In Insurgent Politics in the Lone Star State, Martin J. Murray uses his own personal engagement in the antiwar movement in Austin, Texas, to make sense of the entanglements between cycles of protest against the Vietnam War and the efforts of security agencies intent on suppressing dissent. Murray used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain FBI documents related to the Austin antiwar movement. He also examined the papers of three prominent security officials (Lt. Burt Gerding, head of Criminal Intelligence, Austin Police Department; Allen Hamilton, chief of University of Texas campus police; and George Carlson, head of security, University of Texas System). Access to these security records enabled him to broaden his inquiry into uncovering the strategies and tactics of security agencies intent on undermining the antiwar movement. In his autobiographical account, Murray tells two parallel stories. In the first he recounts his own experiences, starting with the Students for a Democratic Society. Following its collapse in 1969, Murray then discusses more militant direct actions, including the Waller Creek incident (October 1969), the Chuck Wagon police riot (November 1969), and a rising number of unauthorized marches, culminating in the massive twenty-five-thousand-person march on the State Capitol (May 7, 1970) following the invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State killings. Murray also draws a link between the participation of the Austin-based Armadillo Mayday Tribe in the 1971 Maydays demonstrations in Washington, DC, and the protests in May 1971 at the dedication to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library on the UT campus. He ends with the May 1972 National Guard occupation of the UT campus. In the second story, Murray focuses on the security apparatuses and their far-reaching efforts to monitor political activists, infiltrate the antiwar movement with undercover informants, and disrupt protest activities. Murray argues that one cannot make sense of the cycles of insurgent protest in Austin without understanding the secretive role of law enforcement agencies that were committed to breaking the antiwar movement, whether within the framework of the law or outside it.
Martin J. Murray is professor of urban planning in the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and adjunct professor in the department of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. In addition to ten books and three coedited volumes (including The Development of Capitalism in Colonial Indochina, 1870-1940; Taming the Disorderly City; and City of Extremes: Spatial Politics in Johannesburg), he has published nearly seventy journal articles and book chapters that focus on diverse geographical areas of the world at different historical periods.
"The author provides an insider's view of Austin's antiwar movement during a period that has yet to be documented in other literature. No other writers have described the pivotal events of 1969-1971 with such detail-the Waller Creek tree protest, the Chuck Wagon riot, and the strikes and marches in response to Kent State. As events unfold there is a sense of urgency and unknown outcomes that keeps the reader engaged. While this adds greatly to the historical record, the author documents something else as well. He has written about the local and national entities that had the movement under surveillance. The author explores the web of informants, documents dirty tricks, and questions why so much surveillance revealed so little about the motivations of antiwar activists."-Alice Embree, author of Voice Lessons about the Austin antiwar protests and coeditor of Celebrating the Rag "The police Red Squad and FBI agents were convinced that the preservation of peace and tranquility in Austin depended on their success in crushing protests and other displays of dissent. This is a key point that Murray makes. His focus on Austin not only shines a light on the New Left in the Texas capital but also helps show how surveillance operations played out on the ground, not just how they were designed and developed in the halls of power. Murray is a strong writer with an evocative and engaging style."-Gregg Michel, author of Struggle for a Better South: The Southern Student Organizing Committee, 1964-1969
