Scene: North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 90, No. 70, Ed. 1 Friday, February 10, 2006 Page: 3 of 12
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N
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ref
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One of NT s first
black students
comes back
By Brandon Kilgore
Staff Writer
Burlyce Logan, Dallas sopho-
more, remembers the excitement
she felt as she and her friends
made their way to NT, then called
North Texas State College.
"We thought, 'Wow, we gradu-
ated and we're on our own, pack-
ing up our bags and going to col-
lege,"' she said. '"We're college
students and we're going to go
out into the world like everybody
else.'"
But their expectations were
soon squelched by a campus and
a community not ready to accept
them.
Much has changed since Lo-
gan's first attempt at higher edu-
cation in 1956 at the age of 18.
When she arrived with some of
her fellow classmates from Lin-
coln High School in South Dallas,
only a handful of black students
had ever attended NT, the first
being a graduate student, A. Ten-
nyson Miller, in 1954.
A lawsuit filed by Joe L. Atkins
on Aug. 11,1955, paved the way
for NTSC's first black undergrad-
uate students, according to "The
Story of North Texas" by James
L. Rogers.
According to the book, the
Board of Regents fought the law-
suit, knowing they would lose.
This allowed them to tell parents
of white students that the state,
and not the college, allowed black
students admission.
For Logan's first experience on
campus, she didn't receive much
of a warm welcome.
"During orientation, they told
us, the state said there are some
people we have to let in, but we
don't really want you here and
you know who you are. You can-
not join any fraternities; you can-
not join any sororities, any clubs
or anything. You just go to class
and that's all.
"We were just shocked. First
day of college and we were really
excited about being there, and
they drop that on us."
Though Dallas had its share
of racial conflicts in the 1950s,
Logan described her childhood
as "nice, peaceful and comfort-
able." She lived in an all-black
neighborhood and went to an
all-black school, so she was rela-
tively shielded from much of the
strife in the rest of the South.
"At first I thought, 'Well, this
will pass. It'll be OK,' but it
didn't.
"It was so hard to concentrate
on studies, and we did study hard,
staying up all night long to prepare
for class. But we were treated so
bad by the public here, it was just
horrible."
In the time she attended NTSC
from September 1956 to July
1958, she said she didn't face rac-
ism every single day, but it's the
bad experiences that stick out.
"I was walking along the cam-
pus one day and I saw a bunch
of signs, and I thought they were
for some kind of class president
or something.
"I started reading them: 'Pigs
before nigs,' 'Nigger, go back to
Africa,' 'burrheads'... It was hor-
rible.
"There were a bunch of white
kids gathering up behind me, but
I had never seen anything like
that before, and I just cracked up
and started laughing. It surprised
them.
They were probably thinking
about jumping on me or fighting
or something. But when I started
laughing, it surprised them so
much that they j ust dispersed and
went the other way."
Often times, according to Lo-
gan, "you had to be quick" to
avoid the spitting, the hurled
rocks and students pushing her
into oncoming traffic.
Continued on page 10
Shannon Jenkins / NT Daily
Burlyce Logan is a student for
the second time in 40 years.
Majoring in applied arts and
sciences and minoring in music,
she hopes to graduate in 2008 to
teach piano.
WELCOME BACK!!!
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Scene: North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 90, No. 70, Ed. 1 Friday, February 10, 2006, newspaper, February 10, 2006; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth145305/m1/3/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.