Roy Velasquez in front of a restored 1928 Ford Model A he bought to commemorate the first car in service at Roy’s Taxi. Image: Austin History Center
In the early days of the Great Depression, construction jobs all but disappeared, and that was bad news for Mexican-American Austinite Roy Velasquez, who had risen to the role of foreman on a crew laying sewer pipe in the late 1920s before he was 20 years old. With no local work left, he traveled to Kingsland to organize a crew and build cabins for workers at a granite quarry on behalf of a company in Dallas, which fell apart when Velasquez and his employees were politely asked by a mob of roughly 60 armed locals to pack up and leave before sundown.
This rigorous defense of local employment wasn’t an uncommon misfortune for migrant workers during the Depression — and Velasquez, already missing two fingers on his left hand after a dynamite accident in his teenage years working at a limestone quarry, was no stranger to hardship — but what was difficult for Anglos ended up almost absurdly challenging for ethnic minorities facing enough unfair treatment in Texas when the economy was good.
A 1932 ad for the ten-cent taxi company that turned down Velasquez for a job due to his race, leading him to found Roy’s Taxi. Image: Austin History Center
Velasquez returned to Austin and tried to secure a job at a local cab outfit — “it was the only thing left that was open,” he said — but was told he would run off the owner’s clientele due to his race. Unfazed, he decided to start his own taxi company, borrowing $5 from a friend as capital. “Five dollars in them days was about five hundred dollars now,” he would later explain.
Starting with a 1928 Ford Model A Tudor he bought for $450, Velasquez opened Roy’s Taxi in 1931 at the age of 21, and found immediate success with a market other cab companies in town wouldn’t touch. At that time, almost every cab company in Austin offered rides anywhere in the city for 10 cents, but their version of the city conveniently went no further east than Chicon Street, meaning minority residents on the East Side were up a creek. Cabs wouldn’t even pick up black passengers in those days, forcing them to ride in segregated streetcars.
Children at the Palm School watching the last streetcar before the line was shut down in 1940. Image: Austin History Center
The line terminated at East Sixth and Chicon Streets, and that’s precisely where Velasquez built his cab company’s first office. When black commuters missed the streetcar, or if bad weather discouraged them from waiting at the platform, Velasquez charged them a dime for a ride — the streetcar only cost a nickel, he said, but they were willing to pay extra just to get to work on time. The simple act of accepting minority business meant Roy had 35 cars and drivers contracted within a year.
The intersection of Sixth and Chicon Streets today.
His disruption of the streetcar line’s business eventually became too significant to ignore, and to avoid the impending threat of legal action Velasquez moved Roy’s headquarters to 1005 East Sixth Street in 1933, where he installed his first telephone dispatch system. Weathering the rest of the depression and surviving both the shortage of young male drivers and the rationing of gas and tires during World War II, Velasquez moved the company again to 704 East 11th Street after the war, then finally relocated once more to 90 East Avenue in 1957.
A view of taxicabs in front of the Moreno Service Station at 1005 East Sixth Street in the 1930s. Roy’s Taxi had its headquarters here at the time, so these cabs are likely part of the company. Image: Austin History Center
Roy was active in Austin politics since the beginning, founding the city’s chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1935. Poll taxes were enforced in Texas until 1966, and Velasquez resisted the disenfranchisement of low-income minority residents with voter drives and other events encouraging turnout. Becoming a notable figure and organizer in the Mexican-American community, Roy rubbed shoulders with local, state, and national politicians ranging from Austin Mayor Tom Miller to President Harry Truman and future President Lyndon Johnson.
During Johnson’s run for Congress in 1937, Roy and his musically-talented brother Julius Velasquez accompanied the candidate across Texas, playing for the crowds at his campaign events. Johnson won, and Roy would be loyal to the future president for all his life. “I worked for Lyndon then, and until he died,” he said.
A 1981 article from the Austin American-Statesman detailing Velasquez’ retirement. Image: Austin History Center
“Big Roy would hire anybody who needed a job,” said Clay, an Austin-area writer who drove for Roy’s Taxi from 1977 until 1983. “I’m sure the guys now at least have a more extensive (job) interview than I did.”
The interview — “My shortest job interview ever,” Clay said — went like this: Richard Velasquez, one of five sons of Roy Velasquez Sr., the don’t-mess-with-me boss at Roy’s Taxi, asked Clay if he’d ever been arrested, been hooked on booze or dope, or ever killed anybody? When Clay said no, Richard asked, “Then why the hell you want to be a cab driver?”
— John Kelso, Austin American-Statesman, 2016
The local cab business was gritty and fiercely competitive throughout the span of Roy’s career, with city regulatory issues and “bootleg” cabs, plenty of other operators trying to buy his company out from under him, and the growing threat of taxi conglomerates like the Yellow Cab Company. But Roy’s persisted, its iconic sea-foam green fleet boasting 50 cars and 100 employees when Velasquez retired in 1980.
I’m still broke. I ain’t got no money, God Almighty, but I had a whole lot of competition. And I’m still hanging in there with my five dollars. Yeah.
— Roy Velasquez
A 1991 photo of some of the family members of Roy Velasquez who continued to run Roy’s Taxi after his death in 1981. Image: Austin History Center
He died a year later in 1981, as Roy’s Taxi marked its 50th anniversary of operations. Roy’s family continued to run the business, even as fares dwindled in the late 90s and early 2000s, but finally sold the outfit to competitor Yellow Cab in 2006. Though Roy didn’t live to see the rise of ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft that would further diminish the taxi industry, he might find it ironic that the discrimination against passengers of color that encouraged him to found his own business in the first place is still a recurring problem for these allegedly modern enterprises.
I fight for my people, whether black, brown, or white. If they are right, I fight for them. No question about it . . . I always respect people and I demand the same thing. Everyone has a right to dream, a right to think, and a right to straighten himself out.
— Roy Velasquez
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