Obituaries: Maury Maverick Jr. 1921 - 2003

Like his name, Maury Maverick Jr. was a maverick. In fact, he came by his name honestly. His great-grandfather, Samuel Augustus Maverick, who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836, was a rancher who refused to brand his cattle. After that, all unbranded cows came to be known as mavericks, a term that quickly came to be used to describe non-conforming people as well.

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Maury Maverick Jr.

His father, Maury Sr, was a liberal Democrat congressman who worked for Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, served as mayor of San Antonio and nearly got lynched for allowing Communists to meet in the city's Municipal Auditorium. He also invented the word "gobbledygook," as a reaction to overly written memos during World War II.

Even though the younger Maverick never held a national office, coined a new word, or got his family name listed in the dictionary, he became the biggest maverick of them all. In a state not known for producing liberal non-conformists, Maury Maverick Jr. became a much loved iconoclast in the city of San Antonio.

After being elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1950, he became one of a handful of legislators who took a stand against the Red-baiting and discriminatory laws being passed during the Communist-hunting McCarthy era, often fighting the McCarthy-ites with humor. In one instance, legislators were approving bill that would make membership in the Communist Party a capital offense. Maverick's response was to introduce another bill that called for life imprisonment for anyone merely suspected of being a Communist. As intended, both measures failed.

About the same time, a resolution was introduced to invite Sen. Joseph McCarthy to address the Texas Legislature. In this case, Maverick added an amendment to invite Mickey Mouse instead. "If we're going to invite a rat to visit our state," he said, "why not invite a good rat?"

The "Red Scare" of the 1950s was to have a profound influence on Maverick for the rest of his life. In a 1999 interview, he said that the Communist "witch hunts" were used by Texas bigots and racists to "bust the unions, bust blacks, bust Mexican Americans and intimidate schoolteachers and librarians."

"It was just cruel beyond words the way they were kicking people around," he added. "I was constantly on edge for six years. To this day, I still haven't gotten over it."

As a lawyer, Maverick scored his first big victory in 1954 when he contested a state law that prohibited professional boxing matches between blacks and whites. He successfully argued that the law deprived his client of the chance to earn a living. As a result, the appellate court in Austin threw out the law.

In 1956, after growing disgusted with his fellow legislators, Maverick quit politics and devoted himself to his law practice, where he focused on civil rights and civil liberties cases. However, in 1960 he ran for the U.S. Senate seat that Lyndon B. Johnson had vacated for the vice presidency. That election, his last bid for public office, was lost to Republican John Tower.

Stories of his quick wit abound. During the 1960 presidential campaign, while leading candidate John F. Kennedy through a tour of the Alamo, Kennedy asked to exit through the back door to avoid passing through a large crowd. Maverick replied, "There's no back door at the Alamo. That's why they were all heroes."

His career was also filled with unintentional ironies. In 1964 he took a case to the U.S. Supreme court, defending a San Antonio bookseller who'd been arrested after authorities seized "seditious" papers from his home. The State's evidence included a seized opinion by the sitting Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. "I saw William O. Douglas nudge Black in the ribs," Maverick later said. "But Black wasn't laughing."

In another case, while working for the ACLU, Maverick defended the famous atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair. When he arrived at the jail to defend her, O'Hair declared, "Thank God, the ACLU is here!"

During the Vietnam War, he defended many conscientious objectors and draft dodgers. In 1991, the American Bar Association honored him with the John Minor Wisdom Public Interest and Professional Award for his handling of more than 300 pro bono cases.

Maury Maverick Jr., age 82, died on January 28th of kidney failure following surgery. He is survived by his wife, Julia, and a sister, Terrellita.

In a newspaper column that he penned for the San Antonio "Express-News," Maverick wrote, just two weeks before his death, "During the Vietnam War, I kept a diary of sorts about my law practice representing conscientious objectors. Here's an entry from that diary:

"'I would walk to a federal court with a boy who didn't want to kill or be killed in Vietnam. It was as if I had walked in with a mass murderer. People are frightened, including some judges, when you represent a political or religious dissenter.'"

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