MANSFIELD, TX
On August 30, 2021, the Texas Rangers gifted 86-year-old Floyd Moody what he told eyeblack was “one of the highlights of my life” — throwing the ceremonial first pitch at Globe Life Field. “I thank God for the Rangers,” the pastor and civil rights activist told MLB.com after the ceremony. “What they are doing and what they might do in the future.”
Five years later, the Rangers permanently enshrined a 12-foot tall sculpture of a man protecting a violent mob that wanted Moody dead.
Rev. Floyd Moody shakes hands with a member of the Texas Rangers after throwing the ceremonial first pitch (courtesy of Kyev Tatum)
In the summer of 1956, Moody was a rising 11th grader attempting alongside four other Black teens to register for Mansfield High School, a public school just south of Arlington, where the Rangers play. Two years after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Mansfield High was still all white.
Texas governor Allan Shivers responded to the teens — and SCOTUS— by sending two Texas Rangers to enforce their removal and preserve law and order” and protect the white mob that formed around the school. One of the two Rangers the governor sent was E.J. “Jay” Banks. An old picture shows Banks nonchalantly leaning on a tree in front of the school while an effigy of Black body sways in front the entrance. Others show the Ranger smiling in front of the school with the effigy dangling over his head.
Jay Banks, visibly incensed and furious about the blackface effigy hanging from a local school
Moody said he wasn’t personally intimidated by the effigy or the “Go North, Niggers” 1signs. “At 16, I guess you don't have sense enough to be afraid,” he said. Still, Moody and his friends didn’t register that day. And in 1961, Love Field welcomed a bronze statue titled “One Riot, One Ranger,” a motto derived from a 19th century origin story but modeled after Banks. Meanwhile, Mansfield wouldn’t integrate until 1965.
Following the George Floyd protests, in 2020, the City of Dallas removed the work as a direct response to growing controversy and awareness of the Rangers’ racist history. But, last month, Moody’s favorite baseball team resurrected the statue, placing “One Riot, One Ranger” on the left field concourse.
In the ultimate irony, it takes more than One Ranger to raise the dead. The franchise was enabled by local governments, defended by the cops who gave them their namesake, and empowered by the league who allows them to play ball.
One Ranger? This was a team effort.
“I reached out to the team, and then I was redirected to people who handle that aspect of their operations,” said Jason Thomas, the NAACP’s Arlington, Texas chapter president. “Because I didn't get a response, I reached out to the city of Arlington for assistance.” Arlington mayor Jim Ross confirmed his involvement in an effort to ensure the team’s leadership engaged with the NAACP.
“It seemed like it was void of any thought, and it didn't have any public engagement,” Thomas told eyeblack. “No one asked any questions about this, especially given the fact that it was removed in the height of the George Floyd era.” He added that putting the statue so close to Mansfield was “tone deaf.”
Russell Molina, a board member for the Texas Rangers Association Foundation (TRAF) — a non profit supporting the law enforcement agency that is, according to MLB’s press release, “dedicated to preserving and promoting the history and legacy of the Texas Rangers,” — has has clamored for statue’s public display since 2023. Molina also disputed that “One Riot, One Ranger” was based on Banks. But, Molina’s claim2 directly contradicts a 1976 interview Banks and the sculptor herself, Waldine Amanda Tauch — both of whom attested to the now-infamous Ranger modeling for the statue.
Ross told eyeblack that Rangers principal owner Ray Davis was heavily involved in acquiring “One Riot, One Ranger”, which the city of Dallas had loaned, but not yet transferred, to the TRAF. According to Ross, a minority owner informed him that Davis was confident that repurposing the sculpture shouldn’t be offensive because the Black mayor of Dallas, Eric Johnson, gave it to the team.3
“Well, this one Black guy [approved]?,” said Rep. Marc Veasey, whose congressional district includes Globe Life. (And for whatever it's worth, is also a Black man.) “That's not good. Our white friends should not do that to us.”
When Veasey heard about the statue after it gained attention on social media, he reached out to Major League Baseball’s Washington, D.C. office. The Congressman said MLB was responsive to his inquiries, but told him the league wants teams to make their own decisions and claiming a past precedent of allowing teams to integrate its teams with Black ballplayers. “Just like they did with the Dodgers and with integration, they pretty much let each team decide how they want to operate their club,” Veasey said of MLB’s reasoning. 6
Veasey wrote to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, Davis, and Bob Simpson, the franchise co-chair, calling attention to photos of Banks unbothered by the blackface effigies he protected. He said Davis has yet to respond.
“He seems like a pretty good guy to me, but he's 84 years old, and he's a conservative man that's made a lot of money in the oil and gas business, and he's from small-town Texas. He probably sees things a little bit differently than I do. But maybe once he learns more about the history of Ranger Banks, he will change his mind.”
Five years earlier, Davis had his shot to learn about Ranger Banks, and he didn’t even have to leave the ballpark.