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Dallas got its first look at a queen of England on Tuesday. And the queen got to see Dallas, mostly as Dallas would like to be seen.
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, performed their ceremonial royal duties. Dallas, in turn, trotted out its own ceremonies designed to show off a business and artistic center rich with cultural diversity.
But Tuesday evening, that diversity was displayed in a bit more detail than city officials probably had hoped. In addition to the carefully selected welcoming parties and entertainers, protesters objecting to a plan to restructure the City Council awaited the royal party in Fair Park.
About 175 demonstrators, most of them black, chanted: “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!’ The queen was whisked inside for a reception and dinner.
Some signs read “We have no democracy in Dallas,’ “No More Slavery,’ and “End Apartheid in Dallas.’
Uniformed police, some on horseback, kept an eye on the protesters but did not impede their movement inside Fair Park and on Martin Luther King Boulevard outside.
But mostly, the seven-hour royal visit to Dallas went off as planned.
The role of the modern British monarch is not to rule but to play a role. And the queen and her husband did just that on their first visit to the city.
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They smiled often and appreciatively. They waved occasionally. They accepted gifts for which they had little obvious need. (Could they really be short of tea services in England?) She wore fashions suitable for discussion. The theme for this trip was bright floral prints.
They spoke rarely, at least where the public could hear. On the one occasion that she did speak publicly — after dinner in the Great Hall of State — the sound system cut out.
That didn’t stop the queen. Apparently voice projection is part of the imperial training. Most of the 250 guests heard her majesty clearly enough to laugh at the right parts of her brief speech.
One chuckle included the retelling of a famous Lone Star story in which a father chides his son for asking a stranger whether he was a Texan. “Never do that, son,’ recounted the queen. “If a man’s from Texas, he’ll tell you. If he’s not, why embarrass him by asking him?’
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one’s point of view, many of the British news media representatives expected to tour Dallas with the queen never arrived. After the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, many were ordered to fly directly to Houston and then to India.
Despite local and international distractions, much of Dallas seemed enthralled by the royals. People waved, smiled, cheered, performed and otherwise did their best to make sovereignty feel welcome and the city seem splendid.
Christopher Aguado, 12, explained his interest in the queen matter-of-factly. “She came, we saw her, and we got out of school,” he said.
Christopher, a student at Ben Milam Elementary School in Dallas, was one of 150 Boy Scouts who welcomed the queen at Love Field on Tuesday afternoon.
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The official airport greeting committee, however, included Dallas Mayor Annette Strauss and Fort Worth Mayor Kay Granger, who had taken office only hours earlier. Their speedy introductions were made over the strains of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.’
As the queen moved down the receiving line along a red carpet — dressed in a bright blue floral dress and her trademark hat and white gloves — 7-year-old Jasmine Evans presented her with a yellow and blue flower bouquet.
Afterward, Jasmine admitted that she was a little surprised about the monarch’s hair.
“In my teacher’s book, she had black hair,’ she said.
Throughout the day, the queen and her entourage hewed to a schedule that would have daunted the time-management expert for a castle-full of sovereigns.
Their day began in Austin and continued, with more than military precision, in San Antonio. The jet bringing the royal party to Dallas was due to arrive at 1:30 p.m., and indeed, the royal couple’s feet first touched the Love Field runway at 1:32 p.m. Their departure for Houston at 8:50 p.m. was only 20 minutes late.
The first stop in Dallas was the Adolphus Hotel, which provided the queen with its finest, $1,200-a-night suite. Shortly after 3 p.m., the British contingent descended on the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center for a “Dallas Arts Gathering.’
Inside, a nearly full house of more than 2,000 people waited as the Dallas Wind Symphony performed. Dress for the afternoon concert ranged from off-the-shoulder formal to just-came-from-work pantsuits. About two dozen woman wore hats in obvious homage to the queen’s preference for chapeaus.
Kate Tamarkin, associate conductor for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the gathering’s organizer, led the musicians with that imperial aura of command shared by royalty and conductors.
The queen arrived in the hall at 3:12 p.m., a dozen minutes late. She was treated to a recital of song and dance that alternated between the exuberance of Ballet Folklorico Hispano de Dallas, which performed two ethnic dances from the Mexican state of Jalisco, and the classicism of the Dallas String Quartet.
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Both sides of the Atlantic were represented. The Star-Spangled Banner followed God Save the Queen. The words for the latter were recited before the singing so that the mostly American audience would not sing My Country Tis Of Thee to the same melody.
Between each act, a narrator spoke about the city’s history. Dallas pioneer John Neely Bryan’s arrival here in the company of an American Indian was called “Dallas’ first ethnic collaboration.’ Black contributions — gospel music, stories, songs and the blues — were described as “deeply woven into the artistic texture of our city.’
The Dallas visit avoided the contretemps of the Washington portion of the trip. Nobody hugged her majesty in Dallas. And she was never placed behind a too-tall lectern so that only her hat could be seen.
Dallas planners took her royal shortness into consideration. Even the flower arrangements were set lower near the queen, so as not to obstruct anyone’s view.
The visit to Texas, the first ever for a British monarch, was apparently a major success even before its Dallas stop, according to the U.S. chief of protocol.
“Why didn’t I come here sooner?’ Joseph Reed said the queen asked him.
The queen and the prince will bring something home that fairly screams Texas — cowboy boots courtesy of Houston bootmaker R.J. Carroll. Mr. Carroll, who has made boots for President George. H.W. Bush and various heads of state, created custom footwear for the royal couple. Hers are red alligator, his black ostrich. The soles of each are marked with an outline of the state of Texas.
And the couple will have less tangible, but perhaps more important memories, Mrs. Strauss told them.
“We hope, now that you have tasted the magic of Dallas, you will want to return,’ she said. “That would make us very happy.’
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