The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 106, July 2002 - April, 2003 Page: 475

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Book Reviews

governor Ann Richards (they divorced in the early 198os), never held elective
office. He made his mark as a pioneering litigator in the fields of legislative re-
districting, voting rights, and education funding.
Richards received his law degree from the University of Texas in 1957 and
learned his profession in the bare-knuckle world of Dallas labor law and Demo-
cratic party politics. By the late 196os, his labor background and activist record
led him into the emerging field of voting rights litigation. In the 197os and
1980s he represented political challengers in redistricting lawsuits. Richards
achieved remarkable success, aided in part by sympathetic federal judges and
less capable opposing counsel, and his redistricting victories contributed to the
landmark 1973 "Reform" Legislature.
By 1982, enfranchisement of minorities and two-party politics (spurred by re-
districting and voting rights court orders) led to a statewide sweep by moderate
and liberal Democrats, including new State Treasurer Ann Richards. Instead of
suing the state, Richards became first assistant to Attorney General Jim Mattox,
whose first term was marred by a commercial bribery indictment and trial (he
was acquitted). Richards-to his discomfort-managed the state's thorny legal
affairs while his boss spent time in a criminal trial.
Once Upon a Tzme In Texas also describes good times among liberals, leftists,
and anarchists during Austin's years as a counterculture haven. Richards partied
and rode the river with novelists, musicians, and radical activists as well as politi-
cos. Others have written about Austin's wild adolescence with more graphic de-
tail, but not with greater fondness.
Although autobiographical, the book sparingly covers the author's marriage
to the future governor, and focuses on the political and legal controversies of his
era. Richards remains an unreconstructed liberal, but his writing reflects the
keen legal analysis that made him an effective advocate. His memoirs will benefit
anyone researching the legal contests that shaped modern Texas.
Austin JAMES E. COUSAR
Being Rapoport: Capitalist with a Consczence. By Bernard Rapoport as told to Don
Carleton. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Pp. xv+316. Preface, in-
troduction, index. ISBN 0-292-77117-7. $39.95, cloth.)
Bernard Rapoport, born in San Antonio in 1917, hailed from poor, socialist
parents who had fled Czarist Russia. He plunged into liberal and radical causes
during the depression, and his commitment deepened at the University of
Texas under the influence of the famed economics professors of that era.
Working at jewelry stores, however, undermined his Marxism as well as his
dream of becoming a professor, but not his liberalism. He married Audre
Goodman during the war and entered the jewelry business in Waco, where the
couple first became deeply involved in a political campaign, Homer Rainey's
gubernatorial race in 1946.
In 1949 he changed careers and discovered, with his irrepressible approach,
that he had a knack for selling insurance. He was out of state for most of the

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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 106, July 2002 - April, 2003, periodical, 2003; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101223/m1/543/ocr/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.

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