ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how various genres of technical communication, including regulations, manuals, and pamphlets, were used to help redefine post-Reconstruction labor and livelihood for black Texans. It discusses inconsistencies between the intent and content in Texas Laws Made Plain and the Texas regulations in effect in 1906 and 1921. The purpose of the Texas Laws Made Plain editions were to provide easy access to those instructional laws, many of which were labor laws applicable to Arthur Lee and other black Texas sharecroppers. Thus, like voting rights laws, the restrictions to the practice of trades by blacks in Texas were dependent on tacit laws, which were extensions of codified Texas law. The chapter also discusses the inconsistencies between Texas regulations and societal laws from post-Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Era. It provides the rationale for a contemporary study of black trust in the government with a focus on business regulations.
