The tricky thing about history? The story depends on who’s holding the pen. And when you have a bunch of white guys holding the pen by default, well, a whole lot of stuff tends to get trimmed, glossed over, or altogether left out. Local author and Weekly contributor E.R. Bills knows a thing or two about this. Bills
Origin
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision by the U.S. Supreme Court was a landmark in civil rights history, as the court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that had enabled racial segregation in public facilities for decades. Most notably, the Brown ruling ended the practice of racial segregation in public schools in law, at least, if not immediately in practice.
Some states followed the legal ruling and desegregated their public schools, but in others school administrators and government officials remained defiant. In one of the most renowned cases, James Meredith had to pursue a lawsuit against the state of Mississippi up to the Supreme Court in order to secure admission to the all-white University of Mississippi, while the state’s governor, Ross Barnett, refused to accept his enrollment. Likewise, in 1963 Georgia governor George Wallace famously blocked the doorway of the University of Alabama in a defiant attempt to prevent two Black stud
 Star file photo
Texas State is establishing a task force of scholars to research and analyze the lives of the namesakes of Beretta Hall and Flowers Hall in an effort to rename them.
In a Feb. 1 email from University President Denise Trauth, the university says a group of scholars from various departments in the university plan to âconduct scholarly analyses of the historical contexts of the lives and careers of Sallie Ward Beretta and John Garland Flowers,â the individuals who the buildings are named after.
Beretta Hall is named after a Daughter of the Confederacy.
Flowers, the third president of Texas State, or known then as Southwest Texas State College, openly opposed integration when he denied admission to Dana Jean Smith, an 18-year-old Black woman, by citing a whites-only provision in the school charter.Â
As of fall 2019, Texas State employs 159 Black-identifying faculty and staff members â a number considerably less than other racial and ethnic groups. As a result, some Black faculty and staff members question whether this is the result of mistreatment, microaggressions or a lack of opportunities and representation at the university.
âWhen I came to Texas State, there were nine total Black faculty, maybe a couple of others who were part-time,â said Dr. Dwight Watson, former special assistant to the president for minority affairs and an associate professor of history. âSo, you know, Black folks were somewhat of a novelty. You could go for days and not see a Black faculty member.â