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Frank Hamer, Legendary Texas Lawman Who Bagged Bonnie and Clyde

Khalid Elhassan December 27, 2024 12 min

Hamer - Frank Hamer — Frank Hamer. Free Range America

4. Leading the Fight Against the Ku Klux Klan

Frank Hamer, standing left. Guns America

Soon after he recovered, Hamer became a federal Prohibition agent, and took part in numerous raids and shootouts against bootleggers. He was not a progressive on the issue of race by any means, and harbored his share of the era’s widespread racism. However, Hamer had a sense of fairness and justice, and a respect for law and order that rendered lynchings and mob violence against blacks repugnant in his eyes. After a year as a federal Prohibition agent, he rejoined the Texas Rangers, and was assigned to Austin as a Senior Ranger Captain. In 1922, Hamer led the fight in the Lone Star Republic against the Ku Klux Klan, which was experiencing a boom at the time.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.