Integrating Texas athletics : the forgotten story of the first black basketball players

Abstract

During a period in American history when the racial landscape was rapidly changing, racial advances in collegiate athletics were taking place across the South in the 1950s and 1960s. At the University of Texas, that process proved harder to achieve than many expected as it would take nearly two decades to integrate athletics following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that admitted blacks to the university in 1950. Caught in the middle of the decade-long struggle, as blacks finally began integrating various UT athletic teams, was a group of black basketball players whose story reflects the racial progress made not just in Austin, but also across the United States.