In 1907, physician Lawrence A. Nixon fled the racial violence of central Texas to settle in the border town of El Paso. There he became a community and civil rights leader. His victories in two Supreme Court decisions paved the way for dismantling all-white political primaries across the South.

Will Guzmán delves into Nixon's lifelong struggle against Jim Crow. Linking Nixon's activism to his independence from the white economy, support from the NAACP, and the man's own indefatigable courage, Guzmán also sheds light on Nixon's presence in symbolic and literal borderlands—as an educated professional in a time when few went to college, as an African American who made waves when most feared violent reprisal, and as someone living on the mythical American frontier as well as an international boundary.

A powerful addition to the literature on African Americans in the Southwest, Civil Rights in the Texas Borderlands explores seldom-studied corners of the Black past and the civil rights movement.
| Cover Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Notes on Usage Abbreviations Lawrence A. Nixon Chronology Introduction. Tale of a Doctor, History of a Land 1. Marshall, Texas, 1883–1909 2. The Lure of El Paso, 1910–1919 3. Bullets and Ropes 4. Nixon, the NAACP, and the Courts, 1924–1934 5. Optimism and Rejection, 1925–1962 Coda Notes Index | C. Calvin Smith Award, Southern Conference on African American Studies (SCAASI), 2016. — Southern Conference on African American Studies (SCAASI)
|Will Guzmán is a professor of history at Prairie View A&M University. He is a coauthor of Landmarks and Legacies: A Guide to Tallahassee's African American Heritage.