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NEWSThe Prospector • November 2,Ben Torres Jr. / The ProspectorMarceiius Fullmore, 69, was one of the first black students to attend UTEP 50 years ago. Fullmore is second from the left in the adjacent photo taken in 1955.Integrationfrom page lUnion, plans to attend the event.The keynote speaker will be Dr. Amilcar Shabazz, a professor of American Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of “Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas.” The keynote address will be at 6 p.m. on Nov. 3 at the Tomas Rivera Conference Center at the Union, and there will be four panel discussions in the Templeton Suite on Nov. 4 starting at 8 a.m. The panels include a remembrance of student life, with five of the original 12 black students, the first African American student-athlete, the first African American administrator at Texas Western College and the first African American student government president. There will be book signings from Shabazz, Dr. Maceo Crenshaw Dailey, director of UTEP’s African American Studies Program and coordinator of the event, and Juan Lawson, the first black administrator in the University of Texas System.“It is a wonderful opportunity for our students to come and hear from historical characters who played a role in one of the most extraordinary dramas of the 20th century - the dismantling of segregation,” Dailey said.The integration of Texas Western College came a year after Thelma White, a promising student and valedictorian of her all-black high schoolclass, was denied admission to the college in 1954 because of her race. She filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in 1955 and meanwhile, attended New Mexico AM College in Las Cruces, now known as New Mexico State University. According to the World Book Encyclopedia online, while White’s case was pending, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, striking down segregation in public schools. In July of 1955, a federal district judge issued a declaratory judgment on White’s behalf, permanently enjoining the University of Texas System from denying her or any black student the right to study at Texas Western College.White was not among the first black students to attend Texas Western. She continued her studies in New Mexico because of its prox-
Newspaper Details
El Paso Prospector
El Paso, Texas, US
Wed, Nov 02, 2005
Page 16
Full Page
Clipped by
University O.
TX, USA 14 Oct 2021
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