Through the Halls

In 1969, a select group of students graduated from TCU and moved on to careers as attorneys, school principals, school district administrators and even a Harvard University professor.

But it wasn’t their talent or determination alone that set these students apart from the rest.
They were black.

And as they walked the halls of the university in 1965, they were aware that TCU had only been completely integrated to black students a year earlier.

They also knew that for some reason, the first few black students who entered in 1964 did not all enjoy the school enough to stay another year.

But through an unofficial agreement that they all would make it to graduation in four years, these students excelled during their college years and used the momentum they gathered to propel them into even higher success as TCU graduates.

Mildred Simms was one of those students and will speak at 7 p.m. today in Student Center, Room 222, along with her classmate Lillian Warner-Green for the “First Black Students” presentation sponsored by the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.

Chavalla Williams, Zeta Phi Beta president and senior business management major, said she wanted to offer the presentation so students could learn about the people who struggled for the opportunities that are now readily available to minorities. Both former TCU students who will speak remained in Fort Worth after they graduated in 1969 to have careers in education.

Simms currently works in the Fort Worth Independent School District Central Office as the math program director for grades pre-kindergarten through 12th. Warner-Green directs the special interest programs and works out of the J.P. Elder Academy of Science and Mathematics. They are both active with the Black Alumni Alliance at TCU.

Simms said she has mostly positive memories of her years as a Horned Frog, and she said even almost 32 years later she could still contact the other historic members of the class of 1969.

“We pretty much can put our hands on the whole group” she said. “We have met intermittently over the years and we do know how to get in touch with each other.”

Warner-Green admits the students were close-knit.

“I keep in touch with practically all of them,” Warner-Green said. “Mildred and I actually taught in the same school at one point.”

Simms said one of the bonds among the black students from the class of 1969 was the fact that the odds were stacked against them.

“We said, ‘Everyone thinks we’re not going to make it, so we’re going to prove to them that we are going to make it,’” Simms said.

Warner-Green said it was necessary for them to stick together.

“We all knew we went to the school for one purpose,” she said. “The only way we could survive the big pool was doing everything together.”

To add more adversity to the challenge was the lack of encouragement from the black students who entered in 1964.

“The class of 1964, whatever was happening to them, they couldn’t take it,” Simms said. “They told us that they were getting out of there. They graduated from other schools.”

But the freshmen did not pay attention.

“We said we don’t want to be here forever,” Simms said. “We’re going to get into these classes and graduate. We came in together and we went out together.”

But along the way, Simms lived the life of almost any other college student, with a few exceptions.
She was naturally an active, outgoing person who never shied away from the crowd or from taking a risk, which is how she ended up at TCU.

“When it boiled down to (deciding), I said I really want to go to (the University of North Texas) because I have a lot of friends there,” she said.

North Texas had been integrated since the late 1950s and Simms’ cousin already graduated from the university.

But she followed the advice from her dad who told her TCU was a more prestigious school and would offer her more opportunities.

“That was a major concern for him, that his children get a good education,” she said. “I said, ‘I guess that’s a good enough challenge for me.’”

Once on campus, Simms, who had attended a segregated high school, kept an open mind and set out to make many new friends.

“I didn’t ever limit myself to African-American students,” she said. “The (white) kids knew we were just getting on campus and they didn’t come on campus with biased attitudes. If they had them, it didn’t show.”

She said the only area of campus social life that she knew was off limits to her and her black peers was Greek life.

“It was so closed and tight that you didn’t even bother it,” Simms said.

But Simms said some black students began to contact the National Panhellenic Council to start a traditionally black fraternal organization.

Simms said no students ever insulted her or treated her badly because of her race. She even pledged to join what was thought to be an exclusive spirit club called the Vigilettes. She made the team, to the surprise of some of her black friends.

As a math tutor, Simms remembers a few students who were initially surprised that she would be teaching them.

“When you see people in a role that is not a traditional role, you have the initial shock,” she said. “But then after that, I had no problems.”

Students even began to seek out her help outside of the math center.

Warner-Green said she does not remember any negative or racist attitudes on campus but said segregation was more evident off campus at department stores and on the city bus.

Simms recalls an incident, with a hint of regret, when she and her roommate, also a black student, applied for the sophomore sponsor position.

Those selected would serve as advisors to the incoming freshmen women. The job included reprimanding any women who broke the rules of the residence hall.

“We got called in to the dean’s office to get explained why we couldn’t be sophomore sponsors,” Simms said. “The dean said we had made a decision that it may not be the right time to have an African-American serve as a sophomore sponsor. Sometimes parents have a problem and they didn’t want to create a situation where parents wouldn’t accept us as sophomore sponsors.”

Simms said she was never clear who made the final decision, but she did not protest it.

“I didn’t need something that was going to cost me grief,” she said. “I could easily let go of something that wasn’t something that I needed to do so I could be successful.

“That would fall on my list of things that I would have liked to do.”

Simms said her parents were never too involved with many civil rights protests at the time. She said her environment was so nurturing that at times she didn’t realize she was missing out on anything by being black in a segregated society.

“It was the parents and the community working together who made that segregated school a learning experience,” she said.

But Simms saw through the media that, in other parts of the country, black people were not as fortunate as she was.

“I watched (the marches) on television and I realized there were big problems,” she said. “We didn’t read it in our history books because we were a part of the history.”

Warner-Green said at the time, she also didn’t think about being a part of history.

“I don’t think we really thought about being the first students to make it,” she said. “It was stressful even though we didn’t think about it at the time. But TCU was a good experience. It did teach us that we could do anything.”

Sylvia Carrizales
s.m.carrizales@student.tcu.edu