‘Riverbend’ returns to audiences after decades of obscurity

Hi, it's Terry Gross, host of Fresh Air.

Hey, take a break from the 24-hour news cycle with us and listen to long-form interviews

with your favorite authors, actors, filmmakers, comedians and musicians, the people making

the art that nourishes us and speaks to our times.

So listen to the Fresh Air Podcast from NPR and WHYY.

After winning a spot on a runoff congressman, Tony Gonzalez drops his bid for re-election

and a mid-growing fresher over an affair scandal the latest today on the Texas Standard.

Texas Standard is a production of KUT Austin, K-E-R-A North Texas, Houston Public Media and Texas

Public Radio in San Antonio, with support from CASA, court-appointed special advocates,

making a difference for children in foster care.

I'm David Brown, a day earlier Tony Gonzalez publicly acknowledged a much talked about scandal

with a staffer then calls for him to step down, reach a critical point, will have more.

Also confusion at some polling places on primary day, what really happened and what's the

fallout?

A film of black-resistant shot in Texas but largely lost to history now resurrected the rediscovery

of River Bend, plus three big takeaways from a busy week in Texas politics coming up

today on the Texas Standard.

It is a sprawling district in South Texas running from the border up to the San Antonio

area and covering much of far west Texas all the way to El Paso.

And now it's congressman, potterness scandal involving an affair with a staffer.

After winning a spot on a runoff earlier this week, said late yesterday, he's dropping

his re-election bid.

I'm David Brown with the Texas Standard.

This has implications way beyond the scandal that's captured the headlines.

One day after winning a spot on a runoff on Tuesday, third term Republican Tony Gonzalez,

who represents the 23rd congressional district, appeared on a podcast and admitted to a long

talked about affair with a staffer who died by suicide last year.

On that same day, the House Ethics Committee announced Gonzalez would be investigated for

alleged sexual misconduct we talked about that this time yesterday.

Then late yesterday after we went off the air, Gonzalez stunned the political world announcing

he was dropping his election bid but planned to serve out his term.

This means the Republican nominee in the 23rd district, which also represents Uvalde,

will be a pro-gun rights YouTuber with four million followers named Brandon Herrera.

Also known online is the AK guy.

Though a supporter of Donald Trump, he describes himself as libertarian leaning.

He got almost 42% of the vote in the Republican primary compared to Gonzalez's 43%.

Herrera's Democratic challenger in the general this November, Katie Padea Stout, an attorney

and educator.

And either has held a publicly elected office before it's a race will all be watching.

Meanwhile, we want to try to sort out some confusion from primary night.

We're voting times at some polling places were extended.

Now those ballots appear to be in limbo, Marina Trayhan Martinez, a government accountability

reporter at KERA in North Texas.

Marina, welcome.

Hi, David.

Thanks for having me.

And we also have Kaylee Hunt on the line.

She covers Williamson County for our home station KUT Kaylee.

Welcome.

Thanks, David.

Let's begin with you.

What happened in Dallas on election day?

What's the backstory there?

Oh, so many things.

So back in 2024, the Republicans had thrown around the idea of having separate elections.

Well, it actually happened in 2025 in September.

They decided to go ahead and have separate elections from the Democratic Party.

But only on election day early voting, everyone could still do it together.

And of course, that led to a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion.

Some voters ended up getting turned away and it was kind of a mess.

Well, no, when you say some voters ended up getting turned away, the confusion fell out

that confusion.

What was the confusion?

In early voting, they could go to vote centers where Democrats and Republicans could vote anywhere

they wanted to throughout the county.

That's called countywide voting.

And Dallas County is in charge of that.

On election day, each party is responsible for holding their own elections at their own

polling places.

So some polling places had only Republican voting and some places had only Democratic and

others had both where they were separated when they arrived.

I see.

OK, so.

And there was a concern that perhaps some people were disenfranchised by that process.

That's right.

And like you said, they have to go to their designated one polling location.

They couldn't go just anywhere.

There were navigators at the Dallas County elections department posted for them to kind

of redirect them, but there's really no telling whether they ended up at the correct location

after all.

OK, but a judge did step in later in the day, right?

Said, listen, we're going to extend hours.

What happened there?

That's right.

So normally polls would close at 7 p.m., but around 530, a local judge said they could

stay open until 9 p.m.

And then what happened after that was very shortly after that order, the Texas Supreme

Court said, no, let's put a pause on this until we can figure out if this is even legal,

right?

If you're even allowed to stay open later.

And so they asked the whole Texas Supreme Court said to separate any votes that were cast

after the regular closing time at 7 p.m.

Yeah, there's some precedent for that.

What a mess.

Kaylee, I want to turn to you.

Does any of this sound familiar based on what you experienced in Williamson County?

Yeah.

So like Dallas County, they replaced countywide polling places with assigned locations just

on primary election day.

And that was the first time in more than a decade that Williamson County voters have

been expected to go to those assigned locations.

So that prompted a lot of the confusion among some of the voters that I talked to.

They just hadn't heard about this change.

And we're so used to going to their regular location that they didn't realize.

Oh, that's not my assigned polling location.

So I can't vote here.

Well, so I gather that a judge in Williamson County did something similar to what the judge

in Dallas County did, right?

That's right.

That's right.

So around 20 minutes before 7 p.m. the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit asking

a judge, a local district judge to extend polling hours at two of the busiest locations

within the county, around 7 30 p.m.

They got a hearing with that judge and the judge went ahead and ruled in their favor.

She ordered two locations, including the North Star polling location in Georgetown to

stay open until 10 p.m., but because of a new state law that went into effect in September,

of 2025, it requires a one-hour notice to the Texas Attorney General's office.

And this hearing took place 30 minutes after the lawsuit was filed, not giving that hour

budget.

So unproperly filed as it would be the argument?

Correct.

So the Attorney General's office went to the Texas Supreme Court and similar to what happened

in Dallas County, yeah, they stayed the court order that had opened, reopened.

I should say and extended those voting hours at those two locations.

And as of right now, yeah, it's still unclear whether or not those those ballots that were

cast by folks who hopped in line after 7 p.m.

will be counted.

Very interesting.

Is there a legal case?

Is that now tied up in some kind of lawsuit or is it just in limbo waiting to be decided

or adjudicated formally or informally?

If my understanding right now is that the Texas Supreme Court, we're still waiting on

a ruling, a final ruling from then.

Okay.

Very interesting.

Marina, did the GOP leadership up in Dallas say why they thought separate primary locations

with these specific, you know, voting sites was necessary, not just going with the sites

that had been set up in the early voting period?

Yeah.

So they originally had wanted to hand count all the ballots for primary election day,

which they have every right to do.

And that would automatically lead to separate elections.

And that was to, quote, restore election confidence is what the premise was.

And that was kind of a trend that was happening throughout the state and throughout the country.

But they abandoned the Hound counting, but kept the separate voting after all.

I know that Jasmine Crockett, who was one of the Democratic candidates for US Senate,

felt like perhaps some of her potential voters might not have had a chance to cast a ballot.

Am I right there?

Am I characterizing her concerns?

And that's right.

She released a statement.

I think we all saw election night voicing the concerns once she heard about what was

happening in Dallas County.

And, you know, there's some validity to it because currently the Dallas County Elections

Department has about 2,000 provisional ballots that were cast after 7 p.m. that they had

to separate, like the Supreme Court said to do.

They are waiting like in Williamson County, they're waiting for an official ruling from

the Supreme Court.

Now, the law says they have to deal with those provisional ballots in some way, either reject

or accept them within six days of an election.

And that day is Monday.

But our Dallas County Elections Department administrator Paul Adams said, you know, who

knows that that could happen that may not happen.

Courts can do what they want.

Well, I know Dallas County was considered a stronghold for Crockett, but 2,000 ballots.

That wouldn't, I mean, just doing the math.

Would that tip things in her favor?

The Democratic Party chair here, Cardol Coleman, said it probably won't make a difference.

But it's important that all voices get heard during the voting process.

I'm curious if either of you talked with voters who were affected by all this.

Was anyone expressing frustration or not so much jump in, Kaylee, if you'd like?

Yeah.

So I actually, on election night, decided to hunker down at the North Star polling location

in Georgetown.

It happens to be a small senior 55 plus living community.

And I, you know, chatted with voters as their line just snaked around the courtyard of

that little community.

So yeah, I actually stayed until the very last voter cast his ballot.

His name was Wade Bayes.

And he was one of those people that heard the news on a local TV station that that location

had been court ordered to remain open until 10 p.m.

So you know, once he heard that, he, he rushed in his car, hopped in line and, you know,

but by the time he actually cast his ballot, exited the building and I chatted with him

around 10.45 p.m., the Texas Supreme Court had gone ahead and stayed that local district

judges order.

We don't have much time, but I want to get down to something.

I think a lot of listeners are probably asking right now, what if anything will change

for the general election in November?

Obviously, we're not dealing with parties and primaries.

So there's a difference there.

But moreover, how to protect primaries in the future or at least defend against this

kind of confusion happening in the next primary season, either of you been hearing anything

on that score?

Yeah, definitely.

So the, the elections administrator here, Paul Adams said this will absolutely not be

an issue in the November general election because the county has authority over those

elections, right?

During the primaries, on election day, the Democrats or the Republicans can do whatever

they like, but he was adamant that this isn't going to be a problem in the general election,

now going forward.

Like you said, for other primaries, the issue here was that because this was so new, just

like in Williamson County, it hadn't been done in years, the final list for voting locations

wasn't ready until less than two weeks before election day.

And so that really stalled the process of getting the word out of, you know, to inform

voters on where they're supposed to go.

So if this were to happen again, there might be a little more preparation about finalizing

the polling places on election day.

It'll be interesting to see if lawmakers decide to step in in the next legislative session

and do something to change the rules, but of course, we'll be watching and so will Marina

Trehan Martinez, government accountability reporter, KERA North Texas, also Kayley Hunt,

who covers Williamson County for our home station, KUT, thanks to both of you.

We appreciate it.

Thank you, David.

Our next stop is on the Texas Standard Corpus Christi and Houston.

Don't touch that dial.

Support for Texas Standard comes from Texas Kasa.

For a child in foster care, small moments today can have a big impact tomorrow.

More on how lending time and support can help make a difference at becomeakasa.org.

Support for Texas Standard comes from trial med, conducting clinical research for over

30 years.

Info on current trials in Texas at trial med.com.

Support for Texas Standard comes from half price books, a Texas bread, new and used bookstore,

proudly supporting public media and its role in informing our communities.

Store locations, staff picks and more at hpb.com.

Is the Texas Standard, I'm David Brown.

Well, two weeks from today will be coming to you for the first time ever live from

the studios of KEDT, our partners in Corpus Christi.

Lot to talk about, too, not the least of which an ongoing water crisis, one which most

Texans have no idea is as severe as it is.

In fact, KEDT's Rob Boss Camp tells us the water level for the Lake Corpus Christi Reservoir

has now fallen to the single digits.

The Reservoir is at 9.9% capacity, according to the Texas Water Development Board's Water

Data for Texas Dashboard, the man may Lake about 35 miles northwest of the city, now sits

at about 25,000 acre feet of water out of a conservation capacity of about 256,000 acre

feet.

It doesn't trigger any emergency, it doesn't really trigger any change in what we're

doing in Corpus Christi water, but it is a notable milestone and we know the community

is closely watching the lake as a barometer of how we're getting through this drought.

So we wanted to be here today just to acknowledge this.

Travis Corpus Christi City manager, Peter Zenoni, he addressed the lake's historic low

amid a five-year drought.

He also added the city has shifted reliance from Chocanian and Lake Corpus Christi reservoirs

to other sources.

City Council recently approved about a billion dollars for additional projects such as

the Inter Harbor desalination plant, groundwater projects into Wases and San Patricia counties,

as well as an affluent reuse project.

The city is collaborating with regional partners and state and federal representatives to expedite

permits and funding.

Of Corpus Christi's three area water reservoirs, Chocanian reservoir is 8.3 percent full.

The third late-texana about eight miles east of Edna is at 55.9 percent capacity.

I'm Rob Bosscamp in Corpus Christi.

And you are listening to the Texas Standard.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire wants to eliminate chronic homelessness in the city by the end

of 2026.

How's that initiative going so far?

Houston Public Media's Dominic Anthony Walsh has more.

Good morning.

On a bustling road in Northeast Houston in late February, Jackie Urbina spots a man in

a wheelchair.

So are you sleeping out here in the streets?

Yeah.

Timothy Wright says he's been homeless for about 20 years.

On this chilly morning, he's talkative, especially about his parents.

What's supposed to be a brief survey takes about 8 minutes to complete, but Urbina doesn't

mind.

She's an outreach associate with the Coalition for the Homeless, and the survey is part

of the annual Point in Time Count.

I love to hear their stories, yeah.

It paints a picture for me.

And that's the true goal of the Point in Time Count.

The questionnaire includes questions about domestic violence, mental health, disability,

and other underlying reasons for homelessness.

In Houston, the picture over the past 15 years has been bright.

In 2011, the Talley counted about 8,000 unhoused people in Harris County.

Since 2021, that figure has held steady at about 3,000.

It's great to stabilize what your number is, but then that's also telling you that you

do not have enough other things to move the needle.

Talley Young is CEO of the Coalition.

We don't see a huge uptake, we don't see a huge, you know, drop.

Well, then what is it?

What needs to happen for those individuals that are still on the street?

The answer from Mayor Whitmeyer's administration, a multi-pronged approach, bolstering funding

for services and housing, while also cracking down on certain behaviors through criminal

enforcement.

Even as the national population of people experiencing homelessness has soared to record levels

in recent years, Harris County has maintained stability.

Still, Whitmeyer is not satisfied.

Last year, the Coalition tallyed about 1,800 people in shelters and about 1,200 people

on the streets of Harris County.

Houston, we have a problem.

In November, 2024, Whitmeyer announced his initiative to end street homelessness in

Houston.

I'm here to declare today you helped the homeless by getting them off the street and reclaiming

our public spaces.

Since then, the administration has faced challenges.

First, fundraising.

Back in 2024, his housing director, Mike Nichols, said the administration hoped to raise

$70 million in the first year from a variety of sources.

The only constraints we have to ending homelessness on the streets lies in the funding and collaboration.

Over the past year, the city raised about 31 million, including from the Metro Transit

Authority and the downtown management district.

For the first time in an interview with Houston Public Media, Nichols says the goal may

need to shift.

That number probably has to be re-evaluated, but we feel comfortable that the city's portion

is going to be maximized.

Anything we can move toward homelessness, we are trying to do that.

From the $31 million raised, nearly a million has flowed to the Houston Recovery Center's

sobering facility for extra beds.

That's where Thomas from Arrow landed late last year.

He says he was homeless for about 10 years after a series of deaths in his family.

From the Recovery Center, he transfers to the city's 112-bed navigation center, which

received over 3 million from the fund.

There, he started mental health counseling and signed a lease for permanent housing.

He's one of about 200 people moved into housing from Houston Central Urban Corps under

Whitmeyer's initiative last year.

But over the same time, officers with the Houston Police Department issued more than 1300

citations to people in the central downtown area for violating the city's sidewalk rules.

That's the other piece of Whitmeyer's initiative.

Criminal enforcement, which so far has outpaced services and housing.

As Romero received support in the navigation center, Trasowell Franklin slept on the street

in front of a homeless services center in East downtown.

He says he's been struggling to find housing and, without an address, a job.

He received a citation last year for violating the so-called civility ordinance, which prohibits

sitting, laying down, or placing personal possessions on sidewalks in certain parts of

the city, including East downtown.

Just a few blocks away, the city plans to open a 240-bed shelter in service center by June.

But in the meantime, the city is ramping up criminal enforcement.

Over the last half of 2025, the Houston Police Department issued nearly 2000 citations

for violations of the city's sidewalk obstruction rules.

About double the number issued in the first half of the year.

That's according to municipal court records obtained by Houston Public Media and analyzed

by media innovation group student fellows at UT Austin.

Here's Franklin again.

If you don't have anywhere to place the people that's on the street, where are you going

to put them if you get them off the sidewalk?

You're going to make it illegal to be homeless?

Myers director of Public Safety, Larry Satterwhite, says the 240-bed shelter and service center

is the answer.

We're going to need locations that we can take them in, wrap our arms around them, get

them the right kind of care, get them right kind of treatment so that we can actually graduate

them out of that and get them into housing and be in a future life.

In the Houston area, since 2011, more than 37,000 people have been moved from homelessness

into housing, according to the coalition for the homeless.

Larry Mossick is one of them.

After eight years sleeping under a bridge, she moved through the navigation center and

has been in housing for the past three years.

We're people, but when people who are striving every day to do the same things everybody

else does, we have the same right to food and shelters anybody else.

She thinks the mayor's ambitious end-of-year target to end chronic homelessness is admirable,

but not feasible.

He's open for a miracle that's not going to happen.

She adds, I want to see him dry.

I'm Dominic Anthony Walsh in Houston.

Data analysis of citations for this story provided by Layla Dijani, a fellow with the

Media Innovation Group in the School of Journalism and Media UT Austin, funded by the Dallas Morning

News Journalism Innovation Endowment, more at HoustonPublicMedia.org.

From the Texas Newsroom, I'm Alexandra Hart.

South Texas Congressman Tony Gonzalez has inded his reelection campaign.

Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies reports.

Gonzalez posted on social media Thursday night that he will not continue his campaign,

but he will serve out the rest of his term in Congress.

This comes after Gonzalez admitted on Wednesday to having an affair with a former staffer,

which is against House rules.

House Republican leaders had called on Gonzalez to end his reelection bid over the scandal.

During Tuesday's primary election night, Gonzalez made it into the runoff for the GOP nomination

for the 23rd Congressional District, trailing Brandon Arreira, who will now be the party's

nominee for the November election.

I'm David Martin Davies in San Antonio.

A man who pleaded guilty in connection with the July 4th shooting outside an ICE detention

center says he had no intention of violence, but as KERA's toluani OC Bammalow reports,

he says he saw the shooter.

Seth Sykes was one of about a dozen people arrested at Prairie Land the night of July

4th.

He says he just went to set off fireworks, make noise, and show ICE detainees they weren't

forgotten.

Sykes testified he started leaving once detention officers came outside.

Then he heard Benjamin's song Shoot at an Alvarado Police Officer who arrived on the scene.

He expert his own guns, but he says he had no intention of firing.

The defendants on trial also say they didn't intend violence.

I'm toluani OC Bammalow in Fort Worth.

New York's Nasdaq Stock Exchange ring the ceremonial bell live from Alamo Plaza on Thursday

for the unofficial launch of Nasdaq Texas.

Texas Public Radio's Corey Cook was there.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Nasdaq leaders read the Alamo to ring the bell for the launch,

marking the first time for the weekday ceremony at New York's Times Square to take place in

San Antonio.

Abbott says the bell ring highlights the state's commitment to economic growth.

We're proud that Nasdaq does business and has a location in the great set of Texas,

ensuring that Texas is the pathway forward for finance, for capitalism, and Texas will

lead the way in protecting capitalism.

Nasdaq leaders travel throughout the country several times a year for the ceremony.

The bell ring also commemorates the Battle of the Alamo that took place on March 6, 1836.

I'm Corey Cook in San Antonio.

Governor Abbott has put emergency resources on alert ahead of expected severe storms,

hail, high winds, and possible tornadoes are forecast across parts of the state.

Some of that will hit North Texas today before moving south.

I'm Alexandra Hart from the Texas Newsroom.

We're listening to statewide news from public radio stations across Texas.

This coverage is only possible because of support from listeners like you.

You can help sustain and grow Texas news coverage by donating to your local public radio station

today.

33 minutes past the hour, Texas Standard Time, I'm Laura Rice.

When a big development comes to town, think of factory or a stadium or an oil refinery,

in Texas, they often receive some kind of tax break from the local community.

In exchange for creating local jobs, the developer has typically offered a rebate on property

taxes by the local school district.

But in South Texas, where a number of energy companies plan to build terminals to export

liquefied natural gas, a school district recently made the rare move of rejecting one of

these agreements.

Here to tell us more is Dylan Bedouard, Texas-based reporter for Inside Climate News.

Dylan, welcome back to the Texas Standard.

Thanks, Laura.

Well, we're talking about Port Isabel Independent School District to hear, which was recently

considering a property tax deal with a company that plans to build an LNG plant nearby.

Tell us what each side would have gotten through the proposal.

The proposal would have essentially given the LNG developer a $160 million discount on

its school district property taxes over 10 years.

What the school district would have gotten in theory is this project, the economic development,

the jobs, and all that.

These programs are meant to help school districts incentivize drawing in investment.

The school district said no thanks, though, was this unanimous decision among board members

and did they explain why they rejected the deal?

This was a unanimous decision and it goes back a long way.

This school board has previously rejected three similar agreements and officials in Port

Isabel have issued resolutions going back years against these plans for LNG.

What this really speaks to is the opposition in that community because it's really transformative

to where they are.

They're proposing to develop a large industrial sector in what's now a green space.

These communities don't want that to happen and that's why they keep rejecting these

offers, although it doesn't stop the projects from moving forward.

That's what I was going to ask, whether the developer, Texas LNG, would pull out of

this area based on this resistance to giving tax incentives?

No, absolutely not.

In fact, that $160 million discount is small beans for a $6 billion project that plans

to run for a long time.

This gets to a problem with these incentive programs is that it's really not true that

this is a significant incentive for the company.

The company is there because of the gas from the Permian Basin and because of the port

of Brownsville.

It's not like they could just go anywhere else.

They've also been developing this for about a decade already.

It's not like the school district rejecting this is going to have major consequences in

that planning.

I think the school district knows that has realized that just why they consistently reject

these.

In this case, they'll get the full taxable value of this 625 acre industrial plot.

Well, does that get to your point of why it's so rare for school districts to do this,

that they are excited about the infusion of tax dollars, even if it means sort of a delay

or a dent in what they might normally get?

The company's really play areas off of each other.

This application from Texas LNG said that they were also looking at places in Louisiana

and other competitive locations and that the school district agreement would be a major

factor in their decision, but that's just, I mean, this project has been in development

for 10 years.

We've been hearing about it and this application was filed in December last year.

It's not really a credible notion that they would pull the plug and go restart somewhere

else because of, you know, a deal with Port Isabel ISD.

Well, give us a broader sense of how this is affecting South Texas, this whole LNG development

in general.

The idea there is that this is going to help Texas be in a position to sell off natural

gas that might normally get burned off.

Is that right?

Sure.

I mean, we're looking forward to pretty big increases in gas production as more and more

LNG terminals come online.

There's a lot that are new.

There's a lot under construction and there's a lot that are proposed.

So this industry is headed for a boom.

You know, way down in South Texas, the Port of Brownsville is about the last undeveloped

deep water port on the Texas coast.

You look at Port Arthur, Houston, Freepore, Corpus Christi, Brownsville is, you know, open

green space.

So that's where the space is to build a new generation industrial complex like what you

see outside Houston, what you see outside Corpus Christi.

This is where it will happen.

So it's pretty much the available real estate to a new generation of mega projects like

these LNG export terminals.

Dylan Bedore is a reporter for Inside Climate News.

We'll share more of his reporting at texasstandard.org.

Dylan, thanks so much for your time.

Thanks, Laura.

Support for Texas Standard comes from Hilda Brande and VA at UT Austin's McCombs School

of Business.

Providing MBA programs, preparing leaders for positive community impact, offering multiple

formats, serving professionals throughout Texas, more at texasmba.com.

Support for Texas Standard comes from HEB and the MyHEB app, which is available for download

and shopping fresh departments like seafood, produce, bakery, and deli and scheduling

curbside pickup or home delivery, more at HEB.com.

Support for Texas Standard comes from TrialMed, conducting clinical research for over 30 years.

Info on current trials in Texas at trialmed.com.

It's the Texas Standard, I'm Laura Rice.

Sinners is nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, but long before Michael B. Jordan took

on the dual role fighting racist vampires in the South, there was another story of black

resistance filmed right here in Texas.

River Bend was produced in 1989, and though the story is set in Georgia, it was shot in

East Texas around Waxahatchee, despite some early recognition the film was largely lost

to history until it caught the attention of a man committed to restoring films featuring

black stories.

Now River Bend is again available to audiences this time in 6K, and it's showing this weekend

at the Austin Film Society Theater.

Under Sam Firstenberg is in the Texas Standard Studio with me, Sam welcome to the Texas

Standard.

Hey, thank you for having me, and I'm happy to be here with you.

I also have with me Michael J. Dennis, the man behind real black renaissance and the restoration

of River Bend.

Michael, thanks to you.

Hey, thank you, Laura.

It's great to be here in Texas.

Absolutely.

I want to start Michael with you and how this film first caught your attention.

Well, it goes all the way back to my days of video library.

I was a buyer at a video store back in the 80s, and I never watched it then.

But then there's a gentleman named Charles Woods, who's a mentor of mine, my podcast co-host,

and he had five copies in his collection of River Bend on VHS, and I asked him, why do

you have so many?

You have to watch this movie, it's unlike any other film that you'll see.

Long story short, I ended up putting it on my YouTube channel right before the pandemic,

and that was in 2019, fast forward to 2021.

Sam Furstenberg sends me an email and I'm saying, oh, this is going to be a season to

sit.

He says, no, he said, no, thank you for putting this up, sharing this movie with the

public because it was independently produced, and it's considered an orphan film, right?

So we start talking and all these magical things started to happen, right, Sam?

No, correct, absolutely.

Magical is the right word.

Sam, tell me a little bit about the synopsis.

Michael said, you know, this was a special film, what makes it special?

This is a story about racial injustice in the segregated south in the 1960s during the

height of the civil rights movement.

But the different, the unique thing about this movie, that in this movie, it's not about

movie like all the other, the rest of Hollywood movies were the white hero comes to save

the black problem or to resolve the black problem.

But rather the black population of a small town, which is called riverband in the south,

they're resolving and solving the problem, the racial problem that they are facing by

themselves.

This movie and the Spukusapa the door, the only two movies in film history that show this,

this sort of agency was among black characters.

Well, Sam, tell me about the initial reception.

This is, you know, this is sort of after the black exploitation movement, right?

What did it receive like in the late 80s, early 90s?

When the movie was finished, when we finished the filming, when we finished the editing,

the producers, the local producers sold it to a company in Hollywood.

It was a small independent distribution company, which somehow managed to give it to a bigger

company, Paramount Video.

When a Paramount Video came out with the movie, from why understanding with very few copies

of the movie, for a rental shop at the time, in the 1990s, whoever, remember there was

a rental shop in every corner, every block, I understand that there were few screening

in the East Coast, there was none in the West Coast, I never heard about any.

So we really don't know, we don't know how it was accepted.

The movie came on the heels of Mississippi Burning, if I'm not wrong, right?

Yeah, it came out and was released in 1989, home video in 1990.

So you have to realize that this is Mississippi Burning's 1988.

So this was sold by Samuel and Value Vance as the answer to Mississippi Burning.

And it should have really been part of the conversation of 1989, which is, do the right

thing, driving Miss Daisy.

That's what was happening in the zeitgeist.

And this is a movie that was set in 1966, made in 1989.

And it's still relevant today, because it's dealing with issues that we're still confronted

with in America.

Well, I want to talk for a minute, just about how challenging it was to find a version

that you could restore.

I mean, this was on VHS tapes everywhere, but is the Wikipedia page true?

I mean, is this real, a 35 millimeter found in South Africa?

Is that right?

And we started talking, like I said, he, I thought it was going to be a season to

assist.

We started talking in this magical thing happened, a print, a 35 millimeter print shows up

on eBay while we're having conversations.

So I, I said, well, let me bid on it and see, you know, because it, it seemed like it would

be incredibly rare.

Like, it might be the only print that exists outside of the Library of Congress.

So I won the print.

We went about restoring that print and then we found out it was missing seven minutes.

So that's when Valerie Vance comes into our life, you know, the producer widow of Samuel

Vance, the writer and co-producer of the film along with Troy and Regina, we have to give

everybody their fair share credit.

And she said, I have a print.

Wow.

No, she had a mold issue.

She had a mold issue.

So we're back to square one, but what she was able to do when we ran into Dennis Doros

at missing movies, he was able to locate the negative of the film.

And that's where we are able to do a 6K restoration of the film with the help of real revival

or Austin, Austin Squatery, who's based out of Pennsylvania.

So it looks better than ever, right?

Yeah.

Sam, I, I want to take you back to 1988, Texas.

What was it like being in that community, trying to tell this story?

Well, I'm telling it again and again to everybody, we were in the Waxhatch area.

We stayed in this auto Texas, that's where it was our base.

The shooting, most of the movie is in Venice, Texas, which is in this area.

And I must stress the point that I have a little bit advantage here by being a foreigner,

somebody who didn't grow in a high school and didn't go to elementary school, so I was

able to kind of watch it and there was no racial tension.

I must, I must say so, maybe some underneath current that I didn't feel, but not at all.

The, the, the little town was so helpful to us as you know, most of the cast of the movie

is black.

There are very few white actors.

And the crew was like 90%, 95% white persons and very few black people in the technical

crew.

I never felt any tension whatsoever here in Texas.

I'm so glad to hear that.

You know, I want you to brag just a little bit about your cast.

We've mentioned Steve James who, you know, tragically died not too long after this film and

Margaret Avery, who was just off of her Academy Award-nominated performance in the color purple.

Julius Tinnon, who's actually a Texan himself.

From here, from Austin.

Yeah.

What was, what was that like having that cast?

So we brought only two people from outside.

Steve James and Margaret Avery.

All the rest, everybody, all the rest of the cast is locally here from Texas.

And by the way, this was the request of the, of the financier.

Yeah, Texas was a big market for independent filmmaking at that time.

Best little whorehouse in Texas, lone star.

When you talk to Alex Morris, he said that this was the biggest production for black actors

to ever come to the town.

And it was a privilege to be a part of that cast.

But there's literally dozens, when you say, Sam.

Yeah, absolutely.

Of black independent films that are just in danger of being lost at time.

So our mission statement is to reclaim and restore those films and you can find out more

about that at realblack.com or riverbendrestored.com.

And we will post all of this and TexasStandard.org.

Michael J. Dennis is the founder of Real Black Renaissance.

Sam Firstenberg is a director here of riverbend, as we've been talking about.

Sam and Michael, thank you again.

Thank you, Mark.

Thank you, man.

Hi, I'm Jimmy Moss.

And I'm Juan Diego Garcia.

We host the podcast, Vamos Verde, all about the Austin Football Club.

We call it soccer on the side of the pond one.

Well, Jimmy, where I'm from, we call it football.

But our show is not just football.

I come here to win.

I just remember the first couple of months it was like exhausting.

A 35, 40-year-old grown man yelling at a 15-year-old kid over a possible off-sides call.

Yeah, that happened.

You can subscribe to Vamos Verde, wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Bianca Alisa Perez with the typewriter rodeo,

we're a group of poets that write personalized poems on vintage typewriters.

This poem is called My Garden.

You are a rose garden, a beautiful maze of red blooms and vines

and the soft smell of earth at your feet.

And yes, we all have thorns to protect us from the malicious hands

that wish to pick our unriped bodies from the roots and yank until we wither.

But here you are, thriving in your own wild growth.

You are finding your source of sun.

Wait, you are the sun, too, burning at the center of your own light

and the planets revolve around you, floating and magnificent.

Every second that you choose yourself, you bloom.

This is Bianca Alisa Perez with typewriter rodeo,

and you're listening to the Texas Standard.

You can send us your ideas for typewriter rodeo poems at TexasStandard.org or on social media.

Time for our look back at an unusually busy week that was in Texas politics.

Jasper Scherer is a politics editor for the Texas Tribune.

Jasper, we've heard a lot about the winners and losers,

but I suppose we need to step back and try to understand what the voters are telling us.

What do you think we do three takeaways from the primaries? You good for that?

Yeah, let's go for it.

All right, let's work down to number one from number three and the number three position.

What would you say?

Well, I think it was just the degree to which money played a role.

Of course, always is a big factor in politics,

but it was really striking.

You saw Senator John Kornin overcoming this initial deficit in his primary

to finish in a surprising first place with the power of $70 million or so behind him,

which is an absolutely massive number.

Also had a couple of self-funders, Maze Middleton for Attorney General.

Mega Maze.

Right, and then Don Huffines for Comptroller, both self-funding to the tune of several million dollars

and finishing in very strong positions.

Yeah, a lot of questions about the influence of money these days,

especially in the age of social media.

Let's move on to your number two.

What you got?

Yeah, I think another standout was just President Trump got unusually involved in the primaries this year in Texas.

He's always played a hand in some form, but he spread his endorsement out pretty generously this time,

and we saw that it really was not bullet proof.

It's not kind of a magic bullet that can just magically rescue candidates from Scandal,

from opposition from other powerful folks like Abbott.

So looking at Sid Miller for Agriculture Commissioner, got Trump's endorsement,

ended up losing.

There were several candidates who Trump backed for open congressional races,

who finished either in second place or failed to win outright.

So just thought that was, that was a good take away.

Perhaps not as long as some might imagine.

Number one, top takeaway from primary day in Texas.

What do you think?

I mean, the big story was just that incumbents really got kind of knocked on their heels.

I mentioned Sid Miller losing his bid for a fourth term as Agriculture Commissioner,

and there were some high profile examples in the congressional races with Dan Crenshaw's kind of a rising star a few years ago,

suddenly getting ousted from his Houston area seat.

And there were a few other incumbents who were forced into on the Democratic side,

kind of unpleasant inter-party challenges from from other sitting representatives.

So you had Al Green and Houston going up against Christian Menifee,

who was recently elected to Congress.

That race is going to a runoff, you know, and then Julie Johnson up in the Dallas area,

also going to be put into a runoff with a pretty distant second place finish

against Colin Allred.

So lots of incumbents either forced out or in political peril in May runoffs.

Discomfort with the status quo of what that means for November.

Obviously, you want to keep track over at Texas Tribune.org.

That's where Jasper Scherer is politics editor.

Jasper, thanks so much for that three, two, one.

Appreciate it.

Have a great weekend.

Of course.

Thanks David, you too.

And you are listening to the Texas Standard.

US operations continue in Iran after the Trump administration's decision

without any congressional involvement to bomb the country starting last weekend,

killing both Iranian leadership and hundreds of civilians, many of them children.

I'm Wells Dunbar with the Texas Standard and those attacks they unfolded

as Texas midterm primary elections were taking place,

which makes for an interesting juxtaposition.

One way of thinking about it, the question of power.

And who holds it, what they do with it, and what comes next.

Starting closer to home, we heard from a lot of folks about the confusion in Dallas on election night.

Confusion that's still stretching on, really, after the decision to extend polling hours on election day.

That came after mix-ups over how Republican primaries were being held,

and they sent plenty of voters on a wild goose chase across Dallas.

That's the story we heard from listener Wayne.

Basically, the way that they were doing it, they were trying to close the doors

and trying to shoot us away from voting that way,

almost like a provisional ballot that didn't really count.

So I can feel it's about why such a big thing about,

oh, voting has been extended to 9 o'clock, but you get there,

and you can't vote, or they're basically acting like a provisional ballot

is nothing and closing doors.

The county judge had the power to extend voting hours,

another man, Ken Paxton, on the ballot himself as you may have heard,

used his power as Attorney General to ask the Texas Supreme Court not to count the votes cast in those extra two hours.

A move that's helped to keep the confusion going.

Now, back to Iran, what we've heard from many of our listeners is opposition,

opposition to a war that they don't think serves American interests.

In fact, to the chaos that's already creating across the Middle East,

seems to point in the opposite direction.

Again, it comes down to the question of who makes the decisions.

As Jimmy Ogden writes us,

there doesn't appear to have been an imminent threat to the U.S.

or our allies or anyone else,

and it would appear that we don't have clear objectives.

It's easy to pull the trigger if you have the biggest and best gun,

but that doesn't mean you should.

Then there's the power of the fourth estate, the media.

Hello, this is Kevin from Manor.

I'm calling about the war.

I think it's a national emergency.

Kevin's got a unique idea,

opposing the attacks on Iran by bleeping out the name of the one man who ordered them.

President Trump.

Well, in Kevin's parlance, president.

I hope you'll try and do that.

I think it'll get you national attention.

Maybe it'll get you thrown off the Colbert show.

Anyhow, that's my idea.

I hope it worked for you.

While I don't see that one sticking around Kevin,

we certainly appreciate the suggestion.

And we'd also love to hear from y'all out there.

Go to texasstandard.org slash talk,

and leave us a message about the attacks on Iran,

the primary elections, the midterms,

or whatever else is on your mind,

because there's a lot to talk about out there.

I'm Wells Dunbar, and this is the talk of Texas.

Indeed it is.

Wells Dunbar monitoring that talk of Texas.

Y'all, keep those comments coming in.

We're out of time for today's broadcast,

but you can keep up with the news 24-7 all weekend long.

texasstandard.org.

The managing editor of the Texas Standard is Gabriel Munoz.

Our managing producer is Laura Rice.

Our executive producer is Ron DeFanning.

I'm David Brown, wishing you and yours all the very best for Austin.

Philanthropic support for Texas Standard comes from Casey and Scott O'Hare,

the Wingler Family Foundation.

Lindopson and Greg Waldrich,

Adrian Killam, and the George Huntington family.

Would your company or organization like to be a sponsor as well?

Contact your local station for opportunities within your community.

For statewide sponsorships, visit texaspublicmedia-network.com.

There's everywhere else in the United States, and then, there's Texas.

It's big, it's proud, it's got a lot going on,

and it takes a daily news show to keep up with it all.

The Texas Standard tackles politics, business and tech,

the arts, and the people and things that make Texas unique.

It's smart, fast-paced, relevant, and sometimes even a little fun.

After all, it's the news from a Texas perspective.

Subscribe to the Texas Standard, wherever you get your podcasts.