Lamar University

and members of the Beaumont chapter of the NAACP. The admissions office notified him that based on his transcript, he was qualified to enroll for the spring term of 1951. On January 29, when Briscoe went to register for classes, Lamar's acting president G. A. Wimberly explained that a mistake had been made and suggested he apply to TSUN, now named Texas Southern University. State law, he said, created Lamar for whites only. In the summer of 1955, Versie Jackson and Henry Cooper Jr. became the lead plaintiffs of a class action lawsuit, Jackson v. McDonald, which sought to end Lamar's policy of racial segregation. Lamar Cecil, federal judge, ruled on July 30, 1956, that Lamar's "white youth" only admissions policy was unconstitutional, and that September, a total of twenty-six black students were admitted to the college amid violent protests at the campus gates and throughout the region which continued for several weeks until Texas Rangers arrived and the rule of law was restored.
In 1975, the university merged …