Name-a-Day Calendar, August 30: Texas Southern Tigers
Page 297 of 365
Chosen in: 1947, I think
Chosen by: Unknown
On March 7, 1927, the Houston Independent School District established two junior colleges: one for white people and one for Black people. The former, Houston Junior College, would eventually become the University of Houston. The latter, Houston Colored Junior College, would change its name to Houston College for Negroes in 1934 and eventually become Texas Southern University.
The process through which the school became a four-year university was borne largely of racism. Long story short: Heman Marion Sweatt, a Black man, applied to the University of Texas School of Law in 1946, was rejected solely because he was Black, and then sued university president Theophilus Painter on the grounds that there were no law schools for Black people in the entire state. The state district court initially ruled that the case be continued for six months to allow the State of Texas to establish a “separate but equal” offering to the University of Texas School of Law that accepted Black students. Rather than put the school in Austin, home of the University of Texas, they acquired the campus of Houston College for Negroes and established Texas State University for Negroes in its place.1
That year, 1947, marked the beginning of modern intercollegiate athletics at the school, as their football, men’s basketball, and men’s track and field teams all took off that season. These teams have always been known as the Tigers, and the school’s yearbook was known as Tiger from its initial 1948 edition until it was discontinued in 2000. Unfortunately, I could find absolutely no information on why that is (though not for a lack of primary sources; the 1948 Tiger is digitized and available to the public), and my request for further information has yet to be returned as of press time.
Texas State University for Negroes became Texas Southern University in 1951, marking that year as the first time we were introduced to the Texas Southern Tigers. Today, Texas Southern’s mascot is a costumed tiger named Tommy.
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This suit, Sweatt v. Painter (1950), went all the way to SCOTUS, who decided in favor of Sweatt, going so far as to reject the establishment of Texas State University for Negroes as a “separate but equal” offering based on its location and its severely lacking facilities and faculty in comparison to the University of Texas School of Law. SCOTUS ruled that the University of Texas School of Law was to accept qualified Black applicants and Sweatt enrolled in 1950. This case would be critical just four years later during the landmark Brown v. Board of Education argument.