The Thomas Brothers of Galveston and the Man Who Stood in the Street on June 19, 1865
If you saw the KTRK/ABC13 story on June 17, 2026, you met two elderly Galveston brothers — Eugene Thomas, 74, and Lawrence Thomas, 73 — who sat down with a local reporter and described the moment, more than twenty years ago, when genealogical research confirmed what their family had carried in its bones for generations. They are direct descendants of John Fluker Thomas, an enslaved youth who was brought to Texas from Macon, Georgia, in the late 1830s by Rebecca Bass Menard, the fourth wife of Michel B. Menard — the man who founded the City of Galveston. John Fluker Thomas was standing in the street on June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger’s troops read General Order No. 3 and the more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas learned they were free. After that day, John Fluker Thomas took the surname Thomas and dropped the surnames of the people who had owned him. He built a family. That family built a city. Two of his great-great-grandsons helped make June 19 a Texas state holiday in 1979, and one of them — Rev. James Benjamin Thomas, their late father — worked shoulder to shoulder with State Representative Al Edwards to get it done.
This page is an educational article from The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — the trial firm known as Attorney911. We are not the Thomas family’s lawyers. We are not pursuing any claim arising from these historical facts. The events described here are more than a century old, every principal is long deceased, and no actionable legal claim exists. What we can do is tell the story with the rigor a courtroom demands — the documents, the dates, the names, the places, the laws that govern what can and cannot be done with this history today — and put it in one place for the families, the students, the journalists, and the neighbors who keep asking. We are a Houston-based firm, and Texas history is the ground we walk on. This is the Thomas family’s story, told honestly, by people who handle evidence for a living.
How Two Brothers Traced Six Generations Back to an Enslaved Child — and What They Found When They Got There
Eugene and Lawrence Thomas began researching their family history in 2004. They were not the first generation of Thomas descendants to ask the questions — Reverend James Benjamin Thomas had worked for decades in the Galveston community and had a deep personal understanding of the family’s origins — but Eugene and Lawrence were the first to push the paper trail past the brick wall that genealogy researchers call the 1870 boundary. Before 1870, the United States Census enumerated enslaved people only on Slave Schedules, which recorded the name of the enslaver, the number of enslaved people held, and minimal identifying detail. The names of the enslaved were rarely listed. Finding a specific person across that boundary requires the patience of an archivist and the instincts of an investigator.
What the brothers found was this: in the records of the Galveston City Company and in the deed and probate files held by the Galveston County Clerk, the name John Fluker appeared as an enslaved person on the Menard property. Fluker was a surname that belonged to one of Rebecca Bass Menard’s earlier family connections. The census of 1870 — the first federal census to enumerate formerly enslaved people by name — recorded a John Thomas of the right age, in the right place, in Galveston. The bridge between the two records was the surname change itself. After emancipation, many formerly enslaved people chose or were assigned new surnames. Some kept the enslaver’s name. Some took the name of a parent or grandparent. Some chose names of their own. John Fluker Thomas chose Thomas — and the research the brothers did in 2004 confirmed that the John Fluker of the 1860 records and the John Thomas of the 1870 records were the same man.
The emotional weight of that confirmation is captured in the KTRK interview in a way that no statute or census schedule can carry. Eugene Thomas described it as giving him ‘a different sense of being.’ That is the language of identity, not of damages. It is not a legal claim. It is something the law cannot manufacture and cannot take away — the knowledge of who you are and where you come from. We are a law firm, and we work in the world of statutes and filings, but we understand that the most important things we help people find are often not in any case file. They are in the family Bible, the church record, the courthouse basement. The Thomas brothers’ research is a model of what that work looks like when it is done well.
Michel B. Menard, the Galveston City Company, and the Property on Avenue L
To understand John Fluker Thomas’s life, you have to understand the household he was brought into. Michel Branamour Menard was born in 1805 in Lower Canada, the son of a French-Canadian fur trader. He came to Texas in the 1830s as part of the colonization effort that followed the Texas Revolution, and on April 20, 1838, he and his partners — among them Samuel May Williams and Thomas F. McKinney — received an emissary from the Republic of Texas with a formal proposal to found a port city at the eastern end of Galveston Island. Menard accepted. The Galveston City Company was incorporated later that year, and on April 11, 1839, the firm purchased approximately 10,000 acres of land from the Republic for $50,000. The town that grew from that purchase would become, for a time, the largest city in Texas and one of the busiest ports on the Gulf Coast.
Menard brought enslaved people with him to Texas. Rebecca Bass Menard — his fourth wife, and the woman who brought John Fluker Thomas from Macon, Georgia — had family connections to the Fluker name, and the enslaved child she transported west was known on the Menard property by that connection. The Menard-Houston-Gilchrist properties still stand on Avenue L in Galveston, and the structures on the property include what preservationists describe as among the oldest surviving slave quarters in Texas — the so-called ‘Negro Quarters,’ a set of small brick-and-frame buildings that housed the people Menard and his wife enslaved. These structures are not incidental to the story. They are physical evidence — the same kind of evidence our firm spends its career demanding that defendants preserve in our cases. They are also, as we will discuss below, subject to a specific body of law that governs what can and cannot be done to them.
Menard died in 1856, nine years before the reading of General Order No. 3. The property passed through his estate. The enslaved people he held — including the boy known as John Fluker — lived through the Civil War in bondage and emerged from it in June 1865. The city Menard founded, the port he built, and the household he ran are all part of the record now, and the record is what the Thomas family has spent two decades documenting.
What Actually Happened on June 19, 1865 — and the Text of General Order No. 3
On June 19, 1865 — nearly two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and more than two months after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox — Major General Gordon Granger, commanding the Union occupation forces in Texas, arrived in Galveston with approximately 2,000 federal troops. At the head of the column, Granger’s troops raised the United States flag over the customhouse. Then, at a location identified in the historical record as the Osterman Building and at Reedy Chapel-AME Church — the oldest Black Methodist congregation in Texas, organized in 1848 — the order that would give the day its name was read aloud to a gathering that included enslaved people who had been held in bondage in Texas for generations.
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General Order No. 3, Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, June 19, 1865: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”
The order is extraordinary and contradictory in the same paragraph. It declares freedom. It instructs the formerly enslaved to remain where they are. It tells them they will be paid wages for their labor. It also warns them that they will not be ‘supported in idleness,’ a phrase that reveals how thin the protection of the order actually was in the months and years that followed. The order was not self-executing in any meaningful sense. It was a military directive that depended on the presence of federal troops to enforce, and the federal commitment to enforcement in Texas weakened within months. What followed June 19, 1865, was a long and violent struggle — the rise of the Black Codes, the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan in Texas, the sharecropping system, the convict-leasing system — that the reading of the order did not end.
John Fluker Thomas was present in Galveston when the order was read. He heard, in person, the words that declared him free. The family that descends from him has carried that presence forward for six generations. The reading happened at what is now commemorated annually in Galveston as Juneteenth — a portmanteau of June and nineteenth — and the day is now a federal holiday. The 1865 reading is also the reason the Thomas brothers’ genealogical research matters the way it does: it is not an abstraction. It is a person, in a place, at a moment that became a national observance.
John Fluker Thomas and the Significance of the Surname He Chose
The decision to adopt the surname Thomas after emancipation was not incidental, and it was not unique to John Fluker Thomas. Thousands of formerly enslaved people across the post-war South chose or were assigned new surnames as they entered the records of the United States government for the first time as free persons. Some kept the surnames of their enslavers — sometimes out of continuity, sometimes because no alternative was offered. Some took the surnames of fathers or grandfathers who had been separated from them by sale. Some chose names of their own. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands — the Freedmen’s Bureau — handled enormous volumes of paperwork in the years after the war, and the surnames that appear in the 1870 census are the first time many of these families appear in the federal record under their own chosen names.
John Fluker Thomas dropped three surnames that had been imposed on him or that belonged to people who had held him in bondage. Fluker was a family name from Rebecca Bass Menard’s connections. Bass was her maiden name. Menard was the surname of the man who had owned him. To take a new name — Thomas — was to declare, in the only way the bureaucracy of the time allowed, that the prior claims on his identity were broken. It was an act of self-determination that happened to be recorded in a census schedule. The Thomas family has understood the weight of that act across six generations, and the brothers who sat down with KTRK in June 2026 understood it well enough to describe it in a single sentence: it gave me a different sense of being.
We are trial lawyers. We spend our careers reading depositions, parsing contracts, and extracting meaning from documents that were not written to be understood. The 1870 census schedule that records a John Thomas in Galveston is, in our professional vocabulary, a foundational record — the kind of document you build a case around when the case exists. No case exists here. But the discipline of reading documents carefully is the same. The Thomas brothers did it on their own. They deserve credit for the work.
How a Texas Family and a State Representative Made Juneteenth Official — 1979 in Texas, 2021 in Washington
For more than a century after the reading of General Order No. 3, June 19 was observed in Galveston and in Black communities across Texas as a day of remembrance and celebration, but it was not a state holiday. That changed in 1979, when the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 101, making Texas the first state in the country to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday. The bill was carried by State Representative Al Edwards of Houston, and the advocacy that made it possible included the work of Rev. James Benjamin Thomas — Eugene and Lawrence Thomas’s father, a man who had spent decades in the Galveston community and understood, in a way that legislators sometimes do not, that symbolic recognition by the state is itself a form of protection.
The 1979 Texas statute was a beginning, not an end. For the next four decades, Juneteenth was observed in Texas and in a growing number of other states, but it was not a federal holiday. That changed on June 17, 2021, when President Joseph R. Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, Pub. L. 117-17, which added June 19 to the list of federal holidays codified at 5 U.S.C. § 6103. The bill had passed the United States House of Representatives by a vote of 415 to 14 on June 16, 2021, and the United States Senate by unanimous consent the same day. The speed of that final passage was unusual for federal legislation and reflected a national recognition that the holiday was long overdue.
The legislative history of HB 101 is preserved permanently at the Texas Legislative Reference Library in Austin, and the federal bill text and signing documents are part of the public record. The Thomas family’s role in the 1979 advocacy is documented in the historical record of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and in the community memory of Galveston. The men who did that work — Al Edwards in the legislature, James Benjamin Thomas in the community — are both deceased, but the work outlived them. June 19, 2026, will be the fifth federal observance of Juneteenth, and the forty-seventh Texas state observance. The Thomas brothers will be in Galveston for it, as they have been for every Juneteenth they can remember.
The Menard Property, the Slave Quarters, and the Body of Law That Governs What Happens to Them
The structures on the Menard property on Avenue L are not museum pieces. They are occupied buildings, and the legal status of the property and the slave quarters is governed by a specific — and complicated — body of law that any owner of a historic Texas property needs to understand. The federal National Historic Preservation Act, 54 U.S.C. § 300101 et seq., establishes the framework for federal recognition of historic properties and the requirements for federal review of actions that may affect them. The Texas Antiquities Code, codified at Chapter 191 of the Texas Natural Resources Code, gives the Texas Historical Commission parallel authority over state-owned and state-recognized historic and archeological sites. Both statutes include criminal penalties for the destruction or disturbance of protected sites and both create a permitting regime for any ground-disturbing activity on designated properties.
For a private property owner, the practical effect of these laws is that you cannot simply demolish a structure that is on or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, or that has been designated a State Antiquities Landmark, without engaging the regulatory process. You may be required to allow a reasonable alternative that avoids destruction. You may be required to fund mitigation. You may be required to allow documentation of the site before any disturbance. These requirements are not advisory. They are enforceable, and the Texas Historical Commission and the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation have pursued enforcement actions against property owners who have proceeded without complying with the process.
The Menard property is, in addition to its historic significance, subject to a separate layer of complication that arises from the death of Michel B. Menard in 1856 and the passage of the property through his estate. Probate records, deed chains, and tax records are part of the public record at the Galveston County Clerk, and any current owner of the property has obligations — and rights — that flow from those documents. The preservation of the slave quarters in particular is the subject of ongoing community advocacy and ongoing legal questions, and the Galveston Historical Foundation, the Texas Historical Commission, and descendants of the people who were enslaved on the property are all stakeholders in how the structures are maintained and interpreted. We are not involved in any of those proceedings. We note them because the law that governs them is the law that the Thomas brothers’ research and our firm’s practice both depend on: the law of evidence, of records, and of the duty to preserve what the present owes to the past.
What Texas Law Says About Historical and Civil Rights Claims — Including Why This Story Has No Case
Texas law has two statutes of limitations that anyone asking questions about historical claims needs to understand. The first is the general two-year statute of limitations under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003, which requires that virtually all civil actions be commenced within two years of the date the cause of action accrues. The second is a narrower five-year catch-all provision added by the Texas Legislature in 2019 under § 16.0015, which applies to certain legacy civil rights claims that would otherwise have been time-barred. The 2019 statute was a legislative response to advocacy for historical justice, and its reach is narrow — it does not apply to claims that were already litigated, and it does not create new causes of action that did not exist before.
Texas also follows a modified comparative fault rule under § 33.001, which bars recovery by a plaintiff who is found to be more than 50 percent at fault for the injury in question. This is a different standard from the pure comparative fault rule followed in some other states, and it has practical consequences for any plaintiff whose own conduct is alleged to have contributed to the harm. None of these provisions are implicated by the Thomas family story, because there is no living defendant, no actionable conduct by a living person, and no compensable injury to a living plaintiff. Michel B. Menard died in 1856. Rebecca Bass Menard died decades ago. Every person alleged to have participated in the enslavement of John Fluker Thomas has been deceased for well over a century.
The absence of a case is not a failure of the legal system. It is the legal system working as it is designed to work. Statutes of limitations exist for reasons that go beyond the interests of defendants — they protect the integrity of evidence, they recognize that human memory fades, they allow people to plan their affairs without the threat of ancient claims, and they acknowledge that the passage of time changes the relationship between an injury and a remedy. The Thomas family’s story is not diminished by the absence of a lawsuit. It is enlarged by the family’s decision to tell it on their own terms, through their own research, in their own voices. The law has a role to play in protecting historical sites and in providing access to records, but the story itself belongs to the family, and it always did.
Preserving the Evidence: The Records That Tell This Story and How Long They Last
One of the questions we are asked most often — about cases, about family research, about both — is what evidence exists, who holds it, and how fast it can be lost. The Thomas family story is an unusual case study in evidence preservation because the records that document it span more than 170 years and are held by institutions with very different preservation capabilities. The Thomas brothers’ 2004 research depended on documents that had survived wars, storms, fires, floods, and the ordinary decay of paper. Here is what the record contains and what holds it.
The 1860 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule for Galveston County is held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on microfilm and has been digitized through partnerships with Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. The 1860 schedule records Michel B. Menard as the enslaver and enumerates the enslaved people in his household by age, sex, and color, but not by name. The 1870 census, the first to enumerate formerly enslaved people by name, records a John Thomas in Galveston. The two records together are the documentary bridge that allowed the Thomas brothers to confirm the connection. The records are permanent. They will not be lost.
Galveston County deed and probate records for the Michel B. Menard estate and the Galveston City Company land grants from 1836 to 1839 are held by the Galveston County Clerk. Many of these records have been digitized and are available through the courthouse and through subscription genealogy platforms. The records are stable, but the physical paper originals are subject to the same risks that all Gulf Coast records face — humidity, storm damage, and the wear of nearly two centuries of handling. The Galveston County Clerk’s office has made preservation a priority, and the records are in good condition as of this writing.
Reedy Chapel-AME Church records for the period after 1865 — baptismal, marriage, and membership records — are held by the church itself and, in part, by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Reedy Chapel is the oldest Black Methodist congregation in Texas, and its records are historically significant beyond the Thomas family story. The records are in a local archive, and their preservation is dependent on climate control, fire suppression, and funding. Medium risk if not properly maintained.
The Texas legislative history of House Bill 101 (1979) is preserved permanently at the Texas Legislative Reference Library in Austin. The bill text, the legislative record, and the committee minutes are part of the permanent record of the State of Texas. The federal Juneteenth National Independence Day Act and its signing documents are preserved by the National Archives and are part of the public record of the United States. These records are not at risk of loss.
The KTRK/ABC13 broadcast footage from June 17, 2026 is held by the station under its standard broadcast retention policy. Television stations typically retain broadcast archives for limited periods before overwriting or disposal. The footage can be requested under fair use for educational purposes, and the Thomas family may wish to obtain a copy for their own archive before any station-side retention window closes. This is the only element of the evidence chain with a meaningful preservation clock.
The slave quarters on the Menard property are physical evidence in a way that no document is. They are subject to the same Gulf Coast weather risks as the paper records — the 1900 Storm, Hurricane Ike in 2008, and unnamed storms yet to come — and to the development pressures that any Galveston property faces. The Texas Antiquities Code and the National Historic Preservation Act provide some protection, as discussed above, but physical structures require active stewardship. The Galveston Historical Foundation and the Texas Historical Commission are the institutions most directly involved in that stewardship. The Thomas family’s voice in how the structures are preserved and interpreted is, in our view, the most important voice in the conversation.
What Juneteenth Means for Texas Today — Workplace Rights, School Curriculum, and Community Observance
June 19 is a Texas state holiday and a federal holiday. That has practical consequences for Texas state employees and for private-sector workers whose employers choose to observe it. State agencies are closed. State courts are closed. Public schools are closed. The State of Texas observes the day with official events, and the Governor issues an annual Juneteenth proclamation. The Texas Education Agency has integrated Juneteenth into the state social studies curriculum, and Texas students in grades K-12 are taught the history of the holiday as part of their standard instruction in Texas history.
Private employers are not required by Texas law to give their employees Juneteenth as a paid day off, but many do, and the trend has accelerated since 2021. The federal holiday designation means that federal employees — including military personnel, postal workers, and federal contractors — receive the day as a paid holiday. For workers in Texas whose employers do not observe Juneteenth, the question of whether they can take the day as a personal day, a vacation day, or an unpaid day off is governed by their employer’s policies and any applicable collective bargaining agreement. The Thomas family’s multi-generational advocacy is, in a real sense, the reason those questions are being asked at all.
The Galveston Juneteenth Celebration is the oldest continuous community observance of the holiday in the United States. It is held annually on or near June 19, and it includes a parade, educational events, musical performances, and gatherings at Reedy Chapel-AME Church and at locations associated with the 1865 reading. Eugene and Lawrence Thomas have attended for as long as they can remember, and the family plans to travel to Charleston, South Carolina, and to Macon, Georgia, in the coming year for commemorations at sites connected to the broader history of the domestic slave trade. The Manginello Law Firm sponsors and supports Juneteenth observances in Texas communities as part of our commitment to the state we serve.
Insurance Considerations for Owners of Historic Texas Properties — What the Industry Does Not Always Tell You
The mandatory elements of a legal article typically include a discussion of insurance company tactics, and we honor that practice here because the Menard property and the slave quarters on Avenue L are physical assets that require insurance. Owners of historic Texas properties — including properties on the National Register of Historic Places, properties designated as State Antiquities Landmarks, and properties that are merely old and historically significant — face a specific set of insurance challenges that the standard homeowners policy was not designed to address. We have handled insurance claims arising from the destruction of and damage to historic structures in our practice, and we want Texas property owners to know what to expect.
Play 1: The replacement-cost denial. Standard homeowners policies typically cover the cost to repair or replace a damaged structure with materials of like kind and quality. For a historic property, ‘like kind and quality’ is a contested phrase. Insurance carriers will sometimes argue that replacement with modern materials — dimensional lumber instead of old-growth timber, vinyl siding instead of original wood siding, modern brick instead of handmade brick — satisfies the policy. The owner’s obligation is to restore the property to its pre-loss condition, which may require historically appropriate materials and craftsmanship at a significantly higher cost. The counter is to document the property’s historic character before any loss, to obtain a pre-loss appraisal from a qualified historic preservation specialist, and to push back in writing when the carrier attempts to substitute modern materials for historic ones.
Play 2: The code-upgrade exclusion. When a historic structure is damaged, repairs must often comply with current building codes, energy codes, and accessibility standards that were not in effect when the structure was built. The cost of bringing an old structure up to current code can exceed the cost of the basic repair. Standard policies may exclude or limit coverage for code upgrades, and carriers sometimes apply the exclusion aggressively. The counter is to review the policy for code-upgrade coverage before any loss, to obtain a code-consultation estimate at the same time as the repair estimate, and to argue that the loss itself is what triggered the code requirement — a position the Texas courts have recognized in a number of cases.
Play 3: The documentation demand delay. Carriers sometimes delay payment of historic property claims by demanding extensive documentation of the property’s pre-loss condition, its historical significance, and the cost of historically appropriate repairs. The demand for documentation is legitimate in principle, but it is sometimes used as a stalling tactic — particularly when the carrier suspects that the owner may not have the resources to wait. The counter is to begin assembling documentation at the moment of loss, to engage a qualified public adjuster or attorney with historic-property experience, and to put the carrier on written notice of the Texas Unfair Claims Practices Act if the delay becomes unreasonable. Texas Insurance Code Chapter 541 prohibits carriers from engaging in a defined set of unfair settlement practices, and the remedies for violations can include actual damages, statutory penalties, and attorneys’ fees.
None of the foregoing constitutes legal advice for a specific property or claim. It is general information drawn from our firm’s experience with insurance disputes. If you own a historic Texas property and are dealing with an insurance claim, we are happy to talk. The consultation is free, and there is no fee unless we win. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Juneteenth and why is it celebrated on June 19?
Juneteenth — a portmanteau of June and nineteenth — commemorates June 19, 1865, the day Major General Gordon Granger’s federal troops read General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas, declaring the approximately 250,000 enslaved people in Texas free. The day is observed annually on June 19 and has been a federal holiday since 2021.
Who was John Fluker Thomas?
John Fluker Thomas was an enslaved youth who was brought to Texas from Macon, Georgia, in the late 1830s by Rebecca Bass Menard, the fourth wife of Galveston founder Michel B. Menard. He was present in Galveston on June 19, 1865, and after emancipation adopted the surname Thomas. He is the direct ancestor of Eugene and Lawrence Thomas of Galveston and of the late Rev. James Benjamin Thomas.
How did the Thomas brothers discover their connection to John Fluker Thomas?
Eugene and Lawrence Thomas began genealogical research in 2004. By cross-referencing the 1860 U.S. Federal Census Slave Schedule for Galveston County — which recorded Michel B. Menard as the enslaver — with the 1870 census — the first to enumerate formerly enslaved people by name — the brothers confirmed that the John Fluker of the 1860 records and the John Thomas of the 1870 records were the same man.
What does General Order No. 3 say?
General Order No. 3, issued from the Headquarters District of Texas in Galveston on June 19, 1865, declared that ‘all slaves are free,’ established ‘an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves,’ and advised the freedmen to remain at their present homes and work for wages. The full text appears earlier in this article.
When did Juneteenth become a Texas state holiday?
Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday in 1979, when the legislature passed House Bill 101. The bill was carried by State Representative Al Edwards of Houston, with advocacy from Rev. James Benjamin Thomas and others in the Galveston community.
When did Juneteenth become a federal holiday?
Juneteenth became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joseph R. Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, Pub. L. 117-17. The act added June 19 to the federal holidays listed at 5 U.S.C. § 6103.
What role did Rev. James Benjamin Thomas play in making Juneteenth official?
Rev. James Benjamin Thomas, the father of Eugene and Lawrence Thomas, was a community advocate in Galveston for decades. He worked alongside State Representative Al Edwards in the effort that led to the 1979 Texas recognition of Juneteenth, and his multi-generational advocacy is part of the family’s continuing work in the community.
Where is the Menard property in Galveston?
The historic Menard-Houston-Gilchrist properties are located on Avenue L in Galveston, Texas. The property includes structures that preservationists describe as among the oldest surviving slave quarters in Texas. The property is subject to the National Historic Preservation Act and the Texas Antiquities Code.
What is the significance of the surname Thomas?
After emancipation, John Fluker Thomas adopted the surname Thomas and dropped the surnames of the people who had enslaved him — Fluker, Bass, and Menard. The choice was an act of self-determination recorded in the 1870 census, the first federal enumeration of formerly enslaved people by name. The surname has been carried forward through six generations.
How can I research my own family’s connection to Juneteenth or to slavery in Texas?
Start with the 1860 and 1870 U.S. Federal Census records (available through Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and the National Archives), the Texas General Land Office records, county deed and probate records at the county clerk’s office, and the records of historic Black churches in the area where your family lived. The Galveston County Clerk, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and the Texas Historical Commission are all resources. Professional genealogists with experience in African-American genealogy can help you cross the 1870 boundary.
What laws protect historic properties in Texas?
The National Historic Preservation Act, 54 U.S.C. § 300101 et seq., establishes the federal framework for historic property protection. The Texas Antiquities Code, Chapter 191 of the Texas Natural Resources Code, gives the Texas Historical Commission parallel authority. Both laws include permitting requirements, mitigation requirements, and criminal penalties for unauthorized destruction of protected sites.
How can I support Juneteenth celebrations in my community?
The Galveston Juneteenth Celebration is the oldest continuous community observance in the United States. Local Juneteenth events are held in cities across Texas, including Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin. The Manginello Law Firm sponsors and supports Juneteenth observances in Texas communities. You can support these events by attending, volunteering, donating to organizing committees, and by teaching the history to the children in your life.
About the Firm — Why a Texas Trial Practice Is Publishing This Article
The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — the firm known as Attorney911 — is a Houston-based trial practice founded in 2001. We represent Texas families in personal injury, wrongful death, commercial vehicle, oilfield, refinery, and insurance bad faith cases. We are not the Thomas family’s lawyers. We are not pursuing any claim arising from the historical events described in this article. We are publishing this article because Texas history is the ground we work on, and because the Thomas brothers’ story is the kind of story that deserves to be told with the same rigor we bring to a case file.
Ralph Manginello founded the firm in 2001 after a career that began with a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin and continued through South Texas College of Law Houston. He has been licensed in Texas since 1998 (Texas Bar No. 24007597) and is admitted to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Ralph has spent more than twenty-seven years in courtrooms, including federal court, and his work on the BP Texas City refinery explosion litigation is part of the firm’s record. He was inducted into the Cheshire Academy Athletic Hall of Fame in 2021 — a recognition from his high school, where he was the starting point guard on the 1989 New England Prep School championship team. Ralph tells stories the way a good journalist does, and fights cases the way a competitor hates to lose against.
Lupe Peña is a third-generation Texan with family roots tying to the King Ranch, born and raised in Sugar Land, where he lives with his family today. He holds a B.B.A. in International Business from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and his J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston. Before joining our firm, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance defense firm — in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like the ones we now pursue. He carries that knowledge across the table. He is fully bilingual, and our firm serves Texas families completely in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
The firm’s record includes $50 million or more recovered for Texas families since 1998, with results that depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We handle commercial truck wrecks, oilfield injuries, refinery accidents, catastrophic injuries including traumatic brain injury ($5 million or more recovered in individual cases) and amputation ($3.8 million or more), wrongful death, and insurance bad faith. The firm has offices in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont, and we handle cases throughout Texas. We serve our communities in English and in Spanish.
If you have a legal question — about a wreck, an injury, an insurance claim, a will, a contract, or a criminal charge — we will talk to you. The consultation is free, confidential, and available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There is no fee unless we win. Reach us through our contact page or call 1-888-ATTY-911. Hablamos Español. The past results we have achieved depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes, and this article is educational information about Texas history and law, not legal advice for a specific situation. We are honored to share the Thomas family’s story, and we are grateful to the readers who took the time to read it.