Who Runs Fort Worth?

Understanding the Structure of "The Fort Worth Way"

Ok, so as Mendi and I have gotten more active in Fort Worth, people share things that we haven’t seen before. This week had a killer share, and I wanted to push it out more broadly.

In D Magazine on November 1, 1995 (holy smokes, that’s a full 30 years ago!), Katie Sherrod wrote an incredibly detailed piece titled “Who Runs Fort Worth”, focused on the Bass family, and the broader Fort Worth political eco-system. It’s a fabulous read overall, but I’m going to zero in on the descriptions she leveraged talking about Tiers in Fort Worth. Most of what comes below will be Katie’s words. I’ll flag where it’s my input. Let’s dive in!

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Tier One

The first tier at the top is the smallest, made up of the ruling families of Fort Worth. These are the “old” families, people with deep roots in the city and, usually, deeper pockets.

These people live in Westover Hills or Rivercrest, and usually belong to River Crest and Shady Oaks country clubs, the Fort Worth Club, the Petroleum Club, and the Jewel Charity Ball. They attend the most prestigious of the benefit galas, and sometimes, act as honorary chairs of such events. The women make their debuts at the Assembly Ball. The men usually are members of the Exchange Club.

When any of these people say they want something to happen, it’s going to happen. When any of these people say they don’t want something to happen, it’s not going to happen.

Tier Two

The second tier includes the corporate, professional, and political elite of the city: the Mayor and some, but not all, of the City Council; corporate CEOs, high-profile artists; and, when they are interested, most of the rest of “social” Fort Worth.

When these people want something to happen, it will nearly always happen-unless it contradicts something the top tier wants. These people are nearly always allowed to act as if they were top tier.

The only civic interest for many of the “social” people is the Fort Worth Zoo. They support the symphony, ballet, opera, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and all the museums. They attend all the benefit galas. The women often are in charge of such galas. These people hangout at the Fort Worth Club, City Club, River Crest Country Club, and Ridglea Country Club. Some, but not all, of the men belong to the Exchange Club, Some of the women made their debuts at the Steeplechase Ball, and a few older families belong to the Assembly. Nearly all the women are or were members of the Junior League. Both rabbis are in the second tier, but only a couple of ministers rank, this high.

Tier Three

The third tier includes the professional and the employed body of people who live and work in Fort Worth, people who often have their jobs because of what the top two layers do. This fact is never far from their minds, and it often governs just how far they are willing to push the top two tiers. Only those with independent means can afford to be really uppity.

This tier includes the school superintendent and the school board members; the county commissioners; board members of social service agencies, especially those where Junior League members do volunteer work; most of the churches; most of the business community; and the more affluent African-American and Hispanic professionals.

These people frequently act as both a goad and a brake for the top two layers. These are the people who run up flags to call attention to needs in the community and make proposals for programs, developments, etc. to tend to those needs. Usually these ideas are stopped at the second level, where they either are acted on or dismissed. Too many of the ideas from the minority community are greeted with mildly patronizing politeness. But enough get through all the way to the top tier to keep this third level from getting too unhappy.

Third-tier people hang out at the Paris Coffee Shop. Some belong to the Colonial Country Club, but most play golf at municipal courses. Nearly all the women have careers, and their families and kids are important to them. They also support the symphony, ballet, and the museums. The men and some of the women belong to Rotary and other service clubs and sometimes get “loaned” to the United Way campaign. Those lucky few who belong to the prestigious Downtown Rotary are able to rub shoulders with people from both the second and first tiers, and even, occasionally, with a Bass or two.

Tier Four

The fourth tier of the pyramid, the biggest and the bottommost, is made up of those with lower incomes, the poor, the uneducated, the voiceless, and those who not only don’t know who most of the top tier are, they don’t even know to care where the Fort Worth Club is.

These are the people whom the third tier is frequently trying to get the second and first tier to help, if only out of enlightened self interest.

Ok, so how does that all play into “The Fort Worth Way”? It’s via the often times fake politeness, asking those with the most to lose to give things up in order to get crumbs thrown their way, while those in power keep everything they want. (That was me. Now back to Katie.)

This is “The Fort Worth Way”

However, there is politeness, and there is politeness. Fort Worth’s elite have honed politeness to an art that would make Chinese Mandarins look crass. There is the friendly, even affectionate, politeness with which one listens to one’s peers. Then there is the mannerly politeness that is the hallmark of social and civic interaction in Fort Worth.

And then there is the mildly patronizing politeness that makes many of the people on the third layer think they are in the second layer - they always are listened to with great politeness. But as someone once said of this kind of civility. “Politeness is just organized indifference.” Many of Fort Worth’s professional African-Americans and Hispanics are well-acquainted with this type of polite indifference, as are nearly all female professionals.

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Mendi and I lived in Fort Worth in 1995. We had just gotten together, didn’t have kids yet, and were certainly not paying attention to politics. But man o’ man, reading this in 2025, even with the lens from 30 years ago, the echoes are all still there, still running the city the same way, with this push to silence dissent. Raise your voice and you might get “advice” coming from those “in the game” that you might not want to push, as you will get lumped in with “those people”. AYFKM? “Those people” are the good ones, who are actively advocating for people, and not just rich, white, straight, christian men.

If you want to push back on The Fort Worth Way and upend the pyramid Katie described, there are many groups you can work with, but I’ll tell you, we have found Tribe in this city. You’ve hopefully seen some of the videos we’ve put out there, showing our engagement at Tarrant County Commissioners Court, at Fort Worth City Council meetings, and at protests here in Fort Worth. We are all working to make sure moments can become a movement, and we can upend The Fort Worth Way.

We’d love to see you join us. Feel free to reach out and I can get you details on how!