EAGLE LAKE, Texas – Eagle Lake is a charming town just west of Houston.

With a population of 3,684 people, it would seem that it would be the kind of place where everyone gets along.  But beneath its idyllic surface runs an undercurrent of discontent.

“It's just sad that after all these years, it doesn't seem we've moved forward,” said Renee Cooper, Eagle Lake resident.

Cooper lives in Eagle Lake and is also the town’s former mayor and a former city council member.

“Everybody claims they aren’t racist or prejudiced.  But then why did they do it?  Did they not think of the consequences?  Did they not think of the people they were going to hurt?” said Cooper.

Cooper is concerned about some photos that recently surfaced on the Internet.  They were apparently taken at a costume party earlier this month in the neighboring town of Garwood.  They show various people in blackfaces.

One of them shows a man with a gun in his belt drinking Old English malt liquor. Another is photo of someone dressed up as a pregnant cheerleader.

But what troubled Cooper more than the people donning the blackfaces was the one person who was not. Apparently, the woman, who was posing next to someone holding a bucket of chicken, is a first grade teacher at Garwood Elementary School.

“It was on a weekend on someone's private property. As she was leaving, some of the people dressed up asked her to take a picture with them,” said Michael Lanier, Rice Consolidated ISD Superintendent. 

While Lanier seemed OK with the woman’s explanation, Cooper was not.

“First of all, once she saw the blackfaces and saw what was going on, I think she should have excused herself from that situation,” said Cooper.

“She was crushed and very upset.  She's a great lady.  She's worked in this district for 31 years in the same building,” said Lanier. 

“They say she's crushed by this, but are you buying it? I think she's crushed because she's afraid to lose her job,” said Cooper.

In a different photo, the same teacher can be seen posing with a man wearing a Barack Obama mask complete with a gold tooth.  In another photo, she’s pointing to the writing on the back of his shirt that reads: “Obama '08. Change we need, but it's yo' dollars we want.”

11 News had hoped to speak to the teacher directly, but Rice Consolidated ISD said she wasn't interested. 

Historically, blackface has been around in America for hundreds of years.

For many, it conjures up images of Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer," but its origins date back a century earlier.

“There is a history that goes with the blackface. It is a deplorable history,” said Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, who works as an English professor at the University of Houston. “Blackface began around the 1830s and 40s, and exponentially increased until 1910.”

Brown-Guillory said after the Civil War, even African-Americans took part in blackface, if only out of economic necessity.

“An artist named Ernest Hogan was an African-American artist who wrote the song 'All Coons Look Alike,'” said Brown-Guillory.

Although blackface performances continued through the mid 1950s, attitudes were changing, and increasingly they were deemed as socially unacceptable. 

“It was never acceptable to black America.  It was always seen as a caricature. It 'otherizes' black Americans. That's the thing that says to black Americans that you don't fit in. You are less than others,” said Brown-Guillory.

As for the situation that happened this month, the school district said that a note has been placed in the teacher's file. But there are no grounds for dismissal as the event occurred after hours and away from school grounds.