UT’s First Black Undergraduates Tell Their Stories

On a Thursday night in September, about 50 black alumni, UT staff, and community members file into the Alumni Center’s Connally Ballroom for a panel discussion titled “Then and Now.” The atmosphere is casual, with friends hugging and chatting about the football team’s big win over Notre Dame the previous weekend; a young mom bounces a smiling baby on her shoulder. The room falls silent, though, when four people rise and begin walking toward the front of the room.