Texas Rangers’ new statue isn’t what you think. That’s a 12-foot-tall problem | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Team brought back a 1961 Texas Ranger statue linked to Jim Crow-era imagery.
- Sculptor used Jay Banks as a model but altered features; it’s a generic Ranger.
- Critics say the statue contradicts the team’s stated stance against racism.
Let’s straighten out a couple of things.
● The 65-year-old statue of a Texas Ranger lawman, recently unveiled by the Texas Rangers baseball team at Globe Life Field, is not named “One Riot, One Ranger.”
● It is not a statue of former Rangers Capt. Jay Banks. He was one of six Rangers lawmen at the 1956 Mansfield Crisis, where three local Black students were denied their legal right to enroll in all-white Mansfield High School.
This is a generic statue of a tall, sturdy Texas Ranger. San Antonio-based sculptor Waldine Tauch used Banks as a model, but she changed features so it wouldn’t look like any single Ranger.
● And it was not Banks who defied federal law in 1956 or kept Black students out of their hometown school.
It was Gov. Allan Shivers. He sent the Rangers to calm a near-race riot by 300 white people hanging Black students in effigy, and he also told school officials to order Black students transferred out to preserve “peace and orderly conduct.”
The crisis is an eternal shame for Mansfield.
School officials coldly didn’t even bother to take down the effigies of Black students hanged from above the school door and from the flagpole.
So by any name, bringing this statue into Globe Life Field is a really sorry idea.
Even though it isn’t meant to depict Banks, the statue is a 65-year-old throwback to the shameful Jim Crow-era of segregation in Texas.
When the statue was originally dedicated at Love Field Airport in 1961, stores still had “white” and “colored” facilities. Dallas and Texas were still mired in the spiteful and bitter Jim Crow era.
A 12-foot-tall statue of a law officer reaching for his gun was always a really strange way to welcome Texas visitors.
Is that any way to greet baseball fans?
What does it mean? “Hold it right here, pardner. Now git yourself on over to the Pluckers Wings stand”?
The Rangers installed the statue quietly.
I mean really quietly.
The team published only a vague announcement labeled “new addition to the concourse.”
The stadium website at globelifefield.com gives the wrong name for the statue. Then it goes on to say it honors “public safety professionals” as a “symbol of our team’s origin.”
But as recently as 2020, the team disowned that origin.
“While we may have originally taken our name from the law enforcement agency, since 1971 the Texas Rangers Baseball Club has forged its own, independent identity,” the team’s statement said then.
“The Texas Rangers Baseball Club stands for equality. We condemn racism, bigotry and discrimination in all forms.”
Now, the Rangers have pivoted like a second baseman turning a double play.
The team brought in a statue from a cruel era when Texas defied the rule of law.
Look, I love Texas’ Old West imagery.
The statues in the Fort Worth Stockyards area show the real West — Black rodeo stars like Bill Pickett, Comanche war chief-turned-rancher Quanah Parker, pioneers like the unnamed Vaquero de Fort Worth.
I’ve always thought the baseball team was named for the Texas Rangers of that era. Those were the frontier lawmen known since 1896 for the boast, “one riot, one Ranger.”
For years, the Rangers team even used theme music on TV, radio and in the stadium from the 1936 Paramount movie, “The Texas Rangers.” It’s considered one of the all-time classic Western soundtracks.
That was an era of horrendous brutality but also incredible heroism.
The 20th-century law enforcement Rangers are heroic crimefighters nabbing bankrobbers, tracking serial killers and busting up organized crime.
We are very proud of the Texas Rangers.
But no Ranger can be very proud of this statue.
This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 12:26 PM.
