Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times Page: 148
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Black Leaders
vant committees in the state met and came to the conclusion that
Banks wanted, all improvements in black higher education should be
concentrated at Prairie View. A black faction led by J. J. Rhoads
wanted another black college altogether.46 But, with all the colleges
and the public school authorities as cosponsors of the study, the
chance for success appeared imminent.
The committee investigating the needs of Negro education
brought in the suggestion that Prairie View be made a university. The
Forty-ninth Legislature obliged with the necessary action, ". .. pro-
viding for the establishment of courses in law, medicine, engineering,
pharmacy, journalism or any other generally recognized college
course taught at the University of Texas."47 A&M's board was to put
this mandate into operation and see to it that these courses were
"substantially equivalent" to those at the University of Texas in
Austin.
Banks could have been satisfied with this solution if the
legislature had implemented its action with appropriate financing.
The "new college" faction, though dissatisfied, seemed stalemated,
though the rumor of a test case of the University of Texas in Austin
was in the wind. A&M had submitted to the Forty-ninth Legislature a
budget figure of $853,260 for the biennium to fund Prairie View. By
summer, 1945, it was clear that the board's figure would be reduced
by the legislature to $558,080. The State Board of Education had sug-
gested $560,000 for salaries alone at Prairie View. Spurred at last into
a flurry of action, Banks, who had never been offered the opportunity
of meeting the board of directors, prepared a flood of papers directly
to the legislature and the Free Conference Committee over the heads
of his superiors, although he had been warned by an A&M dean that
it might cost him the chance to continue beyond the official retire-
ment age. Banks won his point with the legislature, securing in the
$900,000 it granted even more money than A&M had requested for
Prairie View.
In the spring of 1946 A&M announced Banks's retirement at the
end of the state's allotted tenure. Yet he never ceased to pursue the
goal of improved education for blacks. In 1947 he became vice-
chairman of the board of regents for Texas State University for
Negroes, later Texas Southern University. Although he continued to
live at Prairie View, he served on the boards of Atlanta University,148
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Barr, Alwyn & Calvert, Robert A. Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times, book, 2007; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth296839/m1/159/?q=1966+yearbook+north+texas+state+university: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.