University of North Texas Oral History Collection

Interview with Joe Atkins
Interviewer: Dr. Ronald E. Marcello
Place of Interview: Dallas, Texas.
Date of Interview: June 20, 1995

Dr. Marcello:
This is Ron Marcello interviewing Joe Atkins for the University of North Texas Oral History Program. The interview is taking place on June 20, 1995, in Dallas, Texas. I'm interviewing Mr. Atkins in order to get his reminiscences and experiences concerning his role in the desegregation of what was then North Texas State College.

Mr. Atkins, the first thing I want to do is get some biographical information. Tell me when you were born and where you were born.

Joe Atkins:
I was born on March 6, 1936, in Jefferson, Texas.

Marcello:
Tell me a little bit about your mother and father. Let's start with your father, and what was his name?

Atkins:
My father was named Willie Atkins, and my mother's name was Mable Atkins.

Marcello:
What did your father do for a living? What was his occupation?

Atkins:
My father started out as a farmer. He lived in a little rural community west of Jefferson. He came to Dallas in the late Forties during the migration of blacks to the cities and so forth. When he came to Dallas, he got a job as a plumber's helper. He learned the trade, and he finally became a master plumber, and he had his own business.

Marcello:
So, would you describe your family, then, as perhaps middle class in that particular time?

Atkins:
For those times, right, they were considered middle class people.

Marcello:
What did your mother do?

Atkins:
My mother was a housewife for a while, and she later sold insurance. She worked for the American Woodman's...this was sort of a fraternal lodge ...and they had an insurance policy, and she sold that insurance for them. Then she later worked for my father.

Marcello:
What was the name of that insurance company?

Atkins:
American Woodman's.

Marcello:
Tell me a little bit about your education.

Atkins:
My elementary education was there in the Marion County School District. We came to Dallas, and I spent four years in the Dallas public school system and graduated from Lincoln High School. Then later I received a college degree from Texas Western College [now the University of Texas at El Paso].

Marcello:
I recall that when you graduated from Lincoln High, you, of course, made a decision to go to college. When did you graduate from Lincoln High, and where did you initially begin to go to college?

Atkins:
I graduated from Lincoln High School in 1954. I received a scholarship to a small Methodist school in Little Rock, Arkansas -- Philander Smith. I spent one year at Philander Smith.

Marcello:
What kind of a scholarship was that?

Atkins:
It was an academic scholarship.

Marcello:
During this period, that is, your high school years and  your early college years, describe your activities with  the NAACP.

Atkins:
I became involved with the Dallas Youth Council about 1952. Juanita Craft was the sponsor of that organization. We met, I believe, on a monthly basis. It was a very popular group, I guess, to belong to at the time. Then, of course, my parents were active with the Dallas branch of the NAACP. It was something that sort of brought us all together.

Marcello:
What kind of activities did the Youth Council participate in at that time -- 1952, 1953, 1954?

Atkins:
Basically, Mrs. Craft made us conscious of discrimination, more or less. I didn't really feel isolated, I guess, because we lived in a black community. We went to church in that community; we went to school in that community; we had the movies in that community; there were playgrounds in that community, I was kind of sheltered, by the way, and the only time that I felt discrimination was when I rode a bus, the streetcar, or downtown when I would go to the water fountain. We spent most of our time in our own community, and I guess we realized the issue by participating with Mrs. Craft in the Youth Council. Another thing that she did was that she took us on trips. She tried to expand our horizons. I traveled all over the country with her. We learned a lot about the country and of opportunities and those kind of things in dealing with Mrs. Craft.

Marcello:
Describe your feelings toward Mrs. Craft.

Atkins:
Mrs. Craft was a wonderful person. She helped motivate me and helped me to look at other issues, especially those issues dealing with segregation at that time. I think it was my senior year in high school when the Supreme Court handed down the decision Brown v. Topeka [actually Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka] Of course, that was the time all over the country when expectations were up, and I didn't know it was going to drag out so long (laughter). Anyway, it gave us new hope.

Marcello:
Mrs. Craft had fantastic organizational talents, did she not?

Atkins:
Yes, she did.

Marcello:
My understanding is that she was a really very much responsible for actually revitalizing the NAACP in the whole state of Texas in an earlier period, say, the Thirties.

Atkins:
Right. She put her life into the NAACP, and she traveled all over the state organizing youth chapters and branches and those kind of things. This was her mission in life. She was trying to bring about change, bring people together and make them aware.

Marcello:
During this period while you were in high school and associating with the Youth Council, did you and your friends get involved in any specific civil rights issues?

Atkins:
Not while I was in high school. Basically, I would say it was just a training period of an awareness of the issues, of traveling across the country and knowing what was going on.

After we had traveled with her and with my parents to various places and so forth, and after the Supreme Court handed down the decision in 1954, I had always like North Texas [State College]. In fact, I had been on the campus several times just driving through. It was a beautiful campus, tree-lined and so forth. Denton at that time was a small city, and it was appealing, and it was close to Dallas. After I went away to Philander Smith, I was thinking -- well, you know, we had to travel quite a distance to get to Little Rock -- that I would attempt to go to school here in Texas, and I had North Texas on my mind.

Marcello:
We have to remember, too, that there were no interstate highways at that time.

Atkins:
(Laughter) Right. You had to go right through town and around the courthouse square. That is correct.

So, after my first year at Philander Smith, I came back. I was talking with my parents, and we talked about maybe I would attempt to enroll at North Texas State.

Marcello:
What was your parent's reaction to that?

Atkins:
My mother was a little reluctant. It was basically because of the turmoil that was going on in the country at the time, and there was a little fear. People were being bombed at that time.

Marcello:
There were bombings in Dallas at that time, were there not?

Atkins:
Right, at that particular time. So, there was some fear there, but she did support it. Of course, my father said, "Yes, go ahead."

Marcello:
What kind of a reputation did Denton have at that time in the black community relative to its attitude toward blacks and so on? Do you know?

Atkins: We were told it was a college community, and in a college community, with the two colleges there, the attitudes would probably be a little different. I was not aware of any overt opposition to the mixing of the races there. I hadn't heard anything.

Marcello:
You mentioned that you had been to the North Texas campus on several occasions. How did that come about, and what occasioned you to have been there?

Atkins:
Oh, just traveling through Denton. We would go around the courthouse, and we would go down through the campus. Mrs. Craft would just want us to see the college. We would just drive down and look at it, and it was a beautiful school -- small at that particular time.

Marcello:
So your basic reason for wanting to go there as opposed to some other state institution was the physical image of the college campus?

Atkins:
Of the campus. Plus, it was near Dallas, and it had a good reputation from what I had heard at the time about the school.

Marcello:
What kind of a degree did you want to pursue at North Texas, assuming you got in?

Atkins:
I was interested in two things. One was that I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, and the other thing, if I didn't get to be a lawyer, was that I was going to teach school.

Marcello:
Obviously, North Texas was still essentially a teacher training institution?

Atkins:
That is correct.

Marcello:
Even though it was North Texas State College, it was still in many ways a teacher college.

Atkins:
A teacher college, yes. That is correct.

Marcello:
Prior to your decision to go to North Texas, there had been a few blacks that had previously attended at the graduate level. One of those came in 1954, the summer of 1954 -- Tennyson Miller. Were you aware of him, or did you know anything about Mr. Miller?

Atkins:
I was aware that he had attended, right. In fact, Mrs. Craft and my mother and myself went up there, and I believe it was in June of 1955. We went to the registrar's office, and I told them that I wanted to enroll.

Marcello:
What kind of a reception did you get?

Atkins:
The person that I talked with said, "You need to see the registrar." They told us to wait. We waited and they went and got the registrar. I think it was Alex Dickie at the time. He came and he said, "Well, I think we need to talk to the president." We waited and I believe it was Dr. Sampley, who was the vice-president. Dr. Sampley came in and, I believe, Dr. Matthews. Anyway, we had a long conversation.

Marcello:
Describe the conversation that took place with Dr. Sampley. Now this was Dr. Arthur Sampley, who was a former poet laureate of Texas, and I think he was the vice-president for academic affairs.

Atkins:
Right.

Marcello:
So, it's you, your mother, Mrs. Craft, and Dr. Sampley. Describe the conversation -- where it took place and what actually occurred in the conversation.

Atkins:
It took place there in the registrar's office. They mentioned the fact that they had admitted Tennyson Miller, I believe, into the graduate school. He was very cordial. He talked about that they had some kind of stair step plan that they wanted to put together. They were going to admit senior transfers and then juniors and so forth and so on. He gave us a long talk about the plans for the college at the time. He never told me that they would not admit me during that conversation. He did tell us that they did not want a test case. I remember that, the fact that they wanted to do it on their own and they did not want a test case. We insisted on an application, and finally they gave us an application.

Marcello:
Meanwhile, what was Mrs. Craft doing during this conversation? Was she involved in this conversation with Dr. Sampley?

Atkins:
Yes.

Marcello:
What kind of questions was she perhaps asking?

Atkins:
The questions, I think, she was asking about were related to the legal issues, you know, relating to what had happened, the Supreme Court decision, and about them dragging it out and so forth.

Marcello:
My notes indicate that this conversation or conference took place on June 13, 1955. In the meantime, before you went up for that conference, were you instructed by Mrs. Craft or anybody else on how to act, what to say, how to dress, anything of that nature?

Atkins:
No.

Marcello:
What were your feelings coming out of the meeting?

Atkins:
We chatted about that meeting, and one of the things I think we pointed out was the fact that an entering student doesn't usually get a conversation with the registrar and a vice-president. That was the thing we talked about, was the fact that they did take note and had given us some attention. Of course, we knew there was concern about opening up the school.

Marcello:
Generally speaking -- I think you touched on this awhile ago -- you were saying the reception from either Dickie or from Sampley was cordial and proper?

Atkins:
It was, right.

Marcello:
I'm just curious. This was the summer, and, of course, there weren't a whole lot of people around. I know that North Texas employed a large number of blacks either as custodians or cooks and so on and so forth.  Had the word gotten around pretty fast that you were ...did you detect that they already knew why you were on campus, perhaps?

Atkins:
We didn't detect that, but they noticed us there. They noticed us on campus. You're right. I didn't know if they knew why we were there. I don't know that.

Marcello:
Did they ever say anything to you and so on?

Atkins:
No.

Marcello: I want to go back a little bit and get a little more background here, and I'm not sure...no, let me continue on because I think I can pick up on this in a few minutes. I believe your next step, then, was to fill out the application, and I think you had to submit transcripts and so on. Describe what took place.

Atkins:
I filled out the application and requested that my  transcripts and things be sent there, and we received a letter back from Dr. Sampley denying my admission based on the fact of my race. Of course, after I received the letter, I gave the letter to the regional NAACP attorney at the time, who was U. Simpson Tate. Mr. Tate talked to me and my father, and he proceeded to put the papers together for the filing of the case.

Marcello:
Let me go back again. As I recall, just to get some chronology here, you actually filled out the application and sent it on June 16, and I believe it was on July 18...it took a little while, evidently, until you got word of the refusal to admit you. I think it was about a month.

Atkins:
Yes, that's about right.

Marcello:
In the meantime, you must have been getting a little  antsy. That is an awful long time to submit an application and not get a reply.

Atkins:
In the meantime, in talking with Mr. Tate, he told us he was going to ask for a restraining order in order that we could go in September, but if that didn't occur...he had been working with attorneys who were working with the situation out in El Paso. The judge out in El Paso had opened up Texas Western. Of course, he suggested, “Why not just go on out to Texas Western if we don't get North Texas open." So, I made an application out there. My parents did not want me to go back to Little Rock.

Marcello:
What was the specific reason that Sampley gave for rejecting your application? Was it, in essence, that your admission would have violated the Texas constitution as it was then written?

Atkins:
That is correct. I believe that is correct. That letter, I didn't recognize the historical value of it. I gave it to Mr. Tate, and we didn't get it back.

Marcello:
I've seen copies of it. It is in Matthews's file. Up until this time, you had not really met Matthews?

Atkins:
I hadn't seen him.

Marcello:
You mentioned Mr. Tate. Let me ask you a general question. The NAACP in Dallas at that time had some really top-notch attorneys working for it. I think, first of all, there was Mr. Durham.

Atkins:
Right, W. H. Durham.

Marcello:
Did you know Mr. Durham at all?

Atkins:
Yes, I knew Mr. Durham.

Marcello:
Describe what kind of a person he was.

Atkins:
Mr. Durham was an intense person. I used to drive for Mr. Durham. I would drive him to meetings and help him get to court and those kind of things.

Marcello:
Was this in part why at one time you had aspirations of being a lawyer, perhaps?

Atkins:
Right.

Marcello:
He was the Texas resident counsel for the NAACP, I believe, at that time.

Atkins:
Right. That is correct.

Marcello:
I also know that Dallas was so important to the NAACP that Thurgood Marshall was a regular visitor to Dallas to confer on various legal matters and so on. Did you ever meet Mr. Marshall?

Atkins:
Yes, I met Thurgood Marshall. In fact, I met Thurgood Marshall in 1954. The national NAACP had its convention here in Dallas in 1954, and I had an opportunity to meet Thurgood Marshall, Walter White, and many of the people who were involved at that time.

Marcello:
What were you feelings toward Thurgood Marshall? What do you remember about Thurgood Marshall?

Atkins:
Well, I remember that he was always talking. He was always giving advice. He was always telling stories about his experiences and what was happening to people throughout the country. He made us aware of some of the difficulties and things that those of us who were involved, perhaps might have to face and so forth.

Marcello:
My understanding is that he did not talk down to people, that he talked to people. Did you find that he had a rather down-to-earth attitude?

Atkins:
He most certainly did, right. I later met him after he was a Supreme Court Justice. He came to Dallas -- I was a friend of A. Maceo Smith -- to A. Maceo's funeral, and I met him over at Mr. Smith's home.

Marcello:
Tell me a little bit about Mr. Tate, Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you a specific question. When you received the letter of rejection from North Texas, then did you go immediately to Mr. Tate, or had he already been following what was going on at North Texas and so on? In other words, how did Mr. Tate become involved?

Atkins:
After we got the letter of rejection. He was aware of the fact that I had been up there. After I got the letter of rejection, we met with him, and I carried the letter to him.

Marcello:
What kind of advice did he give you?

Atkins:
He wanted to go ahead and file. Of course, he told me it would take the consent of my father, and my dad gave his approval. He filed the papers.

Marcello:
Mr. Tate was the regional counsel for the NAACP. What were your impressions of Mr. Tate?

Atkins:
You mean...

Marcello:
As a person.

Atkins:
...as a person? I had known Mr. Tate just by being active with the Youth Council. I had seen him on various occasions and so forth and knew the work he was doing and had a lot of confidence in him. I felt like he knew what he was doing at the time.

Marcello:
My impression is that all these attorneys had been veterans of the civil rights movement for many years, had they not?

Atkins:
Right. That is correct.

Marcello:
I know that some years ago we did an interview with Louis Bedford, and once more the impression that I got from that interview was that this was a very experienced and very dedicated NAACP legal staff in Dallas.

Atkins:
Right. I guess what the relationship that he had ... you know, everything was sort of centered around the church. You would see these people at church meetings and so forth, so they were like part of the family. A person like Mr. Tate, this was expected of him. I mean, he was the one to handle the legal situation, not Mr. Durham.

Marcello:
Who financed this suit?

Atkins:
The NAACP.

Marcello:
I think Mr. Tate filed the first motion for a temporary injunction on August 9, 1955, and I believe he did that in Tyler. Were you present at any of those hearings and so on?

Atkins:
For the hearing on the temporary injunction, I was present.

Marcello:
And this was in Tyler?

Atkins:
Right.

Marcello: What took place there? Do you recall?

Atkins:
I recall that we went to Tyler. The judge had a little hearing, and I think perhaps that was where Mr. Matthews was. At the hearing the judge ...

Marcello:
Judge Sheehy, wasn't it?

Atkins:
Sheehy, right. He denied the temporary injunction and told us that there would be a hearing set for a later time on the issue itself.

Marcello:
Was this the first time that you had seen Dr. Matthews?

Atkins:
Yes, that was the first time.

Marcello:
Do you recall what rationale or what reasons he gave for North Texas denying you admission?

Atkins:
Basically, I think most of the testimony was on the fact that it was because of my race.

Marcello:
Once again, evidently, they used the whole business that it was a violation of the Texas constitution.

Atkins:
Right, and, again, I think he may have outlined that plan that they had discussed with us, what they had planned to do, at that particular hearing, starting with the transfers in of seniors and so forth.

Marcello:
What were your feelings or thoughts about Judge Joe Sheehy?

Atkins:
I guess, because of my age and immaturity at the time, I didn't have strong feelings one way or the other.

Marcello:
The reason I ask that is because I'm pretty sure from my background research that I found that he had been born and raised in East Texas, and that's why I brought up whether you could detect any attitudes or feelings on the part of Judge Sheehy.

Atkins:
I don't recall.

Marcello:
Earlier, you said the papers had to be filed in your father's name, and that's obviously because you were a minor?

Atkins:
Correct.

Marcello:
I've seen in all the legal documents that it's
"'Willie' Atkins on behalf of Joe L. Atkins, a minor." I think that's the way the injunction read, something along those lines. Okay, so there was a motion for a temporary injunction on 9 August 1955. I think that was denied, and then I believe there was a hearing to be held later on in September of 1955. In the meantime, what were you doing?

Atkins:
In the meantime, I had gone to Texas Western.

Marcello:
Why did you decide to go ahead and go to Texas Western?

Atkins:
Because Texas Western had opened up.

Marcello:
Am I to assume, then, that you simply did not want to wait around and lose a semester or whatever it would take to get into North Texas?

Atkins:
That is correct. I didn't want to wait.

Marcello:
So from that point on, then, you really had nothing to do with what took place either in Tyler or up in Sherman, where the case was eventually decided.

Atkins:
That is correct.

Marcello:
What were your impressions of J. C. Matthews when you saw him there in Tyler?

Atkins:
He was a man who was the head of an institution. I had a whole lot of respect for college administrators and teachers and so forth. I was told that if there was any fairness that these people would be fair with me. I felt like with the pressures and so forth that he was doing what we expected of most heads of institutions at that time.

Marcello:
Let me throw this out to you, and this is from the benefit of forty years of perspective. It seems to me that Matthews may have been caught betwixt and between. On the one hand, here is this powerful NAACP in Dallas. It had outstanding attorneys, and it had the law of the land on its side. On the other side, you have the governor of Texas, Alan Shivers, who was vehemently opposed to desegregation. You have an attorney general, John Ben Shepperd, who was trying to run the NAACP out of the state and temporarily did dismantle it, did he not?

Atkins:
Right. I won't forget him (laughter).

Marcello:
It seems to me that Matthews was caught in the middle.  Here is an agent of the state, I guess you can say, and he's caught between the law and state authorities. Do you have any feelings or thoughts about that as you look back on it?

Atkins:
I understand it was difficult for Dr. Matthews. He was expected to make recommendations to his board and so forth. I'm sure he wanted to obey the law, but at the same time he was taking in the political considerations, also, at that time. As you pointed out, Alan Shivers was actually trying to impede progress at the time because school districts were just opening up, and he was saying, "Don't move so fast!" I know El Paso, Austin, San Antonio, and many of the school districts in the western part of the state opened up in 1955. The governor was telling them, "Take your time! Make sure you're right!" He was  saying those kind of things, and they wanted to obey the law.

Marcello:
From everything that I've read, school authorities seemed to be moving much faster than political authorities were to come to grips with what the Supreme Court had handed down.

Atkins:
That is correct.

Marcello:
Also, as I recall, Shivers was the one responsible for sending out the Texas Rangers and preventing black students from integrating Mansfield High School at that time.

Atkins:
Right. In fact, they "visited" me out in El Paso.

Marcello:
Who is "they?"

Atkins:
The Texas Rangers.

Marcello:
Tell me more.

Atkins:
They were trying to, I guess, intimidate me. They came on campus, and I was later told by, I believe, the dean that they had been there, and they wouldn't let them interfere with me while I was there on campus. Also, the sheriff out there would not cooperate with them. So they had no cooperation in the city of El Paso.

Marcello:
So, you never actually had any contact with these Texas Rangers.

Atkins:
Only on the telephone.

Marcello:
What did they say on the telephone?

Atkins:
They wanted to interview me. I was told not to talk with them, period. I was asked to refer them to a NAACP lawyer, which I did.

Marcello:
Did they say what they wanted to interview about?

Atkins:
Yes. They wanted to interview me about my activities with the NAACP. You must take into consideration at the time that Joe McCarthy had had those hearings in Washington, and there was a communist under every bed, and Shepperd was linking the NAACP up with the Communist Party. At that time a communist was evil, was an evil thing.

Marcello:
John Ben Shepperd in particular. Is that correct, or Alan Shivers, also?

Atkins:
Right. John Ben Shepperd, he was the one on the rampage.

Marcello:
Again, this was evidently during that period when they were trying to run the NAACP out of Texas.

Atkins:
Yes, sir, that is correct. Of course, they wanted to interview me. They wanted to know who had put me up to file suit, and I didn't answer any question. Of course, they finally left. In fact, they filed suit against the NAACP, and I believe it was in Tyler, also.

Marcello:
I think they raided private homes and offices and so on and so forth looking for documents and information, did they not?

Atkins:
They did.

Marcello:
Meaning state authorities.

Atkins:
Right, they did. Fortunately, I was in El Paso, and the authorities in El Paso would not cooperate with them in any fashion or any way.

Marcello:
Interestingly, when the case reached the federal district court in Sherman, one of the excuses that North Texas gave was that there would be over-crowding. In other words, if they admitted black students, there wouldn't be enough classroom space and so on and so forth. At the same time, they also tried to use the "separate-but-equal" argument. That is, if Atkins wants to go to a college in Texas he can always go to Texas Southern or Prairie View A&M or one of those. That was another one of the excuses that was used in the hearing. I can't remember if that was in Tyler or when it reached Sherman. Anyway, it was used in one of them.

Now, let me also throw this out to you. This is something that maybe you didn't know about. Several years ago, I interviewed Ben Wooten. Ben Wooten was the chairman of the Board of Regents. Now, this is what he told me in the interview, and I want your reaction to this. He said that after the Brown decision came down, Matthews met with the Board of Regents about what effect this would have on North Texas. The consensus of the board was -- and there were several lawyers on the board, at least two that I know of -- "If a black applies, we will reject his application. He'll probably bring suit, and we'll lose. But at that point we can then go to the mamas and papas of the white students and say, `Look, we tried to prevent blacks from enrolling in North Texas, but we failed, and the law was the law, and now we have to comply.'" Does this kind of logic make sense to you. I'm asking you this as a black person, and it's something that I heard from Mr. Wooten in his interview.

Atkins:
They didn't want to take the responsibility for carrying out their responsibility. They wanted to say, "A judge ordered us to do it, so consequently we're having to comply with the law." That happened over and over. That was the kind of thinking at the time: "We won't do it. We'll just let the courts do it and blame it on them rather than moving forward." Some people did move forward at the time. In hard-core [segregationist] places it was, "Let the courts do it, and then we won't have to take the heat for it."

Marcello:
Evidently, this is kind of what took place at North Texas. To follow up on that, I do know that after the decision was handed down and North Texas lost, I found a letter from an assistant attorney general, Billy Lee, to Matthews, saying, "Do you want to appeal the case?" Matthews said no. So it kind of confirms, I think, that all these people saw the handwriting on the wall, at least the Board of Regents and Matthews. Like you say, it takes the heat off of them. Once more, it goes back to something I said. Matthews was an agent of the state. He had this governor and attorney general who were vehemently opposed to desegregation, and he could go to them and say, "Well, you know, we tried but the courts have spoken, so what can we do at this point?"

Atkins:
Right.

Marcello:
What happens then is that North Texas does accept its first black students in the spring semester of 1956. Interestingly, the same day that the first black student appears on the North Texas campus is the same day that Autherine Lucy was facing all the problems at the University of Alabama. Why do you feel that the black student at North Texas, who was Mrs. Sephas, did not receive the same sort of hostile reception that Miss Lucy got at the University of Alabama? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Atkins:
Well, I would imagine it was because of the fact that the president and the Board of Regents didn't want that kind of activity going on at the college. I think they recognized that it was the law of the land, and they wanted to abide by it. They didn't get political with our governor like what happened in Alabama with Autherine Lucy. They wanted this to be unnoticed and so forth.

Marcello:
It evidently was unnoticed because I looked at the black newspaper, the Dallas Express, and you don't find a whole lot of information about the desegregation of North Texas. The Express seemed to be more interested in some of the violent things that were happening like in Mansfield or at Texarkana Junior College and Lamar and places like that. Which again is an indication that it must have gone rather peaceably at North Texas.

Atkins:
Right. If the leaders put forth an effort to make it...to say, "We want it to be peaceful, it was that way. If they resisted, then, of course, you would have problems.

Marcello:
What were your own feelings when you heard that the federal district court in Sherman had ruled in your favor?

Atkins:
Oh, I was delighted that this had happened, and I think I sent a letter to the Dallas Youth Council and encouraged them to go to North Texas. I was already comfortable there at Texas Western and didn't want to go through with another readjustment and so forth. Since that time, as you say, we've had Abner Haynes, Joe Greene, teachers and lawyers and doctors and so forth.

Marcello:
I think that very quickly North Texas had, for a while at least, the largest number of blacks of any state-supported institution in the state.

Atkins:
Right. That is my understanding.

Marcello:
Again, do you feel that it goes back to the attitudes that you mentioned earlier, that you had strong leadership there?

Atkins:
Strong leadership, yes, sir. I think it was based on the leadership because if there had been negative leadership people would have been reluctant to attend.

Marcello:
Is there anything else that you would like to add to this interview? Is there anything that I have neglected to cover that you think we ought to talk about?

Atkins:
I think we've just about covered all the points.

Marcello:
I mentioned Mrs. Sephas's name awhile ago, and just from the expression on your face I think you probably did not know her or know anything about her.

Atkins:
I've never met her. I think I may have read an article that someone sent me about her, but I've never met her. Someone told me she was from Fort Worth.

Marcello:
That is correct. I also know, however, that even after North Texas was ordered to admit blacks, that's precisely the way Matthews interpreted it, that is, that North Texas had to admit them. For a while black students could not live on campus. Abner Haynes and Leon King have told me that blacks couldn't eat in the cafeteria. Then gradually what happened was that Matthews allowed black women to reside in the campus dormitories, and then eventually black men were allowed to reside. But in the beginning, all North Texas did was admit blacks. It did not allow...in other words, Abner Haynes, when he came to North Texas, had to live in southeast Denton, which, of course, was the black section of Denton at that time.

Atkins:
That was also true at Texas Western.

Marcello:
Is that correct?

Atkins:
Yes. The first year they wouldn't permit blacks to live on campus. The second year, while I was there they brought in...they recruited a basketball player, and they opened up the dormitories.  As I understand it from the case that was filed, they mentioned registering for one class and so forth, and apparently they didn't include the housing.

Marcello:
Well, Mr. Atkins, this has been delightful. You've answered most of the questions I had. I want to thank you very much for giving me your time.

Atkins:
One more thing, by the way. I later went to North Texas and got my master's degree.

Marcello:
When was that? When did you go back to North Texas?

Atkins:
In 1963.

Marcello:
What kind of reception did you get?

Atkins:
The normal reception that a student receives. They never noticed me (laughter). I was delighted.

Marcello:
Who did you work under at North Texas? Do you recall who your advisor was for your master's?

Atkins:
My advisor was Dr. Dunham in the Education Department and Dr. Mary Whitten in the English Department.

Marcello:
That's interesting. Thank you very much.

Atkins:
I appreciate it.

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