Timeline
1839
Austin (formerly known as Waterloo) is designated as the capital city of the Republic of Texas.
1845
The United States annexes Texas as a slave-state.
1859
Hightower Theodore Kealing is born in Austin, Texas. Kealing was among the first generation of African Americans to attend public schools designated for African Americans. After graduating from high school, Kealing enrolls at Straight University in New Orleans, and later Tabor University in Iowa.
1860
38% of Austin residents are enslaved African Americans.
1861
Confederate troops fire shots at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, marking the start of the Civil War. Texas enters the Civil War conflict as a member of the Confederacy.
1861
The Freedmen’s Aid Society is formed with the goal of providing education to freed Black men, women, and children following the end of the Civil War.
1863
The Emancipation Proclamation is effective immediately per Executive Order.
1865
Union troops arrive in Galveston, Texas, and announce the enforcement of Emancipation, sparking the national holiday “Juneteenth”. This also marks the beginning of the period of Reconstruction in Texas.
1868
The 14th amendment is ratified, granting equal civil and legal rights to African American citizens.
1870
The 15th amendment is ratified, granting voting rights to African American men.
1870
President Grant readmits Texas to the Union, under the condition that the state can ensure Black citizens’ voting rights.
1870
Texas native David Abner Jr and his family move to Marshall, Texas, where Abner Jr. enrolls at Wiley College. Abner Jr. later enrolls at Straight University in New Orleans, where he studied classics.
1872
The Correctional School for the Education of Negro Youth (now known as Paul Quinn University), a university for freed slaves, is established in Austin, Texas, making it the first Black college established in Texas.
1873
Wiley College is established in Marshall, Texas, by the Methodist Episcopal Church. The college would soon begin offering secondary and college-level courses to Black residents.
1875
Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute is founded by the American Missionary Association in Austin, Texas.
1876
The roots of what would later become Samuel Huston College are established.
1876
Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth (now known as Prairie View A&M University) is established in Prairie View, Texas, on land that was previously the Alta Vista Plantation. The College was established by the state legislature following the adoption of the Texas Constitution, which required the adoption of a separate college for African Americans. It became the first state-supported college for African Americans. Despite the name, the College did not have a four-year college program until 1919.
1877
The Correctional School for the Education of Negro Youth is relocated to Waco, Texas. Early on, the school had a diverse curriculum, with classes in music, carpentry, mathematics, Latin, etc.
1877
Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute is chartered as a coeducational institute.
1877
David Abner Jr. enrolls at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and continues studying Classics. During his time at Fisk, one of his ancient Greek compositions was placed on display at the Nashville Exposition.
1878
The Alta Vista Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth opens for classes with 8 male students enrolled.
1879
Laurine Cecil Anderson moves from Alabama to Texas to assist his brother, Ernest H. Anderson, in teaching at Prairie View State Normal School.
1879
The Alta Vista Agriculture and Mechanical College of Texas for Colored Youth is renamed the Prairie View State Normal School.
1880
Wiley College relocates closer to downtown Marshall, Texas.
1881
Tennessee becomes the first state to enact Jim Crow laws.
1881
Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute officially opens, offering elementary, secondary, and collegiate-level classes to Black residents in Austin.
1881
Bishop College is founded in Marshall, Texas by the Baptist Home Mission Society.
1881
The Correctional School for the Education of Negro Youth is officially chartered by the state and renamed Paul Quinn University.
1881
H.T. Kealing graduates from Tabor University. That same year, Kealing moves to Waco, Texas, and becomes the president of Paul Quinn University, a position he held until 1883.
1881
David Abner Jr. moves back to Marshall, Texas, and enrolls at Bishop College.
1882
Wiley College is certified by the Freedmen’s Aid Society.
1883
The University of Texas at Austin is founded.
1884
David Abner Jr. graduates with a B.A. from Bishop College, becoming the first documented African American to graduate from a Texas school of higher education. Following his graduation, Abner Jr. then became the first Black professor at Bishop College.
1884
Guadalupe College is established in Seguin, Texas by members of the Guadalupe Baptist Church.
1884
Austin’s first public school for Black children, the Robertson Hill School, is established in East Austin, and H.T. Kealing is appointed as head of the school.
1884
L.C. Anderson becomes the first president of the Colored Teachers State Association in Texas, an institution he helped establish. He serves as president until 1889.
1885
A Black man (whose name is undocumented) applies to UT Austin. His application is denied on the basis that “the admittance of negroes is not standard practice”.
1885
L.C. Anderson is appointed as the principal of Prairie View State Normal School, following the death of his brother. He serves as principal until 1896.
1887
Classes start at Guadalupe College. David Abner Jr. is appointed as the first president of Guadalupe College and serves as president until 1905.
1888
A building for carpentry and manual instruction is erected on campus at Tillotson, and a teacher of industrial education is appointed. These additions demonstrate the impetus at Black colleges at the time to promote industrial education.
1888
Texas native Henry B. Pemberton graduates from Wiley College in his hometown of Marshall, Texas. Pemberton studied classics and was the first person to graduate from Wiley’s college-level program.
1889
The Robertson Hill School expands and opens up a high school. H.T. Kealing is appointed principal of the high school, a position he held until 1896.
1890
Reuben Shannon Lovinggood graduates from Clark University (now Clark Atlanta University) with a B.A. in classics.
1894
Texas College is established in Tyler, Texas, by a few members of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church.
1894
Henry B. Pemberton becomes the principal of Central School, the first public school for African Americans in Marshall, Texas. Pemberton fought extensively for the creation of the school, even mortgaging everything he owned for the school’s creation. The school was later renamed Pemberton High School in his honor.
1895
R.S. Lovinggood moves from Atlanta, Georgia to Marshall, Texas, and becomes the chair of the Greek and Latin department at Wiley College. Lovinggood taught at Wiley for five years.
1895
Texas College officially opens for classes.
1896
H.T. Kealing becomes the editor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, a position he held until 1912.
1896
L.C. Anderson moves to Austin, Texas, and becomes the principal at Robertson Hill School, a position he held for 32 years. Along with serving as principal, L.C. Anderson also taught Latin at the school.
1899
Prairie View State Normal School is renamed Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College
1900
Samuel Huston College officially opens and Dr. Reuben Shannon Lovinggood is appointed as the first president.
1900
R.S. Lovinggood publishes his essay Why Hic, Haec, Hoc for the Negro? -or- Did Our Northern Friends Make a Mistake?.
1901
Texas introduces poll taxes and “white primaries”, which disenfranchise Black, Hispanic, and low-income citizens from political participation.
1903
H.T. Kealing publishes his essay “The Characteristics of the Negro People” in The Negro Problem. In the book H.T. Kealing, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and other Black thinkers of the period debate the merits of different types of education for African Americans, including classical education. Alongside the shared enterprise of African American advancement, the essays also disclose some of the common prejudices of the day, including race pseudoscience and patriarchal views.
1904
Samuel Huston College expands and establishes the Eliza Dee Industrial Home for Girls.
1905
R.S. Lovinggood is appointed president of the Colored Teachers State Association in Texas, a position he held until 1906.
1906
David Abner Jr. is elected as the first president of Conroe College and serves as president until 1917.
1907
The Robertson Hill High School is renamed Anderson High School. The school was named in honor of Ernest H. Anderson, the brother of L.C. Anderson, who served as principal of Prairie View State Normal School from 1879-1885.
1907
R.S. Lovinggood gives a commencement speech entitled The Negro Seer: His Preparation and Mission to the graduating class at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College.
1909
Tillotson Collegiate and Normal Institute is renamed Tillotson College.
1909
Texas College is renamed Philip’s University after Bishop Henry Philips.
1910
Samuel Huston College is chartered as a private educational cooperation. That same year, R.S. Lovinggood organizes a classics department at the college.
1910
Kealing is appointed as president of Western University in Quindaro, Kansas, which he serves until his death in 1918.
1910
Virginia Miller, a Latin and English teacher in south Texas, presents her paper, “Is Latin Dead?”, at the Convention of Colored Teachers in Texas.
1912
Philips University reverts back to its original name, Texas College, following ongoing backlash at the name change.
1914
R.S. Lovinggood publishes his autobiography and early account of Samuel Huston College The Fun of It.
1916
R.S. Lovinggood dies in Austin and is later buried at the Oakwood Cemetery.
1916
Frank Tenney publishes his notorious (and now discredited) article “Race Mixture in the Roman Empire”.
1917
Harry Washington Greene receives his B.A. from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. At Lincoln, Greene studied classics and won many oratory awards and honors in Latin and Greek. He received his A.M. from Lincoln in the following year.
1919
The Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College establishes a four-year college program.
1919
H.W. Greene enrolls at Yale University. At Yale, Greene was a prominent member of the Yale Classical Society.
1920
The 19th amendment is ratified, granting voting rights to all female citizens.
1922
H.W. Greene is appointed as the dean of Samuel Huston College and serves as dean until 1928.
1924
Dr. J.T. Hodges becomes the first Black president of Tillotson College, serving until 1930. Previously, Hodges served as a Latin professor at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College.
1926
Tillotson College transitions from a coeducational college to a women’s college.
1928
The City of Austin adopts a new “Master Plan” and designates everything east of East Avenue (modern I-35) as the “Negro District”, the only location in Austin where Black citizens could receive public services. Black residents in Austin were gradually forced to relocate to the area.
1928
Henry A. Bullock graduates from Virginia Union University with a B.A. in social sciences and Latin.
1928
L.C. Anderson resigns as principal of Anderson High School (Robertson Hill School), but continues to teach Latin at the school.
1928
H.W. Greene is appointed as the dean of Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College, serving as dean until 1930.
1929
H.A. Bullock receives an M.A. from the University of Michigan in sociology and comparative psychology.
1929
Bishop College disbands its high school program.
1929
Wiley College disbands its high school program and begins only offering college-level courses.
1930
Black Southerners begin to leave en masse in the wave of the “Great Migration” to Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities.
1930
The City of Austin opens up its first Black junior high school, Kealing Middle School, named after H.T. Kealing.
1930
H.A. Bullock moves to Texas and accepts a professorship in the department of sociology at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College. He would eventually become the head of the department.
1931
Tillotson discontinues its high school level courses, and officially becomes recognized as a senior college.
1932
H.A. Bullock receives a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan.
1933
The George Washington Carver Library opens as the first branch of the Austin Public Library system. Until 1951, it was the only library within the city open to African Americans.
1933
Wiley College becomes the first Black college in Texas to be recognized as an “A” class college by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
1935
Tillotson College transitions into a coeducational facility once more.
1936
Guadalupe College campus is destroyed in a fire.
1937
Guadalupe College officially closes and is never revived despite numerous attempts.
1938
L.C. Anderson passes away in Austin, Texas, and is later buried at the Oakwood Cemetery.
1938
Anderson High School is renamed L.C. Anderson High School, in honor of Laurine Cecil Anderson.
1944
UT Austin regent Orville Bullington states in a letter “There is not the slightest danger of any Negro attending the University of Texas…”
1946
Heman Marion Sweatt, a Black man, applies for admission to the University of Texas Law School. State law restricted access to the University to Whites only, and Sweatt’s application was automatically rejected because of his race. Sweatt and the NAACP would later initiate a lawsuit against the UT Law School (Sweatt v. Painter), which would reach the Supreme Court.
1947
The Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College is renamed Prairie View University.
1950
Sweatt v. Painter is argued in front of the US Supreme Court as a challenge to the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson. The court decides that the doctrine is in violation of 14th Amendment Constitutional Rights, paving the way for further legal actions against segregation in educational settings.
1950
H.A. Bullock begins his career at Texas Southern University, where he taught and served as the head of the sociology department, as the director of graduate research, and as chairman of the Division of Social Sciences.
1951
Huston-Tillotson Professor W.A. Kirk challenges the city on its “racist, exclusionary” library policies. The City of Austin then changes its segregation policy and begins integrating COA library branches.
1952
Samuel Huston College and Tillotson College combine to form Huston-Tillotson College.
1953
L.C. Anderson High School relocates to a new building in East Austin. The previous building was the last school in the Austin school system that relied on coal for heating.
1954
Brown v. Board of Education ruling is released. The Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
1954
The Austin Chapter of the NAACP draws up petitions asking for the “immediate abolition” of segregation in Austin public schools.
1955
The Austin School Board orders that racial barriers be removed at the city’s high schools. The Austin School Board also adopts the “Freedom of Choice” plan for all of its high schools, giving parents the decision on where to enroll their children in secondary education.
1956
UT Austin begins to admit Black students. At the same time, UT Austin begins using standardized tests as an entry requirement.
1956
Stephen F. Austin High, William B. Travis High, and A.N. McCallum High are the first three public schools in Austin to integrate.
1960
Students across Austin begin staging sit-ins and protests against segregated businesses operating along Guadalupe Street, which is directly adjacent to UT Austin’s campus.
1960
As classical scholarship begins paying more attention to ethnic and racial minorities in the Greco-Roman world, H.J. Leon publishes his book The Jews of Ancient Rome.
1961
Bishop College relocates from Marshall to Dallas, Texas.
1963
The Austin School Board lifts the remaining barriers to desegregation, allowing all K-12 schools to integrate.
1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is signed into law by President LBJ.
1964
Dr. Ervin Sewell Perry becomes the first Black faculty member at UT Austin. In 1969 Dr. Perry would officially become an associate professor of civil engineering at UT Austin.
1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is signed into law by President LBJ.
1965
UT Austin facilities are desegregated and dorms are integrated. UT’s undergraduate enrollment is officially integrated.
1967
H.A. Bullock publishes his book A History of Negro Education in the South for which he won the Bancroft Award in 1968.
1969
H.A. Bullock resigns from Texas Southern University and becomes the first Black professor in the faculty of arts and sciences at UT Austin. His first course was “The Negro in American Culture”. Later that year, Bullock formally proposed that UT create a B.A. degree in Ethnic Studies, following the success of his Institute for Ethnic Studies summer program.
1969
17 white students enroll at Anderson High School, previously an all-Black school.
1970
UT Austin Football integrates the football team and recruits its first Black student-athlete, Julius Whittier.
1970
Black classicist Frank Snowden publishes his book Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Graeco-Roman Experience.
1971
Bullock resigns from UT Austin.
1971
L.C. Anderson High School closes its doors in east Austin after failure to integrate the high school with more non-Black students. When faced with pressures to integrate, many Texas school districts closed down primarily-Black high schools or degraded them to elementary schools. Kealing Middle School was also closed down in the same year.
1972
The NAACP releases a memo entitled The Reorganization of Southern State Systems of Higher Education: Some Black Perspectives.
1973
The new L.C. Anderson High School opens in northwest Austin.
1973
UT Austin begins adopting affirmative action policies.
1973
Prairie View University is renamed Prairie View A&M University.
1986
Kealing Junior High reopens at a new location in east Austin.
1988
Bishop College closes its location in Dallas, Texas. The Bishop campus later becomes the campus of Paul Quinn University.
1990
Paul Quinn University relocates to Dallas, Texas, and adopts the former campus of Bishop College.
1996
Michele Valerie Ronnick publishes a foundational article on Classics in Black education, “‘A Pick Instead of Greek and Latin:’ The African-American Quest for Useful Knowledge, 1880-1920”, in The Negro Educational Review.
2004
Michele Valerie Ronnick publishes the influential article “12 Black Classicists: A Photo Essay” in the journal Arion.
2006
Kealing Junior High expands to include the 6th grade, and formally becomes Kealing Middle School.
2010
William Cook and James Tatum publish their book African American Writers and Classical Tradition.
2010
Emily Greenwood publishes her book Afro-Greeks: Dialogues between Anglophone Caribbean Literature and Classics in the Twentieth Century.
2015
UT Austin removes its Jefferson Davis statue from the Main Mall and relocates it to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.
2017
UT Austin removes the remaining four confederate statues along South Mall.
2022
Sarah Derbew publishes her book Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity.
