Sweatt v. Painter

Setting aside the myth of "separate but equal" found in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and laying a foundation for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Sweatt v. Painter is a landmark case in civil rights legislation. The 1950 US Supreme Court decision was the culmination of a legal battle started in 1946 when Heman Sweatt, an African American postal worker in Houston, was denied entrance to the University of Texas Law School

because of his race. He then filed suit against the school's president, Theophilus Painter.

The first action in the case was for the State District Court to continue it for six months until a law school for African Americans could be established. This was done by transforming the locally-run Houston College for Negroes into the Texas State University for Negroes (now Texas Southern University).  Schools of law, business, dentistry and other fields would provide the "separate but equal" access to education otherwise unavailable.

The appeal to the Texas Supreme Court that these facilities were, indeed, unequal was denied, but the US Supreme Court reversed the lower court decision, finding the facilities to be unequal in terms of facilities and intangibles such as the lower prestige of the new university and the isolation from most other future lawyers in the state.

Sweatt, who had received his undergraduate degree at Wiley College in Marshall, enrolled at the University of Texas Law School in the fall of 1950, but did not graduate. He was later awarded a scholarship to Atlanta University where he received a Master's Degree in community organizations and he eventually became the assistant director of the National Urban League's southern regional office.

Sweatt v. Painter is the topic of the 2010 book by Gary M Lavergne, Before Brown: Heman Marion Sweatt, Thurgood Marshall, and the Long Road to Justice.

Lightnin' Hopkins

"Hopkins didn't rehearse his songs; he lived them. He played day in and day out and made up songs about things he experienced in his neighborhood or witnessed on TV. When he went into the studio he recorded whatever came into his mind." ~ Houston Institute for Culture

Sam John "Lightnin" Hopkins was born on March 15, 1912 in Centerville, Texas and at the age of 8 met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a church picnic. He went on to learn guitar from Jefferson and from his cousin, Texas Alexander.  Singing in Houston's Third Ward with Alexander in the 1940's, he was discovered by talent scout Lola Anne Cullum of Aladdin Records in Los Angeles. "Katie Mae", recorded in 1946, was his first regional success, and he went on to become one of the most prolific blues singers in recording history with 800-1000 songs recorded.

His career took a new direction in the 1960's when he came to the attention of folklorist Mack McCormick. Hopkins appeared at Carnegie Hall with Joan Baez and Pete Seger, and toured with the American Folk Blues Festival. He later performed in Europe and Japan.

Hopkins was the subject of Les Blank's 1967 documentary, "The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins". He died in Houston in 1982.

Barbara Jordan

I can imagine the cadences of her eloquence echoing at the speed of light past orbiting planets and pulsars, past black holes and white dwarfs and hundreds of millions of sun-like stars, until the whole cosmic spectrum stretching out to the far fringes of space towards the very origins of time resonates to her presence. ~ Bill Moyers


Barbara Jordan was the first African American elected to the Texas Senate after reconstruction and the first Southern black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Born in Houston on February 21, 1936, she was a graduate of Texas Southern University in Houston (where the Barbara Jordan Institute For Policy Research is named in her honor) and the Boston University School of Law, and a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Ms. Jordan first came into the national spotlight during the Nixon impeachment hearings in 1974, and she later gave the keynote address at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. She passed away on January 17, 1996 after a long battle with Multiple Sclerosis.