Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas

Abstract

This deeply researched monograph describes the desegregation of some twenty-eight state-supported senior and junior colleges in Texas. It tells of the black students, lawyers, and activists who took “tremendous risks” and engaged in “courageous actions” to challenge segregation and create “environments in which all citizens, regardless of racial designation, could study on a basis of equality” (pp. 222, 2). Special attention is given to Heman Sweatt, whose legal challenge to segregation at the University of Texas Law School paved the way for blacks in other graduate and professional studies; to Herman A. Barnett, the first black graduate of the University of Texas Medical Branch; and to several younger African Americans who became the first black undergraduates at various state colleges and universities. These “trailblazers” are placed in the context of a black tradition that emphasized the importance of education and of “creating and maintaining centers of learning for themselves and future generations” (pp. 94, 4).