This home movie documents the daily lives and activities of the Nelson family and includes footage of children playing, family members posing for the camera, and a young child playing in the snow.

This home movie documents the Light Crust Doughboys (LCD) on tour and performing in Texas and the Southern United States in 1952 - 1959. Footage includes performers at the Bob Wills Ranch House in Dallas, Texas on November 27, 1951 (3 min., 06 sec.); a performance in Houston, Texas on June 25, 1952 that includes actors Tim Holt and Preston Foster (6 min, 44 sec.); a visit with actor Noah Beery, Jr. on September 30, 1952 in Little Rock, Arkansas (8 min, 07 sec.); a trip to historic sites in Vicksburg, Mississippi (8 min., 58 sec.); the exterior of the WFAA studio (11 min., 48 sec.); pianist Knocky Parker and guitarist Zeke Campbell playing together in 1954 (12 min, 07 sec.); a trip to the Port of Beaumont (12 min., 36 sec.); a stop in Lubbock for a parade and performance with Jack Perry at the ABC Rodeo (13 min., 40 sec); the LCD in Cedar Ridge recording studio (15 min., 48 sec.); the LCD and other performers filming a television show at Cross Road Store in May 1957 (16 min., 24 sec.); another performance at the ABC Rodeo in Lubbock in May 1957 (17 min., 47 sec.); the LCD …

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

Feliz Abalos was born (1979) and raised in Odessa, Texas. Abalos graduated from Odessa High School in 1996 a semester early and attended one spring semester at Sul Ross State University. She graduated from the University of Houston in 2001 and then attended law school at Ohio Northern University Abalos has been chair of the Ector County Democratic Party. She has worked in various local political campaigns since she was a child. Abalos was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Premium Basin Planned Parenthood.

Delma Abalos was born and raised in Odessa, Texas. She attended Odessa College as well as the University of Texas-Permian Basin. Abalos gained her undergraduate degree in political science and her master’s degree in history. She now teaches courses in history, including Mexican American history, at Odessa College. Delma also served within the Ector County ISD board of trustees.

Hector Mendez was raised in Big Lake, Texas and attended Angelo State University, where he was part of the Mexican American Student organization that called for ethnic studies in the university. He later attended the university of Texas Permian Basin for his master’s degree in education. He became the superintendent of Ector County Independent School District in the 2000s as conservative trustees led the district.

Karen Hildebrand was born in Odessa, Texas in 1958. She graduated from Permian High School in 1976 and attended Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, where she graduated in 1981. Hildebrand returned to Odessa and worked for various non-profits, including Planned Parenthood. She served various capacities within Planned Parenthood, including becoming CEO for twenty-three years. Hildebrand has also served in the Peace Corps, earned a Master’s degree in public administration from the University of Texas-Permian Basin, and now heads for a women’s crisis center.

Interview with Odel Crawford, president and CEO Black Chamber of Commerce of the Permian Basin. Crawford was born in Brownwood Texas. He attended Abeline Christian University.

Gene Collins was born and raised in Odessa, Texas. He attended Abilene Christian University, where he was a campus and community civil rights organizer. He completed his college education at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Collins is now a local businessman and minister in Odessa, Texas. He has been president of the Odessa NAACP for over 15 years, and co-chair for environmental justice for the statewide NAACP. He helped lead several efforts toward environmental justice in and outside Odessa.

Audio recording of an interview with Johnnie Mae Carter, who was born in East Texas and grew up partly in College Station, Texas, Colorado, and Slaton, Texas. While living in Slaton, Carter was not allowed to attend the local high school because she is African American. Thus, she attended Dunbar High School in Lubbock, Texas. Her family later moved to Odessa, Texas. In Odessa, Carter attended Odessa College to become a nurse. She worked several years as a nurse and also volunteered and later worked for Planned Parenthood in Odessa.

Fay Batch was born and raised in Fairfield, New Jersey. Her parents were social justice advocates with various organizations, including the NAACP. As a child and teenager, she participated in various rallies and joined picket lines in chain stores to challenge segregation. Upon graduating from high school, Batch attended the University of Southern California from 1975-1979. After graduating from the USC, she moved to the Midland-Odessa area with her husband, also a USC graduate, who was originally from the area. In Midland, Batch began registering African American voters in the east side of the city. Batch was elected to the Ector County ISD Board of Trustees, where she served from 2000 to 2013. In this position, she had a vital role in helping more fully integrate ECISD schools. As an School District Trustee, from 2000-2013, Batch helped oversee the school system reach unitary status under a federal court.

Daniel Caudillo was born to Mexican immigrants in Odessa, Texas. He grew up as a migrant child with a home base in Odessa. Caudillo graduated from Permian High School in 2000, and then briefly attended Odessa College and the University of Texas-Permian Basin. He graduated from Texas Tech University in 2003 and then the Law School of Texas Tech University in 2007. Caudillo then went to work for an immigration law firm in El Paso, Texas; he opened his own law firm dedicated to immigration law in 2008 with offices in both El Paso and Odessa. Caudillo advises the public on immigration law through various non-profits.

Frizella C. Whitiker was born in Greenwood, Lousiana and grew up in Austin, Texas. Whitiker graduated from Anderson High School and Samuel Huston University (1950), now Huston-Tillotson University, in Austin. Upon graduation, Whitiker moved to Odessa to teach in the Ector County Independent School District, specifically Blackshear High School. She retired from teaching in 1986. In Odessa, Whitiker has been a sponsor and board member of Head Start as well as a board member of the Black Cultural Council of Odessa. She has also been a leader of Mackey Chapel of the United Methodist Church.

Carol Uranga was born in 1949 in Marathon, Texas, but she was raised in Alpine, Texas. Growing up in Alpine and later in Pecos, she saw LULAC and the Brown Berets and Raza Unida Party protest and demand civil rights for Mexican Americans. Uranga graduated from central High School in Alpine in 1968. She moved to Pecos, Texas in 1974 when she married. In Pecos she became involved with women’s rights and LULAC, going to various civil rights conferences in other parts of the state. Indeed, Uranga helped organize what was perhaps the first women’s empowerment conference in West Texas, in Pecos in 1976 or 1977. Uranga moved to Odessa in the mid-1980s, where she helped re-start a LULAC chapter. She has since hosted radio shows centered on the Mexican American culture, she has helped start scholarship programs, local cultural events, including the nonprofit Hispanic Heritage of Odessa.

Mario N. Contreras was born in 1951 in the south side of Odessa, Texas (the “original” barrio of Odessa). He grew up in that neighborhood and graduated from Ector High School in 1970. Afterward, Contreras attended Odessa College, Sul Ross State University, and Baylor University before graduating from the University of Texas-Permian Basin in 1974. Contreras briefly joined the Brown Berets of Odessa during the late 1960s. After college, Contreras became the first Mexican American salesman in West Texas for Xerox, where he became a top salesman at a state level. In 1988 Contreras founded his own consulting company, and in 2005 became a board member of the Mexican American Network of Odessa that became the Odessa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

K.T. McLeaish was born and raised Granbury, Texas. She briefly attended the University of Northern Colorado before returning to Texas. McLeaish is retired from a long-time, non-paying career of political activism (she was once an elected member of the Democratic National Committee). She's been married to a prominent West Texas criminal lawyer (Michael McLeaish) for 32 years and they've lived in Odessa, TX for the past 34 years. She has also been on the now closed Premium Basin Planned Parenthood.

M. Elayne Hunt is a retired educator from the public schools in Odessa, TX, after 36 years; having begun as an elementary teacher, also worked as an elementary counselor for eight years. Elayne retired after nine years as Associate Director of Guidance and Testing.

Armando S. Rodriguez was born and raised in south Odessa, Texas. He attended Ector County High School, where he was senior class president. As the class president, Rodriguez led a school walkout to demand that advance academic classes be offered in the majority minority school. He later attended St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and is now an Ector County Commissioner.

Manuel Orona was born in 1964 in Pecos, Texas. He attended segregated schools until high school, going to Central High school and graduating in 1966. He then enlisted in the U.S. Marines, serving in Vietnam from 1967-1969. He was wounded in Vietnam. Upon returning to the United States, Orona attended Odessa College in Odessa, Texas, graduating in 1969. He then attended West Texas State University in Canyon, Texas for a year before transferring and graduating from the University of Houston in 1973. When returning from Vietnam, Orona was introduced to the Raza Unida Party by Juan Chávez (who then lived in Muleshoe was part of Chicanos Unidos Campesinos). By 1976, Orona left Houston and returned to Pecos to run for County Judge under the Raza Unida Party. In Pecos, he faced political and police oppression in response to his candidacy, and he lost the election. Orona then moved to Odessa permanently. In Odessa, he published El Editor Permian Basin edition from 1980 to about 2011 as well as participated in state level and local election campaigning for both Democrats and Republicans.

Vickie Gomez was born in Barstow, Texas. Both her father and grandfather tended goats when Gomez was a child. Her family moved to Odessa in 1945, and Gomez attended mixed Anglo and Mexican schools. Gomez first when to Odessa High School and then Ector County High School, where she graduated from in 1959. Gomez then went to Odessa College, after being discouraged from attending university by a high school counselor. At the same time, she became the first Hispanic to work for the city’s First National Bank. After attending Odessa College for six years, Gomez went to the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated from in 1972. When she returned to Odessa, she began working as an administrator for the University of Texas Premium Basin. In 1976, Gomez ran for Ector County ISD Board of Trustees. She won an at-large election with a black and brown coalition. Gomez helped push integration in Odessa schools.

Lorraine Perryman was born in Pampa, Texas in 1953, but her family eventually settled in Odessa, Texas. She grew up as a liberal in conservative Odessa as a way to contradict her father, who was a staunch Republican conservative. After high school, she attended the University of Texas at Austin. She came back to Odessa in 1979 to became the heed of communications of Ector County ISD while it went through desegregation. Afterwards, she started her own public relations business and briefly became a news anchor. In the 1980s, Perryman ran for mayor of Odessa but lost. She ran again and became the first female and youngest mayor of Odessa in 1990. Under her tenure, the Odessa City Council voted in single member districts that allowed for better representation for people of color in the city. Perryman has since helped start a rape crises center and battered women’s shelter in Odessa and has worked for nonprofits to better the city’s schools.

David K. Baker was born in 1951 In Mckamy, Texas. He graduated from high school in 1969 and then worked for a few months in the oil fields of West Texas. Baker then worked for Southwestern Bell, beginning in October of 1969, and soon joined the Communication Workers of America union. He worked for Southwestern Bell until 2002 and then returned (now to AT&T until 2010). Baker was drafted in 1971 into the Vietnam War. Baker moved to Odessa, Texas in 1980 and then became part of the union’s executive board at the local level, and was president of the local from 1987 to 1990. He is now president of the Permian Basin Central Labor Union.

Patricia A. Thomas was born in 1957 in Andrews, Texas, where she grew up. She entered elementary school in an integrated school where many of her classmates as well as some teachers physically and verbally abused the African American students. Thomas first attended Lincoln Elementary and then Jack and Jill Elementary. In junior high and high school, Thomas adapted many black nationalists or “radical” viewpoints, which led her to call for the teaching of African American history in her high school. She graduated from Andrews high school in 1976. After high school, Thomas moved to Dallas where she attended Bishop College. She subsequently lived in various communities that included Big Springs, Odessa, Amarillo, and Seminole, Texas.

Adela Vasquez was born (1949) and raised in Odessa, Texas. Her family was able to move to the Anglo area of West Odessa when she was a child. Vasquez attended the predominantly Anglo School, Zavala Elementary. She later went to Ector High School, where she graduated in 1967. Vasquez attended Odessa College, where she met her husband Gilbert Vasquez, and then attended Texas Tech University. Vasquez also obtained an MA degree in psychology at Texas Tech University. Vasquez held various leadership positions in Ector County ISD and Region 18.