Sweatt v. Painter: Gallery East

Sweatt v. Painter : Gallery

Explore the Gallery walls

Sweatt v. Painter (East Wall)

A complex image depicting the wall hanging on the East Wall of the Sweatt V Painter Gallery, the content of which is replicated in full below.

“This applicant is a citizen of Texas and duly qualified for admission into the Law School at the University of Texas, save and except for the fact that he is a negro.” ¹
February 26, 1946 letter from President T.S. Painter to Attorney General of Texas Grover Sellers

Supported by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Heman Marion Sweatt sued The University of Texas to open its Graduate and Law schools to Black students. Sweatt’s 1950 watershed victory in the U.S. Supreme Court was the precedent for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which ended lawful racial segregation in education at all levels in the United States. This exhibition commemorates these historic social processes and UT’s role in U.S. Civil Rights history.

Heman Marion Sweatt

A balding African American man in a bow tie studies documents at a wooden desk

Heman Sweatt (di_04793), 1950, Prints and Photographs Collection, The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

Heman Marion Sweatt studying.

Sweatt was a Black U.S. postal worker from Houston, and graduate of Wiley College. After winning his lawsuit, the thirty-seven-year-old enrolled in the UT Law School in 1950.

T.S. Painter and the Board of Regents

President T.S. Painter, the UT Board of Regents, and Texas state leaders defended racial segregation in the Sweatt lawsuit. The UT Board of Regents named the Physics Building after Painter in 1974. ² On July 13, 2020, UT President Jay Hartzell, supported by the UT Board of Regents, announced that a new entrance and exhibit space would be created in T.S. Painter Hall to honor Heman M. Sweatt, “to ensure that we recognize and learn from our history and reflect our values through our campus symbols.” ³

Ten elderly white men in executive business attire from the 1950s South sit for a portrait around a conference table in a wood paneled board room.

The Cactus (Austin, Texas: 1947), 10. The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

The University Board of Regents in 1947. President T.S. Painter is seated on the far right.

Protest for Integration April 27, 1949.

Thirty African Americans in business attire gather to protest state segregation on the steps of the Main Building on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin

Ross, Protests at the University of Texas at Austin April 27, 1949, NAACP photographs, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2013650106/

Footnotes

Theophilus S. Painter to Grover Sellers, February 26, 1946, Charles T. McCormick Papers, Box 115, Folder 5 “Trial document and Correspondence, 1946-1949,” Archives and Special Collections, Tarlton Law Library, Jamail Center for Legal Research, University of Texas School of Law.
Board of Regents. “Board Minutes.” Regents’ Meetings. The University of Texas System. https://www.utsystem.edu/sites/default/files/offices/board-of-regents/board-meetings/board-minutes/2-74meeting719.pdf. February 1, 1974, p. 1609, Item 11.
Hartzel, Jay. A More Diverse and Welcoming Campus, July 13, 2020.Electronic Message. https://president.utexas.edu/messages-speeches-2020/a-more-diverse-and-welcoming-campus (accessed July 15, 2020). Viewable on Way Back Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20250614072725/https://president.utexas.edu/message/a-more-diverse-and-welcoming-campus/ (accessed Oct. 15, 2020).

Resources

Download and review the Sweatt v. Painter Gallery Research Guide