TEXAS: For Whom the Bell Tolls

In the Texas legislature last week two senators turned the South's prime weapon against civil-rights legislation, the filibuster, to a novel use. Up from the lower house swept a rash of school segregation bills, and in an effort to stop them the protesting pair put on the longest filibuster in Texas history.

Filibuster leader was San Antonio's Henry Gonzalez, 41, the first Texan of Mexican parentage to be elected to the state senate since 1892. Alternating with Laredo's Abraham Kazen Jr., 38, Freshman Senator Gonzalez (who perfected his speech as a child by practicing with pebbles in his mouth,...

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