Biographical Note
Dick J. Reavis was born in 1945, in Elk City, Oklahoma, the eldest child of Dick and Kathleen (Johnson) Reavis. The family lived in many small towns as Reavis grew up—mostly in Texas, but also Oklahoma and South Carolina. His father managed newspapers in these towns, so Reavis had an early exposure to the journalism profession, though he preferred the company of the printers to that of the reporters. From age 13 until he left for college he worked part-time in the “back shops,” learning a variety of printing skills.
Reavis earned a philosophy bachelor’s degree from UT-Austin in 1968 and attended the UT law school for one year following graduation. While at the university he helped the founders of the infamous, independent student newspaper, THE RAG, get started, and he contributed cartoon drawings and about 20 articles over a two year period. He was active in various leftist causes (i.e., “The Movement”) during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and by 1974 figured journalism was a profession with potential for adventure as well as relevance and honesty. Reavis was hired as a reporter at his father’s newspaper, Moore County News Press, in Dumas, Texas, in November 1974. He reported on police, courthouse and civic affairs, but small-town newspaper work and the atmosphere of Dumas did not suit him for long. He returned to the University of Texas at Austin in 1976 to pursue a master’s degree in philosophy. Reavis took advantage of the journalistic outlets and opportunities in Austin, and on June 3, 1977 wrote a cover story about the Kickapoo Indians for Texas Observer, which led to freelance work at Texas Monthly. He wrote for the “Reporter” section of the magazine a number of months before editor Bill Broyles unexpectedly gave him the opportunity to write a feature, which became “The Smoldering Fire,” about Mexican leftist guerillas, in the March 1978 issue.
By this time Reavis had quit school to focus on reporting and writing. He worked freelance for Texas Monthly until 1981, when he was put on staff. He also published his first book, Without Documents, in 1978, about the experiences of illegal immigrants from Latin America and the complex issues surrounding their plight. On October 15, 1978, while riding his motorcycle, Reavis was hit by a drunk driver and nearly killed. Reavis had been assigned a Texas Monthly story on the Bandido bikers and had befriended them and become a biker himself, which he took up again after recovering from the accident. He tried his hand at fiction and photography for biker magazines during this period, and worked on an autobiography for Texas Monthly Press that was never published. Reavis wrote 37 features for Texas Monthly in 12 years, often about Mexico or the underclass of Texas. On January 1, 1987 he set out on a year-long journey to drive every road on the official map of Texas, and report his experiences in a series for Texas Monthly. It was a chance for him to escape for a year and see his home state in its entirety. Not long afterwards he spent 12 months in Veracruz, Mexico to research his book, Conversations With Moctezuma, a study of and meditation on Mexican history and culture, published in 1990.
Displeased by changes at Texas Monthly, he resigned as a senior editor in the summer of 1990. The following year he joined the San Antonio Light as a Mexico correspondent, stationed in Monterrey, Mexico. For about 18 months between 1992 and 1993 he reported for the independent newspaper, Dallas Observer. It was during this time that the standoff at Mount Carmel near Waco happened. Recognizing the raid, siege and burning of the Branch Davidian center as a major story that was being covered by the press only from the government’s perspective, Reavis spent the next two years reporting and investigating the incident, its players, causes, and immediate implications. Simon and Schuster published the resulting book, The Ashes of Waco, in 1995, making Reavis one of the few impartial experts on the subject. That same year he was called to testify before Congress in renewed hearings about what happened at Mount Carmel and why.
Dick J. Reavis earned many awards and recognitions for his in-depth reporting and writing over the years: he was a finalist for a National Magazine Award and received three Texas Headliner’s Awards and four Katie Awards. He was also a Neiman Fellow at Harvard University. Reavis edited and translated two books: Diary of an Undocumented Immigrant (1991) and Diary of a Guerrilla (1999). He also wrote the guidebook Texas (1995) and the civil rights memoir If White Kids Die (2001). He continues to write freelance for the on-line publication Counterpunch.org, and occasionally returns to the pages of Texas Monthly, most recently for a feature on the 2006 election in Mexico.
Scope and Contents
These materials constitute a small part of the Dick J. Reavis Papers.
The papers of journalist, activist and professor, Dick J. Reavis, span the 1950s to the present, although the majority of the materials regard his journalism career from the mid-1970s to the end of 2003. The first series documents Reavis’ research into the raid, siege and burning of the Branch Davidians’ Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and the FBI, as well as background on the Branch Davidian religious sect who lived there.
The main purpose of the investigation was for his book, The Ashes of Waco, and this series reflects that, although Reavis’ research went beyond the book’s publication, as his role as an investigator/expert expanded. He also inter-filed post-publication documents with those for his book research.