Rooted in Purpose: How Texas Southern Got Its Name
By June 1st is more than just a date in Texas Southern’s history, it’s a milestone in America’s ongoing story of educational equity and institutional transformation. On this day in 1951, what was once Texas State University for Negroes became Texas Southern University, a change that symbolized not only a new name, but a bold redefinition of purpose, identity, and national ambition.
To fully understand this evolution, it’s important to place Texas Southern within the broader framework of 20th-century American higher education, particularly as it relates to historically Black institutions navigating systemic barriers while building platforms for empowerment.
As historian and Texas Southern professor Dr. Merline Pitre recounts, the journey began in 1927, when segregated junior colleges were created to serve white and Black students separately in Houston. The Colored Junior College, the forerunner to Texas Southern, operated out of public high schools with minimal resources but maximum resolve.
By 1934, when the University of Houston petitioned to become a four-year institution, a condition was set: the Colored Junior College would also evolve into a four-year college. That decision led to the founding of Houston College for Negroes in 1936, marking one of the few public options for higher education available to Black Texans at the time.
Despite the constraints, a vibrant academic and cultural community began to take root. The Fairchild Building became the nucleus of campus life, housing everything from liberal arts classes to graduate and law programs. Artists like John Biggers added further dimension to this legacy, founding art programs and leaving visual imprints that still echo through Texas Southern’s corridors today.
Then came the pivotal moment in 1951: the renaming to Texas Southern University. Far from symbolic, the name change was part of a larger shift happening across the country, where Black colleges were asserting greater autonomy, expanding their missions, and solidifying their roles as engines of leadership, scholarship, and social change.
Texas Southern’s transformation paralleled national movements for civil rights, public investment in HBCUs, and legal battles for educational access, placing it squarely within the lineage of institutions that helped redefine what opportunity looked like in America.
Today, as debates around access, equity, and the future of public education continue on the national stage, Texas Southern stands as a living archive of resistance and reinvention. Its history is not just Houston’s history, it’s part of a broader American legacy that still shapes policy, progress, and power.
