R. O'Hara Lanier to Jester, April 14, 1949
A second aspect of education that Governor Jester faced
was the push for desegregation of public universities. Jester was
committed to maintaining a dual system of education, with separate
facilities for whites and blacks. Increasingly, the courts were ruling
against Jester's way of thinking, telling states that universities
must offer comparable programs for white and black citizens. Now Texas
faced such a legal challenge when Heman M. Sweatt filed a lawsuit
to force desegregation of the University of Texas law school. Sweatt
met all qualifications for the law school except for his race, and
argued that that he must be admitted since no other facility in Texas
was available for him to study law.
Jester and others hoped to preserve the dual system
with an ambitious plan to build a "Texas Negro University"
that would be comparable to the University of Texas. The Texas State
University for Negroes was established by the legislature in 1947
and began to hold classes on the campus of the Houston College for
Negroes. The legislature authorized the university to offer a full
range of degree programs, including pharmacy, dentistry, arts and
sciences, journalism, education, literature, law, and medicine, all
to be equivalent to those offered at the University of Texas.
Ralphael O'Hara Lanier was appointed the the first president
of the new university. Lanier was a long-time college administrator
who had most recently worked for the United Nations and as United
States ambassador to Liberia, the first African American to be an
ambassador in over 50 years. As president of the college, Lanier had
to balance the conflicting desires of African Americans, who supported
the black university while continuing to fight for integration. Lanier
was also constantly under fire from the white establishment.
Despite the creation of the new university, the Supreme
Court ruled in 1950 that Texas must desegregate its institutions of
higher learning. The case of Sweatt v. Painter was a landmark
in the overturning of the separate but equal doctrine. It paved the
way for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision
that invalidated segregration in the public schools.
In 1951, the Texas State University for Negroes was
renamed Texas Southern University. Today TSU continues to offer a
full range of undergraduate and graduate programs to over 10,000 students
and houses several major research centers. Its alumni include Barbara
Jordan and Mickey Leland.
"The
Politics of Personality"
"The
Politics of Personality"
R. O'Hara Lanier to Jester, April 14,
1949, Records of Beauford H. Jester, Texas Office of the Governor,
Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and
Archives Commission.
