Courtesy of James Dolan.

Jim Dolan’s family moved to Dallas in 1954, when he was 3, so that they could be near Seagoville Federal Penitentiary, where his father was finishing a sentence. Discharged from prison in 1957, James Henry ‘Doc’ Dolan, went to work at Sears on Jefferson. In 1959, he became the head of the local office of American Guild of Variety Artists, or AGVA. As such, he looked after the careers of jugglers, knife throwers, comics, circus acts and … oh, yeah, strippers. He probably got this job through Mob connections. It was well known in those days that AGVA was a front of sorts and operated more as a protection racket. Read more about Doc Dolan’s mob connections and his mention in the Warren Commission Report here.

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THE BACK STORY

Teens at the assassination: For students at Adamson High School, the JFK assassination was not just a national tragedy; it was a neighborhood one. (More)

Commemoration: As they do every year on the anniversary, the Texas Theatre showed the double feature that played on the day of the assassination, when Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested at the theater, “War is Hell” and “Cry of Battle”.

T-BONE WALKER

Aaron Thibeaux Walker made his recording debut on Columbia Records in 1929 as Oak Cliff T-Bone. Picking his guitar and with piano accompaniment, Walker recorded “Wichita Falls Blues” and “Trinity River Blues” as the B-side. “That dirty Trinity River sure have done me wrong,” the song goes. “It came in my windows and doors, now all my things are gone.” T-Bone Walker grew up in Oak Cliff’s Tenth Street neighborhood, now an endangered historic district that is one of the only remaining freedmen’s towns in the United States, at a time when the levees weren’t as reliable as they are now. T-Bone Walker, who was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame after his death, is the reason Jimi Hendrix played guitar behind his head and why we call it “Stormy Monday.” (More)