A Republican who has led the Texas Legislature鈥檚 House Committee on Corrections for years is asking the state to rename prisons that honor slave owners and those tied to convict leasing, a system where and then leased out to private industries for unpaid labor.
State Rep. said Friday he is asking the Texas Board of Criminal Justice to rename several prisons and, in an interview with The Texas Tribune, specifically named the Darrington, Goree and Eastham prisons.
There are 99 state prisons and jails in the state, at least several of which are named after people with racist and sometimes violent histories, according to .
鈥淲e鈥檝e got correctional officers who have lost their lives, we鈥檝e got crime victims that have contributed immensely to good victim鈥檚 rights advocacy, board members that have served and promoted good policies,鈥� White said. 鈥淚 just think there are other Texans that we can probably associate a name with a unit.鈥�
The Darrington Unit, which imprisons about 1,700 men in Brazoria County, was named after John Darrington, from Alabama, who White called a 鈥減lantation mega owner." He sold the land the prison sits on to Texas after slavery was abolished, White said. Today鈥檚 inmates at the unit, mostly Black or Hispanic men, still .
Thomas Goree, the namesake of a Huntsville prison, was a former slave owner and Confederate captain who became one of the first superintendents of a Texas prison, reported. He was closely tied to the convict leasing program that . The Eastham Unit is named after the landowners who bought Goree鈥檚 family plantation about 20 miles north of Huntsville and then used it for convict leasing, according to The Marshall Project.
A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice did not immediately respond to questions on renaming prison units. White said he had already talked with the prison system鈥檚 leadership.
White said he began researching the prison names last year and reached out to the prison system because 鈥渨ords matter.鈥� Last year, the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for several minutes, prompted a surge of protests against racial injustice and led to broader discussions nationwide on racism.
The Convict Leasing and Labor Project President Jay Jenkins said that his organization supports White's proposal, but added that changing names should be the beginning.
"It is wholly inappropriate in 2021 to have state facilities honor those that profited off of the racist horrors and atrocities of our state's convict leasing system," Jenkins said.
"A full reconciliation for our state's sins of convict leasing requires an end to unpaid prison labor in Texas and a discussion of reparations for the descendants of those who were unjustly imprisoned and forced to work on prison farms under threat of torture, maiming and death," he added.