The Texas Emergency Reserve (TER) was a

militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

group which operated in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, and at its peak had close to 2,500 members. In 1981, a U.S. District Court judge ordered the TER to close its military training camp based on a Texas law that forbade private armies in the state. The Reserve had ties with the Ku Klux Klan, and with one of the Klan's prominent members, Louis Beam. The Reserve is most famous for an incident which took place in

Seabrook, Texas Seabrook is a city in Harris County in the U.S. state of Texas, with some water surface area located within Chambers County. The population was 11,952 at the 2010 U.S. census, and 14,149 in 2019. Several fish markets line the city's waterfront, ...

on March 15, 1981, in which armed members of the organization held a demonstration on a boat in the waters around the city in an attempt to intimidate local Vietnamese fishermen who had been settled there by the government. In the course of the demonstration, an effigy of a Vietnamese fisherman was hung from the stern of the ship and threatening gestures were made to the onlooking Vietnamese fishermen and their families.

References

Ku Klux Klan History of Texas Right-wing militia organizations in the United States 1981 disestablishments in Texas Defunct organizations based in Texas {{Texas-stub