"As part of his commitment to reform state law enforcement, newly elected Governor James V. Allred sent in earnest and effective lawmen to cleanup San Augustine County, where criminal vigilantes exploited and abused African-American citizens under cover of Jim Crow and established dominion over local whites through brutality and murder. These events coincided as the Texas Rangers merged with the state highway patrol to create the Texas Department of Public Safety and allowed for the professionalization of the Rangers, as their ranks were no longer overturned every time a new governor was elected"--