Inside the Texas Capitol, on the back wall of the Senate chamber hangs a hard-to-miss oil canvas smattered with carefully painted soldiers wielding swords and cannons. The colorful battle scene depicts a pivotal moment in the Texas Revolution when approximately 900 Texas soldiers managed to defeat a much larger group of soldiers from the Mexican army at the Battle of San Jacinto in just 18 minutes.
One of the most famous Henry McArdle illustrations in the frame shows General Sam Houston, whose horse was just shot out from beneath him, being beckoned by an “unnamed and unarmed aid” offering him a new mount. The mystery man is claimed by eighth-generation Texan Brooks Warden, who, nearly 200 years after seven of his ancestors fought in the battle of San Jacinto, faces a very different and very important battle of his own.
Twenty-one-year-old Warden is a plaintiff in a years-long lawsuit alleging students and school administrators in the Austin Independent School District in Texas violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through repeated racial harassment.
“Starting when I was 12 up until the end of high school, I was attacked physically and emotionally because of my race. Being a white Christian, conservative male, I was beaten. They threatened to kill me and verbally abused me daily,” Warden told The Federalist.
Until now, Warden was unnamed due to his status as a minor when the lawsuit was filed. Now that he’s surpassed his teenage years and there is a new development in his case — a petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court — Warden is ready to speak about the intense bullying siege he faced from faculty and peers alike.
“I know what I believe, and I won’t be swayed. I’ve taken punches to the face for defending the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “I was never scared to speak my mind. I was terrified to walk down the halls, though.”
Hellbound and Down 