 | Integrating the 40 Acres: The Fifty-Year Struggle for Racial Equality at the University of Texas Subjects: College integration -- Texas -- History; African Americans -- Education (Higher) -- Texas -- History; University of Texas at Austin -- Students -- History; You name it, we can't do it. That was how one African American student at the University of Texas at Austin summed up his experiences in a 1960 newspaper article--some ten years after the beginning of court-mandated desegregation at the school. In this first full-length history of the university's desegregation, Dwonna Goldstone examines how, for decades, administrators only gradually undid the most visible signs of formal segregation while putting their greatest efforts into preventing true racial integration. In response to the 1956 Board of Regents decision to admit African American undergraduates, for example, the dean of students and the director of the student activities center stopped scheduling dances to prevent racial intermingling in a social setting. DWONNA GOLDSTONE received her doctorate in American civilization from the University of Texas at Austin. She is an assistant professor of English at Austin Peay State University. |
