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https://www.dallasnews.comnews/curious-texas/2018/09/25/why-did-texas-have-a-poll-tax-and-when-did-it-end-curious-texas-investigates/

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The Slocum Massacre occurred on July 29, 1910 in Slocum, Texas, an unincorporated community in southeast Anderson County. The city used to be home to a thriving African American community with several businesses and farms owned by black residents. Leading up to the massacre, a … Read MoreThe Slocum…

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Colored Carnegie Library, Houston, Texas (1913-1961) •

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The Colored Carnegie Library was a segregated branch of the Houston Lyceum and Carnegie Library (later the Houston Public Library). It opened in 1913 in Houston’s Fourth Ward and was one of the first public libraries for African-Americans west of the Mississippi River. It was … Read MoreColored Carn…

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In his Commencement Address at Washington, D.C.'s Howard University in June 1924, almost six years after World War I ended, President Calvin Coolidge paid tribute to African Americans who had fought in it:

The colored people have repeatedly proved their devotion to the high ideals of our country. They gave their services in the war with the same patriotism and readiness that other citizens did. The records of the selective draft show that somewhat more than 2,250,000 colored men were registered. The records further prove that, far from seeking to avoid participation in the national defense, they showed that they wished to enlist before the selective service act was put into operation, and they did not attempt to evade that act afterwards.

American involvement in that European calamity remains controversial to this day. Personally, I regard it as one of the two greatest foreign policy blunders since the dawn of the 20th Century (the other being the Iraq War of 2003). However, one can oppose the decisions of politicians and still admire the battlefield valor of those who carried them out.

Many individuals of the regiment received the US Army's second-highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross. Posthumously, Henry Johnson received America's Medal of Honor in 2015.

When Woodrow Wilson and the Congress committed America to the war in April 1917, the country's black citizens could rightfully ask (and some did), "What's in it for us?" Wilson said America must "make the world safe for democracy" but right here at home, democracy was all too often denied to blacks. Wilson himself regarded them as second-class citizens. He promoted segregation throughout the federal government and turned a blind eye to discrimination by state and local governments.

Nonetheless, African Americans went to war, many of them hoping they might defeat both Germans abroad and racism at home if they proved themselves in battle. Coolidge's high praise was richly earned, and no contingent of African Americans deserved it more than the US Army's 369th Infantry, a volunteer regiment known as the Harlem Hellfighters.

Where did their nickname come from? Harlem (in New York City) was home to many of the enlistees. No one seems sure, but it was either the French or the Germans who first referred to them as Hellfighters because of the fierceness with which they fought. And none fought more ferociously than Henry Johnson. On one night in the Argonne Forest, Johnson endured 21 wounds as he killed four Germans in hand-to-hand combat and rescued a fellow American-all in a matter of minutes. An entire platoon of 28 German soldiers scattered and fled at the sight of Johnson's prowess.

No American unit experienced more time in combat than they did-no less than 191 days under fire.

Formed from a New York National Guard unit, the men of the 369th learned basic military practices at Camp Whitman, New York, before being sent to Camp Wadsworth in Spartanburg, South Carolina, for combat training. They were not welcomed by many of the locals there, and some were subjected to discrimination and vile epithets for no more reason than their color. In December 1917, they were shipped to France where they expected to see action on the front lines.

Their high spirits were quickly dashed when it became apparent the Army did not want to deploy them for anything other than manual labor, far from the fighting. Even the rifles they brought with them were confiscated by US Army officials.

The commander of the American Expeditionary Force, General John J. Pershing, was reluctant to commit any US troops to the front until he felt he had assembled them in sufficient numbers to ensure victory. The French, meanwhile, were desperate for manpower. Finally bowing to French pressure, Pershing gave them the 369th. While some regarded black troops as expendable, they ultimately proved themselves indispensable.

Consider this amazing record of the Harlem Hellfighters: No American unit experienced more time in combat than they did-no less than 191 days under fire. They never lost an inch of ground. The enemy never captured a single of their number. They suffered the highest casualty rate of any US regiment. None deserted. The grateful French bestowed their highest military honor, the Croix de Guerre, upon the entire regiment. Many individuals of the regiment received the US Army's second-highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross. Posthumously, Henry Johnson received America's Medal of Honor in 2015. The 369th ended up as the most decorated US regiment of the war.

Another distinguishing feature of the Harlem Hellfighters was their band, the largest and best-known of any regiment. Its leader was James Reese Europe, whose enlistment in 1917 proved to be a boon for recruitment. He was one of America's best-known black musicians and others like Noble Sissle, who became Europe's lieutenant and lead vocalist, were eager to serve with him.

No matter what you think about America entering World War I, and no matter what color your skin, you can celebrate the heroic Harlem Hellfighters.

Europe's band was extremely popular with the French, even when Europe introduced his own arrangement of La Marseillaise, France's national anthem. The Hellfighters' band brought both jazz and ragtime music to France, where nobody had heard either before.

James Reese Europe was tragically murdered in May 1919 by a disgruntled band member. Sissle went on to great fame in music and stage. He formed a life-long partnership with black musician Eubie Blake. The musical that the two of them produced in 1921, Shuffle Along, ran for more than 500 performances on Broadway and is credited with igniting the magnificent flowering of culture we know as the Harlem Renaissance.

No story of the Harlem Hellfighters, which I encourage readers to explore through the links provided below, would be complete without a mention of a white man, Col. William Hayward, a native of Nebraska. Hayward served as the regiment's commander from its inception. He was a champion of black soldiers and loved by his men, in whom Hayward never lost faith. He was an unwavering defender of equal rights for all colors. When the 369th returned to New York in 1919, it was Hayward (not Wilson or Pershing) who ensured there would be a massive parade to welcome them. That reception by cheering throngs in the streets of New York was a glorious moment of racial harmony.

No matter what you think about America entering World War I, and no matter what color your skin, you can celebrate the heroic Harlem Hellfighters. They were among the best.

For additional information, see:

The Harlem Hellfighters: When Pride Met Courage by Walter Dean Myers and Bill Miles

The Hellfighters of Harlem by Bill Harris

The Harlem Hellfighters (novel) by Max Brooks

One Hundred Years Ago, the Harlem Hellfighters Bravely Led the U.S. Into World War I by Erick Trickey

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The Harlem Hellfighters: The Incredible Story Behind the Most Decorated US Regiment in WWI | Lawrence W. Reed

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Despite mistreatment from the US Army, the Harlem Hellfighters never lost an inch of ground. The enemy never captured a single of their number. They suffered the highest casualty rate of any US regiment. None deserted. The grateful French bestowed their highest military honor, the Croix de Guerre, upon the entire regiment.

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the formation of the naacp in texas 1915

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the formation of the naacp in texas 1915

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Lynching of Jesse Washington - Wikipedia

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Large crowd looking at the burned body of Washington

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Smith v. Allwright (1944) represented the last and most significant of the "Texas Primary Cases," which involved efforts by African Americans to register as Democrats and vote in the party's primary elections. Following the Civil War, Congress created the Fourteenth Amendment, which promised equal justice under law for all Americans, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbade discrimination in voting rights based on race. In 1923, the Texas legislature amended a state primary law prohibiting people of color from voting in primary elections for political parties. As the Democratic Party represented the only organized political organization in the state, Democratic primary elections were essentially the only opportunity voters had in expressing their voices. With the support of the NAACP, Dr. Lawrence A. Nixon had successfully maintained the rights of African-Americans to register as Democrats and vote in primary elections in two U.S. Supreme Court cases, Nixon v. Herndon (1927) and Nixon v. Condon (1935). In both cases, however, the High Court ruled narrowly that the Texas primary law violated Nixon's Fourteenth Amendment equal protection rights and declined to rule on whether his Fifteenth Amendment rights had been violated. In 1934, Richard Randolph Grovey, a Houston barber and political activist, sued county clerk Edward Townsend for refusing to grant him a ballot in a Democratic primary election. In the subsequent case of Grovey v. Townsend (1935), Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts ruled that political parties were voluntary political organizations not subject to the state.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, many African Americans had strongly supported President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal plans and the Allied effort in the Second World War. Black activists, including A. Philip Randolph, argued that Americans should fight not only for freedom abroad but civil rights at home.

Born in Yoakum, Texas, in 1901, Lonnie E. Smith received a Doctor of Dental Surgery from Meharry Medical School in 1924 and opened a dental practice in Houston in 1929. Like Nixon and Grovey, he was a white-collar professional and active community organizer with a solid reputation in Houston's black and white communities. Supported by NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, Smith launched a test case to overturn the Democratic party's monopoly on voting in state elections. Marshall argued in Federal Court that by denying his client, a ballot for a Democratic party primary election, Harris county election official S.S. Allwright had deprived Smith of both his Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment rights. Marshall also cited the recent Supreme Court case of United v. Classic (1941) that political parties were subject to state regulation. Attorneys for Allwright countered by citing Grovey v. Townsend (1932), which maintained that political parties could set membership and voting standards as they saw fit as private organizations. They continued that if the court ruled against their favor, they would directly contradict themselves. The Smith v. Allwright case was first argued on November 10, 1943, then reargued on January 12, 1944. The Supreme Court ultimately came to its decision on April 3, 1944.

Constitutional Issue Raised in the Case

Was the Democratic Party violating Black citizens' Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment rights by denying them the right to vote in the party's primary?

Citation and Decision

Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944) | Full Decision

Speaking for an 8-1 majority, Associate Justice Stanley Reed argued that under the Fifteenth Amendment, the United States granted each of its citizens "a right to participate in the choice of elected officials without restriction by any state because of race." Relying on U.S. v. Classic, Reed insisted that a state could not nullify this right "through casting its electoral process in a form which permits a private organization to practice racial discrimination in the election." Justice Owen J. Roberts, who had authored the Grovey decision twelve years earlier, wrote a dissenting opinion which argued by reversing itself so soon after Grovey v. Townsend, the High Court "should now itself become the breeder of fresh doubt and confusion in the public mind as to the stability of our institutions."

Following Smith v. Allwright, political parties across the country began to desegregate their membership and voting requirements. In later years Lonnie Smith would become head of the Houston NAACP and a Democratic Precinct Captain of the precinct where he had initially been denied a ballot. Thurgood Marshall, who would consider Smith one of his most significant legal victories, would become the first African-American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Discussion Questions

1. Can state legislatures pass laws that violate Supreme Court precedents?

2. Did Texas violate Smith's constitutional rights via the Democratic Party?

3. Are the individual parties under the same Congressional authority as the state, or are they subject to oversight?

4. How was the "White Primary" affected by this case?

5. What changed between Grovey v. Townsend and Smith v. Allwright that caused the court to gain a new perspective?

NAACP: Smith v. Allwright

National Park Service: Racial Voting Rights

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Smith v Allwright 1944 | Lone Star High Court

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Smith v. Allwright (1944) represented the last and most significant of the "Texas Primary Cases," which involved efforts by African Americans to register as Democrats and vote in the party's primary elections. Following the Civil War, Congress created the Fourteenth Amendment, which promised equal justice under law for all Americans, and the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbade discrimination in voting rights based on race.

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Juanita J. Craft Feb. 9, 1902-Aug. 6, 1985

Juanita Craft was born in Round Rock as the granddaughter of former slaves and the daughter of schoolteachers. When her mother died of tuberculosis in 1918 after being denied care at a Whites-only facility, the experience ignited a fire in Craft, who went on to devote her life to desegregating Texas.

While working as a maid at The Adolphus Hotel in 1935, Craft joined the NAACP. In 1942, she chaired the organization's Dallas membership committee and increased chapter membership numbers to the third-highest in the country. Two years later, Craft became the first Black woman to vote in a Dallas County public election.

The Collections of the Dallas History & Archives Division, Dallas Public Library

Throughout the 1950s, she organized numerous anti-segregation protests. Her 1955 protest of the State Fair of Texas led to the event's eventual desegregation.

Craft also fought to integrate some of the largest education systems in the state and succeeded in her efforts to desegregate theaters, restaurants, and trains.

In 1975, Craft was elected to represent District 6 on the Dallas City Council. She devoted her two terms to advancing the rights of Hispanic and Native American Texans, seeing herself as a defender of every American's civil rights.

D CEO Newsletter

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Early Influencers: The First Lady of Dallas Civil Rights - D Magazine

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Juanita J. Craft Feb. 9, 1902-Aug. 6, 1985 Juanita Craft was born in Round Rock as the granddaughter of former slaves and the daughter of schoolteachers. When her mother died of tuberculosis in 1918 after being denied care at a Whites-only facility, the experience ignited a fire in Craft, who went on to devote her life to desegregating Texas.

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Prints & Photographs Collection, Heman Sweatt file,
The Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin

In 1946, Heman Marion Sweatt applied for admission to the University of Texas School of Law, which was at the time an all-white institution. Sweatt met all eligibility requirements for admission except for his race. At that time, Article VII, Section 7 of the Texas Constitution read: "Separate schools shall be provided for the white and colored children, and impartial provision shall be made for both." Based on the Texas constitution, the university registrar rejected his application because Sweatt was black and the University of Texas was a segregated institution. With assistance from NAACP counsel, Sweatt sued in state court, requesting that the court require state and university officials to enroll him. The trial judge continued the case to give the state an opportunity to establish a "separate but equal" law school, and a temporary law school was opened in February 1947, known as the School of Law of the Texas State University for Negroes.

At the School of Law of the Texas State University for Negroes, students had access to the Texas Supreme Court library, and several members of the law faculty of the University of Texas School of Law taught classes. After the establishment of the black law school, the state court dismissed Sweatt's case. Sweatt appealed the dismissal of the case to the United States Supreme Court, claiming that the Texas admissions scheme continued to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court ruled that in states where public graduate and professional schools existed for white students but not for black students, black students must be admitted to the all-white institutions, and that the equal protection clause required Sweatt's admission to the University of Texas School of Law. In the summer of 1950, Horace Heath enrolled in the Graduate School of Government and John Chase enrolled in the architecture program at the University of Texas. Heman Marion Sweatt entered law school at the University of Texas in the fall of 1950, as did several other blacks.

The case had a direct impact on the University of Texas because it permitted black applicants to apply to graduate and professional programs. However, black students could only pursue those degrees that were not available from segregated black universities such as Prairie View A&M University and Texas State University for Negroes, now known as Texas Southern University. Since the University of Texas adopted a narrow interpretation of Sweatt, black undergraduate students were not admitted. Graduate students, however, were allowed to enroll in undergraduate courses when necessary for their program.

At the same time the Supreme Court considered the Sweatt case, it reviewed the policies of the University of Oklahoma in McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. On January 28, 1948, a retired black professor, George McLaurin, applied to the University of Oklahoma to pursue a Doctorate in Education. University authorities were required to deny him admission because of his race under Oklahoma statutes making it a misdemeanor to maintain, operate, teach, or attend a school at which both whites and blacks were enrolled or taught. McLaurin filed a complaint to gain admission. On October 6, the Court for the Western District of Oklahoma found those parts of the Oklahoma statute that denied McLaurin admission unconstitutional, and held that the state had a constitutional duty to provide McLaurin with the education he sought as soon as it provided that education for applicants of any other group. With this ruling the University's Board of Regents voted to admit McLaurin, but on a segregated basis.

On October 13, 1948, McLaurin entered the University. He sat at a designated desk on the mezzanine level of Bizzell Library rather than in the regular reading room, at a desk in an anteroom adjoining Classroom 104 in Carnegie Hall, and ate at a separate time from the white students in the cafeteria. McLaurin once again filed suit, claiming that this segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that as a result of McLaurin's segregation he was "handicapped in his pursuit of effective graduate instruction. Such restrictions impair and inhibit his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession."

With Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the Supreme Court began to overturn the separate but equal doctrine in public education by requiring graduate and professional schools to admit black students.

View Case: Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950)

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Tarlton Law Library: The Papers of Justice Tom C. Clark: Sweatt v. Painter (1950)

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In 1946, Heman Marion Sweatt applied for admission to the University of Texas School of Law, which was at the time an all-white institution. Sweatt met all eligibility requirements for admission except for his race.

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D. Joe Williams’s Hall of Fame Rings | Bullock Texas State History Museum

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D. Joe Williams (1936-2013) was the first African American to integrate collegiate sports in Texas. In recognition of his athletic excellence, Williams was inducted into three different Texas sports Halls of Fame.

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Editor's Note: This is a companion piece to our November cover story, "The Fair Park Lie." While the piece below stands alone, it is intended to expand on the themes within the larger story. Read it here.
To get to Music Hall for the performance of Mame that evening in 1970, many patrons would have passed the site where the Hall of Negro Life once stood. It was just 500 feet away. By then, it was a parking lot.

The Hall of Negro Life was built for the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936, along with the art deco buildings that still line the esplanade. Like them, the hall was designed by famed Dallas architect George L. Dahl. Though the exhibition wasn't included in the original plans-it was funded by the federal government and practically willed into existence by A. Maceo Smith, the president of the Dallas Negro Chamber of Commerce-the Hall of Negro Life proved to be one of the most popular attractions of the Texas Centennial. It drew more than 400,000 visitors during its run, at least 275,000 of whom were White, as general manager Jesse O. Thomas (of the National Urban League) noted in his 1938 book, Negro Participation in the Texas Centennial Exposition.

"Many of the white people came in expecting to see on display some agricultural products, some canned goods, and 'Black Mammy' pictures, as many of them suggested," Thomas wrote. Instead, guests were greeted by four murals by Harlem Renaissance painter Aaron Douglas and given a copy of W.E.B. DuBois' pamphlet "What the Negro Has Done for the United States and Texas." Then they were shown exactly what that meant, with displays celebrating advancements by Black Americans in science and medicine, education, literature, and music.

"They were so shocked with what they saw," Thomas wrote, "many of them expressed doubt as to the Negroes' ability to produce the things there on exhibit. All of them went away with a higher appreciation of the Negroes' contribution to American culture and with a more tolerant attitude toward the Negroes' effort."

Despite this, or maybe because of it, the Hall of Negro Life was demolished almost immediately, gone in less than a year, the only one of Dahl's buildings to suffer that fate. It was replaced by a swimming pool for Whites only; when segregation ended, instead of opening to Black swimmers, it was filled in and became a parking lot, which it remained until the African American Museum opened there in 1993.

Given Fair Park's tortured history with race, the only surprise is the continued presence of the African American Museum. Fair Park has mostly taken from Black people; it rarely gives back. It has operated that way since the beginning.

The Dallas State Fair & Exposition was chartered in 1886, on 80 acres of what some called "the worst kind of hog wallow," according to Willis Winters' 2010 book, Fair Park. Organizers paid $200 per acre for the land, just on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, on what would become the back part of the fairgrounds.

The first designated day for Black people to attend the fair came in 1889, dubbed Colored People's Day. There were speakers-Booker T. Washington was brought in to make an address in 1900-and special events and exhibits. By all accounts, it was a success, at least for what it was. But it was discontinued in 1910.

In the meantime, another group was welcomed: the State Fair of Texas officially designated October 23, 1923, as Ku Klux Klan Day. Dallas Klan No. 66, established in late 1920, had risen to become the largest chapter in the world, according to its members, which eventually numbered 13,000 in a city of scarcely more than 150,000; one in three White men of eligible age was a Klansman. Ku Klux Klan Day brought in 160,000 visitors (one of its highest weekday totals). Twenty-five thousand of them gathered at the football field that night to watch the largest Klan initiation ceremony ever: 5,631 men were added to the ranks, with 800 women joining the auxiliary.

It was the high point for the Klan in Dallas; its membership began to dwindle, along with its local political influence, which was vast in the 1920s. Still, historian Darwin Payne notes that the Klan was able to keep a full-time office near Fair Park as late as 1929.

With the Klan mostly gone again, a day set aside for Black people to attend the fair returned in 1936, now called Negro Achievement Day. It was set up like an entire run of the fair stuffed into one day, with a parade, a pageant to name a queen, an awards ceremony honoring the Most Distinguished Negro Citizen, and football games (high school in the afternoon, college at night).

That didn't make up for not being able to participate in the fair all those other days. It didn't make up for what happened at the fair all those other days.

"You had African Americans humiliated routinely at Fair Park," the historian and author Michael Phillips ( White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001) told a group at a town hall meeting in 2016. "There was a dunking booth where an African American would be sat in a chair. You hit the target and he would be dumped to the water. And this is actually the slogan on the sides: 'Hit the trigger, dump the Negro.' "

The NAACP Youth Council, under the leadership of Juanita Craft, staged a boycott of Negro Achievement Day in 1955, picketing with signs like "Don't sell your pride for a segregated ride!" By lunchtime, the protest had drawn attention from media across the country.

"Why would I come here for this day and give every penny that I have to this concern who won't let me come back tomorrow?" Craft said later.

By 1957, the event had become known simply as Achievement Day; by 1961, it was removed from the schedule entirely. As a policy, segregation at the fair had ended. Officially, at any rate. By 1970, Fair Park had only been fully integrated for about three years, and, in fact, many said discrimination lingered around a couple of Midway rides until just the year before.

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A Brief History of Racism at Fair Park - D Magazine

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Editor's Note: This is a companion piece to our November cover story, "The Fair Park Lie." While the piece below stands alone, it is intended to expand on the themes within the larger story. Read it here .

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George N. Green General Entry

Though the Mansfield school district, seventeen miles southeast of Fort Worth, numbered fewer than 700 Whites and sixty Blacks in 1956, it segregated Black children to an inferior elementary school. Black teenagers were obliged to ride public buses, which dropped them twenty blocks from a school in Fort Worth. In response to a suit brought by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on behalf of three Black high school students, the Mansfield school district was the first in the state ordered by a federal court to desegregate. The school board acquiesced, but White citizens resisted, aided by the complicity of the mayor and chief of police. While some 100 other, mostly West Texas, school districts desegregated quietly that fall, angry mobs of 300 to 400 Whites ringed Mansfield High School on August 30 and 31, preventing the enrollment of the three students. During demonstrations Whites hanged three Blacks in effigy, roughed up several outside observers, and threatened the sheriff. Downtown stores closed in a show of support. Vigilantes met all cars entering town, barring suspected sympathizers with integration. Governor Allan Shivers, calling the Mansfield demonstration an orderly protest, defied the federal court order by dispatching Texas Rangers to uphold segregation and authorizing the Mansfield school board to transfer Black students to Fort Worth. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in the midst of a reelection campaign, did not intervene.

The demonstrations ended as the status quo was restored. The Mansfield uprising was the nation's first clear example of failure to enforce a federal court order for the desegregation of a public school. The Eisenhower administration took no action until the next year, when a similar, more visible situation arose in Little Rock, Arkansas, where Governor Orval Faubus's resistance to integration was possibly inspired by Governor Shivers's success in Mansfield. The Mansfield uprising was an apparent factor in the passage of the state's 1957 segregation laws, which delayed integration for several years. In 1965, faced with the loss of federal funds, the Mansfield school district quietly desegregated.

George N. Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1979). Texas Observer, September 5, 1956, June 9, 1978.

Categories:

Education

Infamous Moments, Groups, and Events

Law, Law Enforcement, and Outlaws

Vigilante Activity/Mob Violence

Peoples

African Americans

Activism and Social Reform

Civil Rights, Segregation, and Slavery

Places:

Dallas/Fort Worth Region

North Texas

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

George N. Green, "Mansfield School Desegregation Incident," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 02, 2021, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/mansfield-school-desegregation-incident.

Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

This entry belongs to the following Handbook Special Projects:

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George N. Green General Entry Though the Mansfield school district, seventeen miles southeast of Fort Worth, numbered fewer than 700 Whites and sixty Blacks in 1956, it segregated Black children to an inferior elementary school. Black teenagers were obliged to ride public buses, which dropped them twenty blocks from a school in Fort Worth.

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University of Texas at El Paso Flowsheet student yearbook

The 1966 championship game for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament came down to a test between a small southwestern institution, El Paso's Texas Western College Miners, and an accomplished four-time NCAA tournament winner, the University of Kentucky Wildcats. This game, however, proved to be more than just a challenge by the Miners, a multi-racial team that had joined the NCAA just three years earlier, and an all-white opponent, the Wildcats, widely considered the strongest basketball team in the nation. This game, according to many sports observers, forever changed major college basketball. The Miners' unexpected victory demonstrated that African American players had the skill to control the game as well as a white team, and ultimately better than the best white team.

The 1966 Miners consisted of seven African Americans: Bobby Joe Hill, Orsten Artis, Willie Worsley, Willie Cager, Nevil Shed, Harry Flournoy, and David Lattin; four Anglo Americans: Jerry Armstrong, Louis Baudoin, Dick Meyers, and Togo Railey; and one Mexican American, Dave Palacio. The opposing team contained all Anglo Americans, which was not surprising since many African Americans gained access to Southern colleges only in the 1960s. While some southern white campuses desegregated and blacks could attend classes, they were still usually excluded from team sports. No major white institution in the South or Southwest recruited black basketball players.

In contrast to other Texas colleges and universities, as well as most universities throughout the South, Texas Western experienced integration more than a decade earlier. The Miners' coach, Don Haskins, recruited the best players, regardless of their hue. Adolph Rupp, on the other hand, the legendary coach and strategist of the Kentucky Wildcats, admitted he did not seek black players for his team.

The Miners arrived in Kentucky for the championship game on March 19, 1966. The sports announcers and writers expected an overwhelming win for the Wildcats. However, Haskins understood the pressure his team faced and sent in his best players, all African Americans. At first, Kentucky gained the advantage, but soon the Miners captured the lead during the first half and ended the final quarter with a Miner 72-65 win. This victory, according to sports writer and historian Charles Martin, "was a watershed event" because it encouraged other schools to recruit African American players.

In 2006, the movie Glory Road, depicting the significance of this game, was released. The following year, the team was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. On February 6, 2016, the now University of Texas El Paso Miners held a reunion for the 1966 players at the Don Haskins Center. The opening ceremony heard an address from President Barack Obama, which included these words: "...by becoming the first team to win an NCAA title with five black starters, the Miners weren't just champs on the court: They helped change the rules of the game. They didn't know it at the time, but their contribution to civil rights was as important as any other..." "...Go Miners!"

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The 1966 championship game for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament came down to a test between a small southwestern institution, El Paso's Texas Western College Miners, and an accomplished four-time NCAA tournament winner, the University of Kentucky Wildcats. This game, however, proved ...

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Barbara Jordan was born in Houston's Fifth Ward in 1936 and attended segregated schools until she enrolled at Boston University Law School. In 1966, she began her historic political career when she became the first African American woman elected to the Texas Senate. Six years later, she won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first African American woman from a southern state to serve in the body. Jordan mastered the art of political compromise but never wavered in her commitment to the Constitution. More"

Texas Originals is also available on iTunes! Subscribe to the podcast today to download all episodes that have aired to date and to automatically receive future episodes.

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Texas Originals: Barbara Jordan | Humanities Texas

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Barbara Jordan was born in Houston's Fifth Ward in 1936 and attended segregated schools until she enrolled at Boston University Law School. In 1966, she began her historic political career when she became the first African American woman elected to the Texas Senate. Six years later, she won election to the U.S.

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The Texas Legislative Black Caucus was formed in 1973 and consisted of eight members. These founding members were: Rep. Anthony Hall (Houston), Rep. Mickey Leland (Houston), Rep. Senfronia Thompson (Houston), Rep. Craig Washington (Houston), Rep. Sam Hudson (Dallas), Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Dallas), Rep. Paul Ragsdale (Dallas), and Rep. G.J. Sutton (San Antonio). The TxLBC is currently composed of 17 Members of the Texas House of Representatives and two Senators of the Texas Senate committed to addressing the issues African Americans face across the State of Texas. Rep. Nicole Collier (Fort Worth) currently serves as Chair of TxLBC for the 87th Texas Legislative Session.

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The Texas Legislative Black Caucus was formed in 1973 and consisted of eight members. These founding members were: Rep. Anthony Hall (Houston), Rep. Mickey Leland (Houston), Rep. Senfronia Thompson (Houston), Rep. Craig Washington (Houston), Rep. Sam Hudson (Dallas), Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (Dallas), Rep. Paul Ragsdale (Dallas), and Rep. G.J.