By Fernando Florez
On Tuesday afternoon, June 20, 2023, Jeanette Martinez was sworn in as the representative of newly created City Council District 11in Fort Worth at the city council chambers.
That was a historic occasion because we started working to create this second Hispanic majority city council district shortly after the 1990 U.S. Census. This event marked the achievement of that goal. Jeanette also made history by being the first Latina elected to the Fort Worth City Council. This is the story about how we accomplished that epic feat.
FORT WORTH CITY COUNCIL REDISTRICTING HISTORY
For some of us who have been involved in city council redistricting the election of Jeanette was a milestone, monumentally huge, perhaps bigger than anything I’ve seen since I arrived in Fort Worth after my military discharge in 1968?
Redistricting has been a tool we’ve used to reduce the systemic racism we’ve had in the city forever, discrimination in many forms and disenfranchisement. It has helped us fight for a stronger voice on the city council.
Many of us believe that the Hispanic culture is an important element in Fort Worth, and that it should be represented fairly at city hall. Moreover, we believe that a Hispanic council member familiar with that culture who has the ability to communicate in Spanish to outreach the majority of the district’s population would be best suited to effectively represent that new district. Jeannete is a good fit and winning the seat is not merely symbolic. It actually gives Hispanics a stronger voice in city government and more political clout. That’s what representation does and in this case, it gave Hispanics more confidence, too, after they had to rally people to win in the runoff election at the ballot box; they defeated an organized attempt to snatch the seat away from them after so much time was spent creating it. By stopping that effort Hispanics also gained more respect from other ethnic groups. We needed that victory badly, perhaps also because of the already significant and growing Hispanic population in the city.
The city council is where almost everything starts and now Jeanette is also a role model for other Hispanics and will start a new trend going forward. (When Hispanics see that their votes make a difference in elections and they can win if they vote, they will at higher rates. I’ve seen that elsewhere in Texas!) That’s why I call this election transformational. It’s the beginning of what will change Fort Worth forever!
Having worked for over thirty-five years hands-on at the grassroots level organizing and leading groups to achieve many objectives, as an organizer of the first alliance of neighborhoods in the city and having served on two city boards for a total of sixteen years and much more, I think I have a good grasp of the impact of city government on the lives of people.
Redistricting and its importance are not easily understood by many and that has posed a challenge for us. And we’ve had so many setbacks along our journey, many times having to get back up after being knocked down, to continue the fight. That tenacity kept us on course.
Sometimes our redistricting group was reduced to two people, my wife, Roberta, and me. Overall, we worked hard sending e-mails and calling people on the telephone to ask them to attend the public hearings and testify. They did in large numbers and that tipped the scales in our favor. We aways had more people at the public hearings than anyone else (especially during 2020 Census cycle redistricting) in our quest for more Hispanic representation on the city council. We couldn’t have done it without the help of those people, and we can’t thank them enough. Those people are to be lauded, and I deeply admire and respect them. Enough of them answered our CALL TO ACTION many times and stepped up, sometimes when it was not popular and safe, in a hostile atmosphere, to support what we were asking for. Redistricting is not for the timid and faint of heart. It’s for those who have ‘fire in their belly’ and are willing to stand up and speak truth to power, risk-takers with passion and courage. In my opinion, redistricting is stuff of the highest calling for community activists and the truest measure of individual leadership.
Our redistricting effort started In the City Council District 9, the district where the largest concentration of Hispanics lived in south Fort Worth, to mitigate the bias and polarized voting that our research indicated existed, during 2000 census cycle redistricting. After a bitter battle, we took the precincts north of Bellaire Street in Tanglewood out of district 9 and put them in district 3. This was necessary to make district 9 more Hispanic friendly. That was not enough, of course, but it was all we could get. At that time in district 9 approximately 70% of the total votes in the district cast in typical elections came from there and dominated the council district. And the data indicated that they did not support Hispanic candidates.
By stating this fact, I am not saying or implying that all White people are racists. On the contrary, many Whites, Blacks and others have helped us during redistricting. For example, our success during the 2020 Census cycle can be largely attributed to the help we received from a multi-ethnic and race coalition of people. I’ll explain that in more detail later.
Next week, in PART 2 of this article, the United Hispanic Council joins the fight for more Hispanic representation. repre
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Fernando Florez, is a community leader who has received many awards over the years, including being named Fort Worth MAN OF THE YEAR for his community work in 1996 by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He holds BBA and MBA degrees from Texas Christian University (TCU). He may be contacted at (817) 239–0578 or rfflorez@ juno.com