University of North Texas Oral History Collection

Interview with Dr. Martin Shockley
Interviewer: Sharon Perry
Place of Interview: Denton, Texas
Date of Interview: April 10, 1995

Ms. Perry:
This is Sharon Perry interviewing Dr. Martin Shockley for the University of North Texas Oral History Program. The interview is taking place on Monday, April 10, 1995, in Denton, Texas. I am interviewing Dr. Shockley in order to obtain his recollections concerning desegregation at the University of North Texas [then North Texas State  College].

Dr. Shockley, I'd like to start out by asking you about your background -- where you were born, where you grew up, and your education.

Dr. Shockley:
I was born in Stuart, Virginia, in 1908. I have degrees from the University of Richmond, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina. I came to the Southwest in 1938 and taught at the University of Oklahoma for six years. I came to North Texas in 1950 and taught here for twenty-four years before retiring in 1974.

Perry:
When you were growing up in Virginia, what were the racial attitudes like when you were growing up?

Shockley:
We never considered racial attitudes at all. We were white people and black people and all shades in between, and everybody accepted everybody else. of course, there were the social distinctions that we all know.

Perry:
Yes, sir, I understannd. Do you remember your firs relationships with black people in particular?

Shockley:
Well, not exactly black, but I had a "colored" boy, a little bit darker than I was, named Will, who was my nurse and playmate and companion and caretaker when I was little. He was my dearest friend, of course.

Perry:
Did your racial attitudes change over the years? Do you feel like they did?

Shockley:
Why, of course, everybody's have. The world today is not what it was in 1915.

Perry:
Yes, sir, I understand. When was the first time you had a black student in a classroom?

Shockley:
I don't remember. There were no black students at the University of Oklahoma. There were no black students at anyplace I taught before. I taught in the upper Midwest at Carlton College, where all the students and faculty were white. It may be that the first black students I had were here at North Texas.

Perry:
I've done some research, and the first black student was a graduate student, Tennyson Miller, at North Texas State College. He was studying education and came in the summer of 1954. Do you remember anything about him?

Shockley:
No, I don't remember him.

Perry:
Now, the lawsuit that was filed that ultimately led to the University of North Texas admitting black undergraduate students, what do you remember hearing about that?

Shockley:
Very little. I remember that the vice-president, Arthur Sampley, represented the college in...I think it was the federal court, maybe in someplace like Sherman [Texas], and that the college's defense against admitting black students was that it was already operating at more than capacity. Of course, the federal court paid no heed to that.

Perry:
Were there any official meetings or anything where they let you know that they were now going to accept black students?

Shockley:
No, nothing public and official was ever done. It was done, I think, in private and handled with as little publicity as possible.

Perry:
Why do you think it was handled that way?

Shockley:
Because that was the way to handle it. It was handled skillfully with as little ... public furor would have erupted, so it was handled very skillfully, and as little publicity as possible was given to it.

Perry:
Mrs. Sephas was actually the first black student that came to North Texas. Do you remember much about when she first came?

Shockley:
I don't remember Mrs. Sephas. I remember having a black student in a graduate course. She, I think, was the first one I had, and I don't remember the date.

Perry:
Do you remember what the mood of the student body was when the first black students came?

Shockley:
Running from extreme to extreme. There were some students who opposed it and hated it. There were many who favored it. There were many to whom it didn't matter much. But there was considerable resentment of it among students.

Perry:
Do you remember any specific incidences of the resentment?

Shockley:
Yes. I remember that one morning I had an eight o'clock class, and on my way across campus, I noticed that the walks had been painted.  I guess it was chalk, or maybe it was paint on the walks, with such insults as "N***** go home!" I noticed, however, that the janitorial crew were all out mopping it up and cleaning it up before I got to my eight o'clock class. So there was a prompt response.

Perry:
Was that about the time when the first students came?

Shockley:
Yes, it was right about that time. I don't have an exact date.

Perry:
Yes, sir. In my research I found that Dr. [Dr. James Carl] Matthews and the Board of Regents had put together a plan for gradual integration before [the lawsuit], but then, of course, the lawsuit sped things up. Do you remember hearing about that plan?

Shockley:
No, I don't think anybody knew about that.

Perry:
Do you remember faculty attitudes toward integration?

Shockley:
The faculty, I think, was generally favorable toward integration.

Perry:
Do you know about the Board of Regents or the administration? Their policies or how they felt about it?

Shockley:
I'm sure different individuals had different views, but  the official administration attitude was that this is a legal matter: "We are under order from the court, and we must be very careful about everything we do."

Perry:
Dr. Matthews was the president of the college at the time. Do you remember his attitudes or his reaction to it all?

Shockley:
Nobody knew what his attitudes were. I suspect that he was vaguely liberal in his attitudes. He was, I believe, a member of the Methodist church, which was generally liberal, and he was careful never to express an opinion, never to go out on a limb. Everything was handled, I think, with considerable delicacy and skill.

Perry:
So, to your recollection, were there never any official meetings or official announcements that ...

Shockley:
Not that I know of. There may have been. There probably were, but that would have been private and among the administration. The faculty was not consulted, which was usual for that time.

Perry:
Was it?

Shockley:
The faculty was never consulted and infrequently informed.

Perry:
Even when it would affect you in the classroom?

Shockley:
Somebody who knew Matthews better than I did said that he was a very good junior high school principal. He had no qualifications for being president of the college. He kept this place a teachers' college for twenty years after it should have begun to be a university. But he handled this matter of integration very skillfully. That's the one thing I commend him for.

Perry:
That leads me to another question. At the same time, at other universities all over the state, integration was not going smoothly. There was violence in some places and a lot of problems, so would you say, generally, that integration at North Texas went very, very smoothly in comparison?

Shockley:
I think North Texas was probably the best.

Perry:
I've also read in my research that in general the black students were not properly prepared for college work. Did you find that?

Shockley:
Yes. I said the first one that I remember was a woman schoolteacher, who was quite black. She was in a graduate seminar that I had at the time. She came here to get her M.A., and I assume she was teaching English in some black high school, maybe in Dallas or Houston. It was procedural in graduate seminars to have each student present a report on research that he had done, and then I would ask questions, and the other students would ask questions of the person who presented the report. I usually made a point of bearing down. I would ask hard questions and make it tough. After all, these were graduate students, and they should be able to answer hard questions.

So this girl gave what was comparatively a weak report. I think she was not as well prepared as most of the students in that seminar. When I started questioning her, she was having a hard time. Then I noticed that the other students in the seminar began asking questions, and I caught on that they were asking easy questions. They were trying to make it easy for her, and to get me off her back, by taking her side, and they took her side against me. I thought that was almost touching (chuckle).

Perry:
I've also wondered...was there a lot communication ... it seemed that the black students were not always as prepared as well as other students. Was there communications between teachers and students to try to deal with this?

Shockley:
Oh, yes. You always called a student in for a conference. Whenever I had trouble with a student, I always had a conference with that student, and I assume that other professors did the same. I don't know of any special remedial work that was set up formally. It was done on a personal basis between the professor and student.

Perry:
Now there seems to have been a shift. In the first years, I'd read where the faculty and even, I think, Dr. Matthews said that no one thought anything about giving a black student a bad grade if they were just poorly prepared and not ready to do the work. But in later years there was a shift where they began being graded, possibly, on a different scale. Do you remember anything?

Shockley:
I don't know about that. I always made clear -- in fact, I said it -- "I don't give white grades and black grades. I don't give a black "B" and a white "B." Everybody is going to be graded, as far as I can, fairly."

Perry:
Do you think that was the feeling campus-wide?

Shockley:
I'm not sure. I think some professors tried to be gentle with the black students. I made a point of not being [that way].

Perry:
Do you remember much about when Leon King and Abner Haynes first came to the university?

Shockley:
I don't remember Leon King. I remember Abner. I didn't know him, of course. He was a football player, and I didn't go to football games. I have a good Abner story, if you have space for it.

Perry:
Oh, please! Go ahead.

Shockley:
This was told to me by another professor of English who went to football games. He said that the game began, and we had a white team on the field playing against a white team. The game was desultory, and nothing happened much. Then the coach put Abner in, in the backfield. The way my colleague told me about this was that they'd give the ball to a white boy, and he'd gain a yard or lose a yard. Then they'd give the ball to "Li'l Abner," and "Li'l Abner" would gain seventeen yards around left end. They'd give the ball to another white boy, and he'd win or lose two or three yards. Then they'd give it to "Li'l Abner", and "Li'l Abner" would take off and scoot down the field for thirty-seven yards. Pretty soon, he said the students were beginning to chant "Give it to the n*****! Give it to
the n*****!" And they'd pass the ball to "Li'l Abner", and he'd run for a touchdown. That was in the first half. During the first half the students were cheering, "Give it to the n*****!" Then in the third quarter, as "Li'l Abner" continued to roll up the score and distinguish himself, they began chanting "Give it to Haynes! Give it to Haynes!" and "Li'l Abner" kept on being a hero, and before the game was over, the stands were chanting, "Give it to Abner! Give it to Abner." And he said, "That probably illiterate black boy did more for race relations on this campus in one afternoon than you and I together have done in twenty years."

Perry:
That's a wonderful story.

Shockley:
I wasn't there. That was told to me by a colleague whom I consider totally reliable.

Perry:
That's wonderful. I'd not heard that. Do you know much about social life and the activities and the different student organizations?

Shockley:
No, I had nothing to do with student organizations and social life.

Perry:
We've also looked a little bit at housing for the black students. Had you ever heard anything, or were you concerned with that at all?

Shockley:
No, I don't remember where they lived. I suppose off-campus somewhere, but I doubt that they were in the dormitories. When they got in the dormitories, I don't know. I assume they're there now.

Perry:
Oh, yes, sir.

Shockley:
Yes.

Perry:
Yes, sir, they are. I had seen in my research, but didn't get much information about it, that there was an Interracial Council that was formed, and it appeared to have faculty and students on the Council. Do you know anything about that?

Shockley:
No, I don't remember anything about it. I was never on it, and I don't remember anything about it.

Perry:
The first African-American or black administrator was Theodore Roosevelt Lee. He was an assistant dean of students. He came in June of 1969. Do remember anything about him?

Shockley:
No, I don't know him.

Perry:
And the first faculty member, do you remember much about him? He was in the Education Department.

Shockley:
No, I don't remember him. I don't even remember the first English professor who was non-white. I think they have several now.  

Perry:
You don't remember when the first black came to your department?

Shockley:
No. It may have been after I retired, but I don't remember a black colleague at a department meeting. And I probably have noticed it had there been one.

Perry:
Now, in the community of Denton, I'd seen a newspaper article that called North Texas an "island of integration, " that the college was integrated, but the community certainly wasn't. Do you have any commentary on that?

Shockley:
I know of an English instructor who tried with some of his friends to integrate the Campus Theatre downtown, and the Campus Theatre did not integrate, and the English instructor was fired.

Perry:
That was Jesse Ritter?

Shockley:
That was Jesse Ritter.

Perry:
And do you feel he was fired because of that?

Shockley:
Yes. I know him. I still correspond with him. He's teaching in California now.

Perry:
Is there anything else you would like to tell us or comment on about that or tell if you know what was going on?

Shockley:
Yes. I think what he was doing was highly commendable, and I supported him. He was privately "not renewed." They just got rid of him, and that, I am convinced, was the cause.

Perry:
Had he been involved in other integration activities before the Campus Theatre?

Shockley:
I don't know. Perhaps. He was a young white man, very nice young fellow, and just what he did before the  Campus Theatre incident or, for that matter, after that, I don't know.

Perry:
Was it shortly or very long after that before he was "not renewed?"

Shockley:
It was at the end of the semester or the term, whatever it was, but he didn't come back next year. As a matter of fact, I wrote a letter of recommendation for him.

Perry:
Do you know anything else about the community, about Denton restaurants, stores, or anything else being integrated or segregated?

Shockley:
No. They were all segregated when I came. As far as I know, they're all integrated now, and just when and how that took place, I don't know. That was downtown.

Perry:
Yes, sir. Do you remember about when the transition began to take place  in town?

Shockley:
No, and I wouldn't have noticed it. I sometimes ate lunch in the dormitories, but I didn't dine out downtown, so I don't know.

Perry:
I'd found some notices somewhere in my research about crosses being burned on the campus and on the lawn of Dr. Matthews's home. Do you remember anything about that, possibly?

Shockley:
I don't know about the president's mansion, but a cross was burned in front of the library. My friend Dave Webb was librarian, and he was a Liberal supporter of integration, so the cross was burned in front of the library. I didn't see it, but I heard about it.

Perry:
Do you remember about when that was?

Shockley:
It would have been sometime fairly early, I would hazard [to guess], but I don't know the date. You could probably fix some of these dates by going through the files of the campus student newspaper [the Campus Chat].

Perry:
Yes, sir. We've done some of that.

Shockley:
You've done that?

Perry:
I also found somewhere in my notes about the Negro students that boycotted classes in sympathy with the bus sit-in in Birmingham [Alabama].

Shockley:
No, I don't know about that. I didn't go to Selma [Alabama] (chuckle) .

Perry:
I just didn't know if you remembered anything ...

Shockley:
I know people who did, and I respect them, but I didn't go.

Perry:
I had read that there had been some students who cut or boycotted their classes at our university in support of what was going on.

Shockley:
That's possible.

Perry:
Do you have anything you'd like to add about ...

Shockley:
Well, I told you my two best stories, about the black graduate student and about "Li'l Abner" on the football field. I don't think I have anything any better.

Perry:
Did you feel like what happened in your graduate seminar...did that happen on campus fairly often?

Shockley:
I don't know. All I know is what I encountered in my class.

Perry:
A lot of the graduate students appeared to be summer students, and they were educators or teachers.

Shockley:
We had a lot of schoolteachers who came here for summer school, most of them working to get their M.A.'s. I think they got a $300 raise if they had an M.A., so for several summers we had large enrollments of Texas schoolteachers.

Perry:
Do you feel like the black ones performed okay in theend?

Shockley:
I couldn't generalize.

Perry:
I know Dr. Matthews reported some dropout rates among black students, that there was a high dropout rate.

Shockley:
I suspect so. See, they'd had inferior education all the way through, and we knew it. You know, we didn't admit it; we didn't admit it at the time. It was "separate but equal!" The hell it was!

Perry:
Do you ever know when the education system began to try to alleviate their problem or try to train them better?

Shockley:
Oh, I would say it is making timid and tentative steps now.

Perry:
I would agree. But I wonder at what point, who it was exactly that decided to start grading the black students on a different scale Or go a little easier on  them?

Shockley:
I suspect that was [on an] individual [basis]. I don't think there was ever an official policy that graduate students should be graded on a different standard, but I think that, oh, you know, there are always professors who give good grades to the football players. There are always professors who favor somebody or other, and I'm sure there were some who gave black students better grades than they deserved.

Perry:
Now back to Dr. Matthews. When there were problems that did arise concerning integration or with black and white students, did he always handle them? Or how did he handle them, rather?

Shockley:
I didn't know how that was done. I was not privy to any administrative secrets, but somehow it was very well done. The administration in general handled it very well, I thought.

Perry:
In general, Dr. Matthews pretty much well handled things himself?

Shockley:
He handled things himself. I was left out pretty much.

Perry:
(Chuckle) Well, I'd read several times where he handled things himself.

Shockley:
Himself (chuckle).

Perry:
He had mentioned faculty meetings and that at every faculty meeting he had always talked about integration at the beginning of each one. Do you remember anything to that effect?

Shockley:
Well, let's see. I think there was a faculty meeting at the beginning of each year, maybe not each semester, but I remember how I hated leaving Colorado to come back to Texas in the hot September in order to go to what I considered a silly, stupid, unnecessary faculty meeting to listen to [James] Carl Matthews's banalities.

Perry:
Is there anything else you would like to add about race relations at North Texas or Dr. Matthews's handling of it?

Shockley:
No, as I said, I think it was well done. I think it is doing very well now.

Perry:
It appears to be, yes, sir.

Shockley:
It appears to be doing well now, yes. No particular problems. Black and white students study together, and it is done, I hope, without favoritism for anybody.

Perry:
There's been some discussion recently  that there aren't very many African-American people in high administrative positions, and Dr. [Greg] Sawyer has recently left. He was a young black man, and he was dean of students when he left. There's been some discussion about that, so I don't think everything's smooth right now. Do you keep up with what's going on at the University?

Shockley:
No, I don't. Occasionally, I stop by the English Department to get a cup of coffee, but infrequently, and I don't keep up with gossip. I could refer you to people who know more about  it than I do.

Perry:
Do you remember any key people in Dr. Matthews's administration who helped him with integration and who you felt like had a part in it?

Shockley:
I don't remember anybody more than others who stood out as being a leader or assistant leader. Arthur Sampley, who was vice president, and Imogene Bentley, I'm sure, were helpful. Imogene was a strong supporter of President Matthews and his policies. I don't know. There would have been people throughout the administration who were on the inside, but what was going on the inside went on without my knowledge.

Perry:
Do you feel like it went on without the faculty's knowledge in general?

Shockley:
I don't think the faculty in general had anything to do with it.

Perry:
I'm not sure whether I asked you this earlier. Do you remember any key faculty that were either for or against integration?

Shockley:
No, I think people in general sort of tried to be disinvolved. You know, "There is going to be trouble, and I want to stay out of it."

Perry:
Before the actual lawsuit and you knew that you had to admit black students at North Texas, did you feel like everyone knew it was coming soon?

Shockley:
I think some of us considered it inevitable, and the sooner the better. Others considered it inevitable, but “let's put it off as long as we can."

Perry:
Do you feel like it was pretty half-and-half at the college?

Shockley:
No, I think I'd say probably 2-1 on the liberal side.

Perry:
If there's no other comment, I appreciate your time and your talking to me about this today, Dr. Shockley.

Shockley:
Well, so far as I know, that's all I have that's worth telling.

Perry:
Well, it was very much worth listening to. Thank you.

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