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still shot from the documentary, The Strange Demise of Jim Crow
1950 Heman Marion Sweatt filed suit for admission into the segregated University of Texas Law School.
Sweatt, a letter carrier living in Texas, had become active in the local branch of the NAACP and in the National Alliance of Postal workers. The Alliance had been fighting against the discrimination of postal workers and Sweatt's involvement in this struggle led to his desire to become an attorney.
More than 60,000 members of the American Federation of Teachers filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of Sweatt.
The Texas State University for Negroes, later named Texas Southern University (TSU), had been established in March 1947 in an attempt to maintain Texas' segregated college system. Sweatt v. Painter threatened to defeat this system.we would be grateful to hear your personal stories, suggestions and comments