When I was a young adult, I worked as the cleanup guy at what was the largest Black-owned machine shop in Texas. It was situated in Houston’s east end at the corner of Lockwood and Dismuke, in the heart of what were the original boundaries of Houston City Council District I. Lonnie Jones owned the shop, the uncle of a classmate I had known from elementary school through high school. One day, Ben Reyes and Mickey Leland walked in. The happenstance would evolved into a personal education in public service.
I knew who they were and had some sense of the power and responsibilities of the offices they held. Mr. Reyes was the first councilmember of the new Council District I, and Congressman Leland represented Texas's 18th Congressional District. Then, both were serving their second terms and were still relatively new to those positions. They were close friends. In the 1972 election year, each had been elected to the Texas House of Representatives and served together while still in their twenties.
Aware that I was the low man on the totem pole, I watched them from afar. I did not speak to them. But as a minority, I was struck by their aura and confident manner as they entered and toured the warehouse with the boss. The sighting planted a seed: I imagined what it might be like to somehow be involved in the kind of work they were doing. Six years later, in 1989, I found myself in a corner of Councilmember Reyes's community-based City Council district office across from De Zavala Park, helping my University of Houston friend Mike Martinez run Latinos Unidos, an organization Mr. Reyes and Leonel J. Castillo founded to increase Hispanic participation in the American political process. While organizing voter-registration block walks, we quickly learned of the affection and respect constituents and business owners had for Mr. Reyes. We would mention his name, and people would gladly provide the supplies needed for the activity and food for the volunteers.
I was also part of a small group of volunteers for Centro Hispano Educativo which Mr. Reyes also established. The group included future Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia. Through that organization, volunteers taught government and history classes to hundreds of U.S. citizenship applicants to prepare them for their naturalization interviews in community centers in Magnolia Park, Second Ward, Denver Harbor, and the Near Northside.
Participating in programmatic activities initiated by Mr. Reyes that helped thousands of people, I often thought about the political theory classes I took while a student at the University of Houston. In one, we were asked to write an essay reasoning which of the four virtues, justice, wisdom, courage, or moderation, considered essential in human affairs by Ancient Greek philosophers was the most important. I am not sure there was a right or wrong answer. But observing Mr. Reyes work made me realize that courage was probably the answer the professor was looking for. After all, a person can be wise, but if they lack the courage to share that wisdom, no one will benefit from it. A person can be just, but if they do not have the courage to advocate for their vision of justice, no one will know it. A person can possess great moderation, but if they do not have the courage to demonstrate it, its value remains unseen. All of this is to say that everyone who witnessed Ben Reyes in his prime, whether friend or foe, recognized that he was a man of the people, committed to fighting for the resources his community lacked in a ferocious manner. To many, he was the most courageous politician of his era.
That courage would be tested repeatedly throughout his career, and one of the most memorable examples came in the spring of 1992. On April 14 of that year, after spending Election Day with one of his sons checking polling locations throughout southeast Harris County for Mr. Reyes's Primary Runoff Campaign for the Democratic Party nomination for Texas's 29th Congressional District, I made it to the election-night vote-watch gathering. It was held at a venue near Moody Park in Houston's Northside. The 29th Congressional District was created as a "Hispanic Opportunity District" after the 1990 Census. Mr. Reyes was leading with most of the vote counted and on the verge of making history. Then, at the very end, the television news reported that he had lost the election by 180 votes. Like many in the hall and throughout the Hispanic community, I was emotionally devastated. Mr. Reyes’s 1992 campaign was the closest a Hispanic would come to winning the "Hispanic" district until 2018. Yet even in defeat, a Marine and veteran of the Vietnam War, he displayed the same resilience and determination that had long defined him. He soldiered on through the highs and lows that followed in his career. That experience, and many others like it, deepened my appreciation of him.
Despite the scar left by that loss, I continued to serve in Mr. Reyes’s various civic engagement initiatives. The benefit of time has provided perspective. Like many others, I benefited both intrinsically and professionally, simply by being in Mr. Reyes’s shadow. And I am fortunate and greatly appreciative to have had one of the giants of Texas political history as a mentor.
May He Rest in Peace.
