University of North Texas Oral History Collection

Interview with Robert B. Toulouse
Interviewer: Tammi Price
Place of Interview: Denton, Texas
Date of Interview: October 3, 1995

Ms. Price:
This Tammi Price interviewing Dr. Robert B. Toulouse for the University of North Texas Oral History Program. The interview is taking place on October 3, 1995, in Denton, Texas. I'm interviewing Dean Toulouse in order to obtain his recollections concerning the desegregation of the University of North Texas.

Dean Toulouse, I would like to begin by asking you about your background-where were you born, what your education was like.

Dr. Toulouse:
Well, I was born in Wellsville, Missouri, which is a small town out from Saint Louis. We lived there for a few years and then moved to Abilene, Kansas, and lived there a few years. Then we moved to Sparta, Illinois, and lived there only a year or two. Then, finally, back to Wellsville, which I consider, really, my hometown.

As far as education, I began going to elementary school at the age of five in a rural school out from Abilene, Kansas. I went there for two or three years and was one of a very small number of children going to that particular school. I was the youngest one, but for reasons of the school board, it seemed more appropriate that I start as a five-year-old rather than wait a year when there were not going to be as many younger children, at least as they were able to judge.

I really feel that the Wellsville public schools, though, were the schools where I received my education, although I know that the first two or three years of your education is very important. I went to Wellsville High School, where I took as many classes as I could beyond the minimum number, because I always felt that I might go to the university [University of Missouri-Columbia], and I felt that the more background I was able to get in high school, the better off I would be.

As I was completing my high school work, I was recruited to go to a small Methodist college in Fayette, Missouri, which is a town out between Columbia and Kansas City, Missouri. I went there for two years, enjoyed it very much, and then moved to the University of Missouri and completed my bachelor's degree in education, science, and social science.

My first employment was at the end of the bachelor's degree with a small town in south central Missouri, Mountain View, which was the school system that brought children in from, I would say, the "hills" because it was not a populated area. We had many buses. So, I taught science and social science there for two years.

Uncle Sam called at the end of that, and as a draftee I went into the military service before World War II started. I was drafted to start in June, and, of course, the war started in December. I was in the armed forces about five years, even though at that time we were drafted for one year. You remember this was before the war started. Then, of course, after, the war started, we were there for the duration plus six months. And after I completed my military service, I hurried back to the University of Missouri and completed my master's and doctorate before I left the university.

Price:
What were your attitudes and what were your relationships with the African-Americans you came into contact with?

Toulouse:
Wellsville had a segregated school system. There was a black school, which unfortunately was of even poorer quality than ours, the white students. The town of Wellsville had, oh, two or three neighborhoods in which the blacks concentrated.

I always had, I thought, a positive attitude towards African-American people because we always has someone that worked for us. We had a black woman we just loved, that helped in the home, and from our standpoint color was not even an issue. We ate together, and she worked with my mother on all kinds of jobs. Mother and Mandy worked equally on the same kind of job. There wasn't any delegation: "This is your type of work, and this is Mother's type of work." So I had what I consider a reasonably positive attitude as a child growing up.

Price:
And it sounds like your parents shared this?

Toulouse:
Yes, yes. I guess that I just wasn't aware. I doubt that there were any black students in the classes I took at Central College, the Methodist college that I attended. There could have been some there, but I don't think so. My memory is that there were none. And at the University of Missouri, I think that was the same on my bachelor's degree. The place, though, where I really felt that I became more aware of blacks was when I was doing military duty and in Officer Candidate School.

Now, you remember that the military really wasn't integrated per se at the beginning. I believe Harry Truman took care of that later. But when I went to Officer Candidate School, there were a few African-American-students. We were dignified by being called “cadets.” That's not really the right word. We were all seeking a second lieutenant's commission, and there were two or more black soldiers that were in our dormitory and in all of our classes. As far as I was concerned, they were just two other service people trying to get a commission.

Then when I was assigned to various units, I normally ended up in a staff position. We had units of blacks assigned to our unit, so I was involved in their training and other aspects of their military service. In fact, when we went to China, we were driving the Burma Road, and our black truck companies were prohibited from going into China. And we felt that was a loss to us. We were losing people that we knew and wanted. We were pretty close-knit at the time, and that was rather a blow to us. So I think that I had a positive attitude.

Price:
How did you happen to come to North Texas?

Toulouse:
When I was working on my doctorate, my goal was to get done as fast as possible and go to California (laughter). So my first offer of a job before I completed a degree was to go to California, and it was awfully hard not to go because at that time it looked like the land of milk and honey. But, I thought, "It's foolish to take that job because it really isn't my specialty, and I would always be trying to catch up." So I stayed on. I wasn't finished with my degree anyway. I was close to finishing.

Two of the people that I studied with, I began to note their background. One was on leave from the University of North Texas [then North Texas State Teacher's College], and the other one was my very good friend who had his master's degree before he came back from the military, so he only had his doctorate [to go]. He was finishing at the end of the summer, and I wasn't to finish until the end of the next spring semester. So George -- George Beamer -- came down to North Texas, and that would have been in 1947. Wayne Adams, who was the other person on leave, was the director of the Laboratory School -- because there were laboratory schools at the time. And it seemed that North Texas's enrollment had increased greatly as a result of the return of veterans there in the fall of 1947, so Dr. Matthews, who was then dean of the School of Education, felt that they needed to employ somebody at the beginning of the spring semester.

George Beamer and Wayne Adams recommended me, and I was offered the position without coming down. I didn't know North Texas except by name, and, of course, they didn't know me except through my friends. I thought, "Oh, I'm not going to go because that would be leaving my dissertation unfinished.” My advisor at the University of Missouri said, “Get busy and finish before spring semester.” The dean at the College of Education at the University of Missouri said, "That's a very good school. I think you ought to go. You can't lose. If you don't like it at the end of the spring semester, you won't have lost anything anyway. We can find a job for you," because jobs were very plentiful at that time. So I got busy and worked night and day and finished the dissertation. Just as the fall semester ended, I handed it in and actually graduated at the end of the spring semester. But I came to North Texas on the recommendation both ways -- my friends, who were recommending that I come, and they were recommending me to the university.

Price:
How did you find Denton? I mean, what was Denton like in the early Fifties?

Toulouse:
The early Denton was, of course, quite different, and, of course, you wouldn't realize that cars were virtually impossible to buy at the end of World War II. Everybody wanted one, including myself, but I didn't have one, so I came into Denton on the train. My friends met me at the old depot, which no longer exists as such. I found Denton to be, I believe I could say, a small rural-type town with the courthouse in the center of the square with everything going around the square at that time both ways. There was a bus. I remember my friends had found a place for me to board and live for a spring semester. I was unmarried at the time. I was invited to a Sunday dinner at the home of George Beamer and Mrs. Beamer, and I rode what was then called "The Goose.” It was a bus system that ran essentially from North Texas to [now Texas Woman's University, then the Texas State College for Women].

Price:
What was the racial climate like?

Toulouse:
I think almost all the blacks lived in the one section of town. I would say that it was pretty much a segregated town with probably the same attitudes that you would expect under those [of] southwestern segregation, if not southern segregation. The blacks worked in the kind of service-type positions. There could have been a few professionals, but I wasn't aware of very many of them.

Price:
I read somewhere that because of where the blacks lived -- it was right next to downtown -- they had fairly good access to the downtown area.

Toulouse:
From that standpoint, it was convenient, but there was the bus system, the public bus system, and it served a very useful purpose.

Price:
How did you go from being an NT professor to being an NT administrator?

Toulouse:
Well, I guess I've always said that if you're at the right place at the right time, you're lucky, and I think that accounts for my appointment as Dean of the Graduate School. I came to North Texas with kind of instructions to develop a particular program. That was something that I enjoyed doing, and I worked very hard at it. My first spring semester, I felt that was one of the busiest that I've ever experienced. I was teaching five new classes; I was writing an article with the dean of the School of Education, Dr. Matthews; I was graduating; and I had proposed to my wife-to-be and went back to the University of Missouri to do the final examination over my dissertation. So it was comparatively busy. But it was something I enjoyed doing, the classwork, and I was eager because I felt that my five years in military service had delayed my professional advancement.

But I was surprised, completely surprised, when after about six years I was in the fall semester, just as I was beginning the teaching of my classes...we had developed a new program which we called “the bloc,” which meant that a definite number of students -- somewhere around twenty to thirty -- would be assigned to a particular faculty member to teach them several things, several courses, and to supervise their student teaching. I had just begun to lecture and meet the students that were assigned to me when the secretary of the building in which I was teaching came in and said, “You're wanted over at the president's office." Incidentally, between the time I came to North Texas and this period of time, Dr. Matthews, who had been the dean of the School of Education, became the president of North Texas, North Texas State Teachers College. I told the secretary to call him back and tell him I couldn't come; I was busy teaching (laughter). The secretary went back and came back again with the message: "I think you'd better go!" I don't remember, but I must have asked some of the students to do some things like getting acquainted and so on.

I went over to the president's office, and I was asked if I'd like to be dean of the Graduate School. As you can see, there are quite a number of differences in what we do now and what we did then, but that's the way I became dean of the Graduate School. I had no administrative experiences per se in the university -- peripheral-type -- and was not a department head or dean.

Price:
Did you say “yes” right away?

Toulouse:
No. I thought a little bit about it, but it so shocked me because even in my wildest imagination I hadn't thought about becoming dean of anything. I guess I might have aspired to be a department head sometime. I don't know. I really hadn't developed a strong position on that. But I said finally, "Yes, I'd be glad to try it." He said, "We won't say anything about it until the Board meets." I guess this must have been like on a Wednesday, and the Board was meeting on a Friday. So I didn't say anything about it until Friday, and then it came out in the papers.

Price:
And that was in 1955?

Toulouse:
In 1954. Well, you probably don't realize, but classes started at that time just sometime after the middle of September because we had a month after the Christmas holidays in the fall semester, with the spring semester beginning about the first of February. Of course, that's different now.

Price:
I'd like to talk about President Matthews and how he dealt with the situation and his leadership of the situation.

Toulouse:
I thought, particularly with reference to the integration of the university, that it's a textbook classic case of what you should do. At the time this came up -- and, after all, this is about forty years later -- my memory of the situation is that we accepted into the graduate school the first African American in the second summer term of 1954. I remember that because when I became dean, one of my serious worries was that I would inadvertently admit an African-American student and then become a part of a court case resulting from breaking the then rules of the university and the state, admitting into our university a black student. Not that I was opposed to it, but the rules said I couldn't do it. With the volume of paperwork that comes with applications, and looking at qualifications for admission, I could see myself somehow or another missing the fact that this student might come, say, from some northern state where segregation didn't exist, and a transcript from the University of Illinois wouldn't say this was a black student.

Well, I thought that he [Matthews] offered, especially in this field, the very best type of leadership because, as we looked around at other southern states...I believe I remember the name of the student in Alabama, Autherine Lucy [Lucy entered the University of Alabama in February, 1956, on the same day that Mrs. Sephas entered North Texas State Teacher's College] or something like that -- I'm not sure -- was receiving all kinds of notoriety, and there were all kinds of problems existing with it. Dr. Matthews quietly told us what to do and not to make a big issue of anything.

Price:
Was the man's name [Tennyson] Miller?

Toulouse:
[Miller enrolled in the summer of 1954.] Yes. He was a wonderful person to do this. He indicated that he was here to get an education, not to break some rules, and we felt that's why he was here, and we tried to see that that's what happened. So things went very smoothly for the graduate student.

Then the next admission was to a black woman to one of the undergraduate years, I think maybe a junior, but I don't remember exactly which year it was, and she came in the spring semester. The press wanted to make a big issue of her admission, more so probably than of the graduate student. They wanted to have the privilege of, well, really, following her around, going into classes with her, and maybe even developing some situations that she would be a part of with other students. Dr. Matthews said absolutely not. He was extremely firm, and I felt personally that the approach he used was exactly right. We had no big issues developing from her admission. She went to class; she was not followed by the press. No big issue was made, even though in other states there was a lot of unrest. So in answer to your question about how did I think Dr. Matthews did, as far as his leadership in this area, I think he did a superb job.

Price:
In my reading, I came to understand that he [Matthews] had a relationship with Riley Cross, the editor of the Denton Record-Chronicle...

Toulouse:
Yes, yes. I'm sure that relationship was beneficial to this situation. When I said the press, I was thinking more of what we now call the Metroplex press, and even beyond. Well, as far as the Record-Chronicle was concerned, there was interest, of course, and reporting, but I don't think they were the ones that were making the big issue. That's my memory of it, but, as I say, this was some forty years ago.

Price:
I also wanted to ask about his [Matthews] relationship with the Board of Regents, particularly Ben Wooten, and how that related to integration.

Toulouse:
I think I would be right in saying that Ben Wooten was a very strong Baptist, and he was a strong leader. Dr. Matthews was also a strong leader in terms of...oh, I'm trying to think of the right word to identify both of them. At that time, the president of particularly the teachers colleges throughout Texas and other states tended to have people who were very strong-minded, and they used the faculty not greatly in developing policies and procedures for administration. As far as teaching is concerned, that's a different matter, but I'm talking now about faculty participation in leadership. And there was not very much of that during Dr. Matthews's time as president. There was a Faculty Council that took care of mostly routine, curricular-type matters.

There was a strong relationship between Ben Wooten and Dr. Matthews. It was my understanding, as a person not involved in the situation -- fairly close to the situation, but not really involved -- that Dr. Matthews and Ben Wooten talked, determined what looked like the best policy, and carried it out. The other Board members, I think, were not greatly involved in the day-by-day procedures, or even the monthly and quarterly meetings that they might have. But if Dr. Matthews wanted to alert the Board to something, it was Ben Wooten that he was alerting -- as I understand it.

Price:
I've read that Matthews had a very close relationship with Wooten, and that he considered himself very much in charge, and that he made the decisions. There was some criticism of that. What was your view of the situation?

Toulouse:
Yes, there was some criticism of that close relationship; it developed over the years. But at this time, remember, we were a state teachers college, and faculty participation in administration has developed mostly after that period of time in the state teachers colleges. There were always a few people who were very interested in more participation by the faculty in procedures of this type, and I'm sure that, in going through a major change of this type in the people that would be enrolled, would certainly be an appropriate concern of the faculty, but it really didn't occur. It was almost something that was handed down, and you'd just do it. Now even during Dr. Matthew's time as president, there were many changes that came about that did involve faculty participation in a broader way than at this period, but that was later.

Price:
Did Dr. Matthews feel that since he was the one responsible, he had to make the decisions, or did he welcome advice from the faculty? How did he handle...

Toulouse:
I really think that he felt that since he had to defend the university in what it did, that he would make most of the decisions. There were two or three people that met with him rather regularly and gave advice. But, as far as even the deans on matters not directly related to their particular area, even the deans did not get to participate in any great extent.

Price:
Who were some of the people he relied on?

Toulouse:
Dean Imogene Bentley was one. They had something common in their backgrounds that I think related to that. Dean Imogene Bentley [Dickey, Mohat] was dean of women, and Bill Woods was dean of men. And they tended to have regular appointments and, I'm sure, offered advice on some things. I worked through the Graduate Council and also members of the Faculty Council, and, of course, later the Faculty Senate, but that didn't exist at that time.

Price:
When the lawsuit [Joe L. Atkins v. J. C. Matthews et al] came about with Joe Atkins desegregating the undergraduates, Matthews also took a very low profile kind of attitude to that -- a kind of wait-and-see what happens. Do you feel that was the best way to handle it, rather than going ahead and admitting him beforehand?

Toulouse:
Of course, in retrospect, I think it's simple. We should have done everything we possibly could, and now we have gone a circle, full circle, because we're doing everything we can to recruit. I say "we." In my last days as provost, we were doing all the kinds of things that we could possibly do to recruit students and faculty that had African-American backgrounds. In retrospect I'd say it would have been much better simply to have gone ahead and admit them because it was simply delaying it. There was no question, at any time, I think, that the end result was going to be admission. As I say, that's in retrospect, and my own personal feeling that if we could possibly do it and not break the law, do it.

Price:
Why do you think he delayed in letting the undergraduates in?

Toulouse:
I suspect it was PR [public relations] with various groups.

Price:
Was he getting a lot of inputs from outside?

Toulouse:
Some. I don't know how to define "a lot," but I'm sure there were some outside people that gave him advice, and some Denton people, too, I'm sure.

Price:
How did you prepare for your first African-American students?

Toulouse:
As far as me personally, we went on and admitted in the regular manner, which was the first basic step. But I do remember some meetings where I recall that Dr. Matthews talked to a number of us, and in a sense we were told not to make a big issue of it -- do it quietly and treat him [Miller] as just another student to the extent that you can do this. There were some issues about water fountains and bathrooms, but, as I say, Mr. Miller was an ideal person. He cooperated, worked with us, and if there were any problems, they were not big ones. In one sense it was good that it was a second semester summer term. That meant that there was an undue number of graduate students as compared with undergraduates, and that more maturity comes with graduate students (chuckle) than with undergraduates, so that was a good thing. Also, I think it was good that he had some administrative experience in the public schools. I thought that was good, and he was taking classes in education. A number of the faculty had been to universities that were integrated, so, as far as I know, no faculty member made a big issue of it. Now, again, even at that time we were comparatively large, and I certainly didn't know everything that was going on in the campus, but it was probably good that he was an education student, that he was in education classes where faculty had taught or attended universities that were integrated. As I said, no big issue was made of anything, and he had the experience of being an administrator himself.

Price:
You mentioned the water fountains, restrooms, things like that. Were there any kind of serious incidents?

Toulouse:
No. As I said, I was completely unaware of it at the time. It passed through my mind that there could be an issue, but there wasn't, as far as I know.

Price:
Because Denton at that time was still segregated...

Toulouse:
Oh, yes, and, of course, the real problem over the years is that there simply were very few suitable places for black students to live in the community or to eat or to find desirable entertainment.

Price:
And African-American students weren't allowed to live in...their being allowed in the dorms came later?

Toulouse:
Yes, yes.

Price:
Since you were dealing with education students, I would think, what with the Brown v. Board of Education decision, that would be a big topic for education students to have to deal with. Was there a lot of talk among the students about integration, and how integration would affect them?

Toulouse:
I'm sure there was, but, unfortunately, I had almost stopped teaching classes by that time. As you know, the dean of the Graduate School has not only the problems of the College of Education, but all the other areas. So I really didn't have the close contact with the students that would be coming into a situation in which they were studying with African-American students for the first time. I really did not experience that, but, as far as I was concerned as the dean, there were no big problems that came up. Nobody that I was aware of stomped out of the class or made a big “to-do” of it.

Price:
Both faculty and students...

Toulouse:
That's right. I'm sure the grapevine would get around. I'm sure the first black students would have learned that this faculty member was probably a more sympathetic faculty member that will help you adjust to the situation more than, say, somebody else. I'm sure that occurred, but that is a very informal thing.

Price:
Yes, I'm sure that would happen. Did you know or were you aware of the athletic department when it started integration?

Toulouse:
Well, I know the folklore -- it may or may not be quite as the folklore has it -- but it has always been my feeling that Abner Haynes did more for integration at North Texas than any individual could possibly have done. I was told that his father drove up in "a big car" and went to the coach -- I suppose that would be Odis Mitchell at the time -- and said, "I've got a son that really wants to play football. Can you do anything about it?" Now remember this is the folklore, so I don't know whether this is true or not, but Odus Mitchell said, "Well, I don't have any scholarships for you, but if he wants to come and play, we'd be glad to have him." So, of course, the rest is somewhat history. He did come, and he did play, and he did well. And I think maybe there was some tiny bit of feeling and a little bit of fear the first game that Abner played at North Texas. I think during the game the attitude changed considerably because Abner Haynes was a wonderful football player and a nice individual.

Price:
Why did Abner Haynes do more for integration than anyone else?

Toulouse:
Well, it was easy. Athletics has always been a part of our history, in Texas particularly, and all universities. Most university students and faculty plus the community want to see the university win. And, of course, Abner Haynes had so many skills as a football player that it was easy for them to identify with him. He was winning, helping us win, football games. And so for that reason I think that we were cheering him, his skill, and not looking at his color. At least that was my feeling about it.

Price:
Going back to the dorms and the integration of the dorms, I believe that the graduate dorms were integrated first, as were the graduate students integrated first. How did that come about?

Toulouse:
I really don't remember how it worked. I know that's what happened. Apparently, again, it counted on the maturity of the graduate students, and, I think, the experience of their backgrounds. As far as I know, it worked rather well.

Price:
It would be particularly important for the African-American students wanting to live there?

Toulouse:
Well, going into the dormitory or not living in the dormitory always has been a changing situation, and part of it changes with the economy. At the time the economy is tight, frequently people want to get into the dorms to cut down on expenses. Then, of course, at other times, depending on the attitudes, during the Sixties, people didn't want to be in the dorms, so it has been a back-and-forth thing. At one time it would be hard to get into a dorm, and North Texas had very few dorms at first. Then we developed a program of building dorms. Then for a while we were oversupplied with rooms.

Price:
But for the black students, as you said earlier, it would be more helpful for them to stay there.

Toulouse:
Oh, yes, it was important to the black students because of inadequate places in the community.

Price:
Moving into the Sixties, there was an English professor, named Ritter, who was dismissed because, well, the rumors were that he was involved with trying to integrate the city of Denton. Dr. Matthews said that it was due to other things. What was your impression of the situation?

Toulouse:
I don't remember too much about the case you're talking about. There were a couple other types of things, so I'm not positive that integration was the total picture. That's just my opinion.

Price:
Was there a widespread feeling among North Texas students -- sometimes students can be rather radical -- that they wished integration would go faster, or considering the geographic location, did they remain unhappy about it, or were was it something they just took in stride?

Toulouse:
I feel that it was taken in stride. There may have been some that felt it was far too slow. I do remember one particular situation, which happened to be personal. One of the people from my hometown wanted his daughter to enroll in North Texas. My hometown had a background of segregation. This person had grown up there and had moved to, let's say, a small town in Texas, and he wanted his daughter to go to North Texas. Of course, he called me because he knew me, and [I] more or less helped the girl get enrolled. She went to the dormitory, and I believe there were four people in that room. That sounds like too many people, but, as I understood, it was four. It could have been three, but one of them was black. I had helped her do two or three things that were a little bit of a problem, and I wondered why I didn't hear from her the next few days. I'm sure I had said to her, "Now if there s anything that I can do to help...” Well, lo and behold, she had decided to go home. So I do remember that one situation, and I drew the conclusion that it was probably the result of the black student being one of the roommates. There could have been other issues, but that's the only one I really could attribute it to.

Price:
When you consider, as you mentioned earlier, some other places -- and Denton was so comparatively peaceful -- why do you think that the situation in Denton was so successful?

Toulouse:
Well, first, in the case of integration, I give Dr. Matthews a grade of "A" because I think another kind of president could have caused problems of the type that developed at other institutions. I also attribute it to the kind of student body we had, the kind of college that we were at the time. At that time so many of our people, students, were studying to be teachers, and I believe teachers would, as a professional group, tend to be a little more sympathetic and empathetic; therefore, I would think that would be one of the reasons that there were no more problems than there were. These students that came in tended to be more in the field of education, and they felt, I think, a feeling toward their fellow teachers-to-be. That may not be the actual reason; there may be others. We've always had a commuting student population, and, of course, commuters tend not to get as much involved in things that are going on at the university, other than their classes and library work -- things that are directly related to their programs. So perhaps that would be a factor.

Price:
Related to that, African-American students have felt comfortable here...

Toulouse:
Yes, we've tried since integration...and I know as dean of the Graduate School, we did all that we could think of to try to recruit black students. And that's true now throughout the university. It became a goal rather early.

Price:
Why do you think they like to come here?

Toulouse:
I thought we provided an environment that was perhaps as good as any of the universities. In fact, I thought we were ahead of most of the universities in the state. That may be just because I was here and not at some other institution, but I do think that we tried to make it a place where they were treated as fairly, nearly as possible, as other students. And I think that's the environment that would be ideal.

Price:
Did you think that President Matthews and other administrators...did they affect the other faculty and ultimately, the students?

Toulouse:
I think, yes. You tend to do by example. So I think, yes, that is part of the answer.

Price:
I think that's all the questions that I have. Is there anything else that you would like to add?

Toulouse:
Well, as I say, we came full circle. Right now, we're trying to think of ways to entice more African-American students to come here. I know how much of an effort I made when I was became provost in 1982 for a few years, and we tried very hard and very diligently to find faculty members that were black that could be good role models for the students.

Price:
You actively searched?

Toulouse:
Oh, yes. I made money available. I said, "If you can recruit one black faculty, we will find dollars in addition to what you have to get that faculty member." And we did bring in a few. Unfortunately, the pool of black faculty is not very large. I believe -- and I don't vouch for my figures -- but one year we were trying to find a black professor in mathematics, and it was my understanding that in the United States that year, two people graduated that would meet that requirement. So it's very difficult even though you have this expanding goal and you work at it, and I know that we did. I personally was involved in that. So it's the reverse of what you're trying to find out today. I was glad to be a part of the whole procedure that involved admission of African-American students because I very firmly believed in it.

Price:
Well, thank you very much.

Toulouse:
I wish I could remember more, and I tried to think of things that occurred during that period. I know I left out a whole lot of things. I hope this will be helpful.

Price:
Oh, very helpful and very interesting. Thank you very much.

Copyright © 1995 The Board of Regents of the University of North Texas in the City of Denton

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