the book is nearly 40 years old and focuses mostly on the city of Dallas, it is a must read for understanding America's current climate surrounding race relations. It should be widely read and discussed.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took weeks to get this book thru an inter library loan. Written in the late 1980s, it is an incredibly sad look at what Dallas was like from the 20s until the 80s and how terribly Blacks were treated. And not all of it has changed today.

Texas was not treated as the South during Civil Rights, but slaves brought to Texas after Reconstruction were actually treated worse than in the South. The types of slave owners that came to Texas were different than the wealthy plantation owners and didn’t recognize Blacks as anything other than chattel. Those attitudes are very slowly evolving and it explains a lot about how middle, low class whites are still fearful of Blacks. Frankly, they should be after the policies and attitudes of the past.

The story is how Dallas accommodated desegregation through deception and control. Blacks didn’t riot in Dallas, but it was how gaining humanness and freedom was earned in other cities.

Many of us in Texas have recognized the changes that still must be made. Too sadly, the gun toting ignorant whites, including those in the State Legislature, continue to hold us back from being the society that recognizes all human rights.

[Christy Chermak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would recommend for anyone and everyone. An important book detailing the history of race in Dallas. I’ve lived in this city for almost 20 yrs now and this book helped put words and perspective to things about it I couldn’t quite articulate before. How the entrepreneurial, big business parts of Dallas have infiltrated our DNA and culture was really eye opening and clarifying to me. Some of the history in the book about politics and racial injustices were familiar to me but all encompassed in one book and with this level of detail (the fair park houses was a good example- I knew a 2 sentence summary, reading pages of it was so helpful) leads to a better understanding of the big picture. There were also things I didn’t have any context for prior- like the history of Hamilton Park 🤯.

Some of Shultzes notes helped me better understand the reasons for protesting/rioting more than I’ve probably ever been able to understand before…

10/10 book. Especially for anyone that calls Dallas home and wants to affect their city for good- this is a must read to understand the context of where you live.

Great book club discussion as well!

[Ailín Ó Dálaigh]

Anyone from or living in Dallas should read this book, but it does exhibit some problems I usually have with history books written by journalists. The need to make the story one of affect (I would hope the material speaks for itself), aided by a disjointed retelling of the chronology, lessened my ability to grasp the entirety of the image that was trying to be created: one of a Dallas where accommodation around segregation and civil rights, encapsulated as an avoidance of the violence seen elsewhere during this time, resulted in a city and a people that have never really dealt with the issue - preserving the conflicts of the past in the present.

I can agree with that assessment of the city, but it still has some issues that a chronological record with a more macro-perspective would help dispel. In particular, Dallas is contrasted against a U.S. that in other areas has moved further ahead in areas of equality, - and segregation, which Dallas still exhibits in some respects to this day - but this contrast is an assumption for Schutze, who doesn’t offer us much to show how other cities have gotten further along than Dallas.

[Norma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be required reading for all Dallasites. The Accommodation is a history of race relations and specifically of the civil rights movement in Dallas. The prominence of the white oligarchy and it’s role in suppressing black liberation is central to many of the city’s current realities and challenges around race and equity. I learned a lot and the history provides critical context to continued awareness of current oppression towards Black/BIPOC people in Dallas. This book has been called “The most dangerous book in Dallas” and for a long time it fell out of circulation (or was forced out of circulation), and was regularly shared as a sort of “contraband” Google doc/PDF (at least in the nonprofit community). I am glad to see the book in print today through La Reunion Publishing and Deep Vellum. I’d be interested to see Jim Schutze write a follow up to this; the original copyright is 1986. As a transplant to Dallas (first moved here in 2003), a lot has happened since 1986.

[Ken Stampe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review. First why you should read it:

If you live in Dallas, you should be aware of its past.
If you live in Dallas, you should be aware of its power structures which are still felt today.
If you have interest in the civil rights era, this book will be insightful for why you don’t remember the movement seeming to happen in Dallas at all.

Why it doesn’t receive a higher score:

It isn’t clear how the power structure came into being, who all of the agents were, and what remnants of it continues.
Many facts in the book were impossible to verify. The author did not provide any reference to his research or source any of his text evidence. Even comments made by a federal judge which the author placed in quotation marks were unlocatable when I searched to read them in their original context. I’m not saying anything in the book isn’t true. It just lacks the detail and complete transparency of a well researched text.