AUSTIN, Texas ― When Nathaniel Bradford enrolled at the University of Texas in 1963, he couldn’t join the band. Or a fraternity. Or play on the football team.
The reason: He’s Black.
The Austin American-Statesman reports the campus was slow to integrate, waiting until 1956 to enroll African-American undergraduates even though the U.S. Supreme Court had ordered a Black man admitted to UT’s School of Law in 1950.
And yet Bradford’s experiences as a Black face amid a sea of white ones were generally positive, even though one White student wouldn’t sit next to him on the first day of class. Having grown up in Austin, he had played on the campus as a child, catching frogs in Waller Creek, and that gave him a certain comfort level with the place.
“I’ve always loved the university,” said Bradford, 74, who is retired after careers at IBM and the Texas Workforce Commission. “Could it have done more? Yeah, well, you could say that about any Southern White institution.”
This week, UT is honoring alumni who were among the first waves of Blacks to enroll, with a special focus on those who started their studies 60 years ago, in the fall of 1956.
The events and activities were set to begin Thursday evening when members of a group called the Precursors, made up of Blacks who enrolled at least 40 years ago, planned to share their stories with students and alumni at the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center on campus.
