The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 100, July 1996 - April, 1997 Page: 159
551 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Reluctance versus Reality
faculty was talking about. He knew everything."9 A football coach re-
membered:
If you wanted to spend a dollar over what was budgeted, you didn't go to the
athletic director, and you didn't go to a vice-president. You went to J. C.
Matthews. When you went into his office, you were going to get a "yes" or "no"
right there on the spot. And it wasn't going to be referred to a committee be-
cause he didn't have any committees; and it wasn't going to be referred to one
of the vice-presidents because they didn't make that kind of decision. He was the
one who made the decisions on everything that was done. But you knew that.
You knew it from day one that he was the boss.10
A former student observed, "He was always aloof. He was very business-
like, and he ran a tight ship.""
Although Matthews realized that North Texas would eventually have
to face the reality of desegregation, particularly after Sweatt, he seemed
determined to evade the issue as long as possible. When in 1953 an
African American woman who was a graduate of Texas Southern sought
information about pursuing an E.Ed. at North Texas, his reaction was to
ask for an opinion from the attorney general of Texas, John Ben Shep-
perd. There is no written record of Shepperd's reply, but his public re-
sistance to desegregation in any form was well known. Perhaps
emboldened by Shepperd's attitude, Matthews did nothing to encour-
age the applicant, telling her that "no colored person has enrolled at
North Texas to date." As a result, she never applied for admission.12
During the second summer session in July 1954, Tennyson Miller, an
assistant high school principal in Port Arthur, Texas, became the first
African American to enroll at North Texas State College. Miller was
forty-one years old when he applied. He had graduated from Prairie
View College in 1935 and earned a master's degree from the University
of Wisconsin in 1952. Miller was a member of Phi Delta Kappa, a nation-
al honor fraternity for men in education. He already had a Denton con-
nection. From 1936 to 1943, before he entered the military, he had
taught mathematics and coached football, basketball, and track at Fred-
erick Douglass Colored High School in Denton. From time to time he
attended coaches' clinics offered by the football staff at North Texas, the
only African American to do so. Miller continued to maintain a home in
9 Fred McCain, interview by Randy Cummings and Ronald Marcello, Apr. 2, 1984, transcript,
interview OH 636, p. 62.
10 Herbert Fernll, interview by Randy Cummings and Ronald Marcello, July 20o, 1983, tran-
script, interview OH 605, p. 35.
1 Abner Haynes, interview by Randy Cummings and Ronald Marcello, May 16, 1984, tran-
script, interview OH 620, pp. 411-412.
1" Matthews to Shepperd, Sept. 3, 1953,J. C. Matthews Papers (University Archives, Willis Li-
brary, University of North Texas, Denton).1996
159
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 100, July 1996 - April, 1997, periodical, 1997; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101218/m1/209/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.