Cutting Fences

Cutting Fences reclaims Texas’ lesser-known radical working-class history, harkeningback to the days when cowboys took on big landowners and everyday Texans organized a common-sense populism. By bringing these fiery stories back to life, Cutting Fences serves as a road map for how working-class people can organize and take on the far-right.

Many will be surprised to learn that Texas was once a hotbed for socialist movements, large and influential enough to challenge the two-party system. Far from the rugged individualism often depicted in Hollywood, the Texan cowboy tradition, for example, includes organizing the historic Cowboy Strike of 1883 to protest exploitative wage labor. From the German radicals and abolitionists who stood tall against the Confederacy, to the Brotherhood of Timber Workers challenging segregation in the labor movement, or to the Fence Cutters who fought against large landowners choking out the open range, there is a long-ignored radical tradition in Texas.

More than a history lesson, Cutting Fences is a call to action. It challenges the notion that Texas is irredeemably dominated by far-right politics. The GOP’s decades-long domination of the state was not inevitable—it was built through sustained effort and economic missteps by Democrats that alienated working-class voters. With Texas once again experiencing seismic economic and demographic shifts, the time is ripe to reclaim its suppressed radical legacy.

This book is not just a chronicle of Texas’ past; it’s ais a tool for building a rooted and forward-looking movement capable of delivering real change for the state’s working-class majority.