The University of Texas at Austin's Journey to Integration

Renowned for its city campus, research focus, and its longhorn mascot, the University of Texas at Austin is one of Texas’ first public institutions of higher education. It began instruction in 1883¹ as a white segregated school, but was voted to be placed in Austin by white and black men^2,3. It would take a little more than seven decades for UT-Austin to integrate its admissions⁴ and even longer to stop pushing black communities further eastward to expand its campus⁵. Now it welcomes more than 52,000 students annually⁶ and has held events and started projects to commemorate African Americans’ role in its history⁷.

In the 1876 Texas Constitution, the Texas legislature committed itself to “as soon as practicable, establish, organize and provide for the maintenance, support and direction of a university of the first class, to be located by a vote of the people of this State, and styled “The University of Texas,””⁸. It was meant to be the main public state university in Texas and only white people were to attend. The proposed locations for the University of Texas (UT) to be built included Austin, Waco, Tyler, Thorp Spring. Lampasas, Williams Ranch, Labany, Graham, Matagorda, Caddo Grove, Peak, and Galveston. Rev. Jacob Fontaine, a very influential black pastor and entrepreneur, strongly advocated for the university to be built in Austin9. “He led Black church congregations in the state to vote for Austin as the location of the University of Texas”². Historians do not know why Rev. Fontaine wanted UT to be placed in Austin, but his efforts came to fruition “on Sept. 6, 1881, [when] voters selected Austin for the main university and Galveston for its medical branch”³. The University of Texas at Austin opened in 1883 with one incomplete building called Old Main, eight professors,¹ and two hundred twenty-one white students, fifty-eight of them were women¹⁰. 

UT continued to operate as a white only university until the 1950s. “In 1946, [African American Heman] Sweatt applied for admission to the University of Texas School of Law, but was denied”¹¹ because of his race¹². Instead of accepting his segregated admissions decision, Sweatt, backed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), sued Theophilus S. Painter (UT’s president at the time)¹¹. Sweatt appealed his case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court in what would be known as Sweatt v. Painter. In June 1950, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment required Sweatt's admission to the University of Texas Law School” because there was not a black law school in Texas that was on par with UT’s.¹² That following September, “Sweatt registered at the UT law school”¹¹ becoming the first African American student at the University of Texas¹. 

This was a huge milestone in desegregating institutions of higher education; however, UT only allowed blacks “to apply to graduate and professional programs that were not available from segregated black universities”¹³. Only after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 did UT finally desegregate its undergraduate programs and in 1956 the first class of black undergraduate students, more than seventy in total, entered UT⁴. They still faced segregation though in things outside of academics. Edna Rhambo, one of the students of the first black undergraduate class, recounted how “on campus we[blacks] were not allowed to do certain kinds of social engagements [and join certain teams and clubs]...We were relegated to just studying and attending classes"⁴. 

Four years after the first class of black undergraduates joined the University of Texas, it decided to expand its campus and facilities eastward and displaced thousands of African Americans. By 1960, the difference between the quality of facilities and neighborhoods west and east of I-35 was clearly evident and city officials did not like it. They began to renew the city by redeveloping undesirable parts of Austin, including areas that had been home to African Americans for decades. The Austin Urban Renewal Agency (AURA) began urban renewal projects and UT partnered with them to obtain the land east of its current campus to build research facilities. “[One thousand] African Americans were removed from their homes as UT bulldozers came and tore down their lots,”⁵ and instead of research facilities “UT expanded their football stadium”⁵. Displaced residents had to wait for public housing and had to rebuild their communities again. “In 1982, UT [began] another land expansion, though this time not under the guise of urban renewal. From 1982-1990, at least half of the residents in the blackland area were forced to sell their land to UT”⁵. Once again, black communities had to move further away from the heart of Austin and reconfigure their communities. 

Today, the University of Texas at Austin welcomes over 52,000 students to its eighteen schools and colleges on its four hundred thirty-one acre campus and about 2,777 of those students are black⁶. UT has taken action to commemorate African Americans’ history in Austin and in the university in recent years. In 2016, the University of Texas at Austin “paid tribute to [its first class of black undergraduate students]...with a gathering featuring UT President Greg Fenves, Chancellor William McRaven and Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston…[and] three of those first black undergraduates students — Leon Holland, Edna Rhambo, and [Charles] Miles”⁴. The university’s Contextualization and Commemoration Initiative (CCI) also began the Sweatt v. Painter Commemorative Project to add a “Heman Sweatt entrance to Painter Hall [and] an interior gallery exhibition-event space…dedicated to narrativizing the legal history of racial inclusion in public higher education and UT Austin’s role in this process”⁷. The University of Texas at Austin started out as a white segregated university placed in Austin by votes from white and black men. Now it is an institution that seeks to diversify its student body and is taking action to honor African Americans who pursued its integration.

¹“History.” The University of Texas at Austin. Accessed May 17, 2023. https://www.utexas.edu/about/history. 

²Wall, Barbra Mann. “A Study of Black Baptist History and the Role of Reverend Jacob Fontaine: 1808-1898.” The First Baptist Church of Austin. Accessed May 17, 2023. https://www.fbcaustin.org/Jacob-Fontaine.  

³Ramos, Mary G. “The Beginnings of the University of Texas & Texas A&M University.” Texas Almanac, 2022. Accessed May 17, 2023.

⁴Alex Samuels. “UT-Austin Honors First Black Undergraduates of 60 Years Ago.” The Texas Tribune. September 9, 2016. https://www.texastribune.org/2016/09/09/ut-austin-honors-first-black-undergraduates/.

⁵Mia Taylor. “The Expansion of the University of Texas: Urban Renewal, ‘N–Ro Removal’.” The University of Texas at Austin Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. January 25, 2019. Accessed May 19, 2023. https://diversity.utexas.edu/integration/2019/01/the-expansion-of-the-university-of-texas-urban-renewal-n-ro-removal/.

⁶“Facts & Figures.” The University of Texas at Austin. February 2, 2022. Accessed May 19, 2023. https://www.utexas.edu/about/facts-and-figures.

⁷“Sweatt v. Painter Gallery and Entry.” UT in Context. Accessed May 19, 2023. https://utincontext.la.utexas.edu/our-work/sweatt-v-painter-gallery-and-entry/.

⁸“Article VII: Education--The Public Free Schools.” Tarlton Law Library. February 14, 2022. Accessed May 08, 2023. tarlton.law.utexas.edu/c.php?g=813324&p=5803239.

⁹Sanders, Joshunda. “Historic Church Founder to Be Celebrated This Juneteenth.” Austin American-Statesman, September 26, 2018. Accessed May 17, 2023. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2012/09/22/historic-church-founder-to-be-celebrated-this-juneteenth/9930091007/. 

¹⁰Seale, Avrel. “Ladies’ First.” UT News. March 8, 2019. Accessed May 08, 2023. news.utexas.edu/2019/03/08/ladies-first/. 

¹¹Joseph Bernardo. “Heman Marion Sweatt (1912-1982).” BlackPast. January 3, 2009. Accessed May 18, 2023. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/sweatt-heman-marion-1912-1982/.

¹²“Sweatt v. Painter.” Oyez. Accessed May 18, 2023. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/339us629.

¹³“Sweatt v. Painter (1950) - The Papers of Justice Tom C. Clark.” Tarlton Law Library. March 13, 2023. https://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/clark/sweatt-v-painter#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20ruled%20that,of%20Texas%20School%20of%20Law.