Overview
The primary source I located is an issue of The Daily Skiff, Volume 75 Number 62, dated February 15th, 1977. In it, there is a letter to the editor titled “Teacher Relates Blacks’ Rise,” written in by Sandy A. Wall, then a professor in the College of Education. Wall explains how during the years of 1951-1956, off-campus classes were offered at Fort Worth ISD black elementary schools for black students wanting to pursue higher education. Juanita Cash, a FWISD teacher, was one of these students. When TCU was integrated in 1962, Juanita Cash returned to campus, along with other students such as Reva Bell, to complete her Master’s Degree. Their names can be seen in the same column in the TCU Commencement Program for Summer 1965 as School of Education graduates.
Notable Aspects
I located the article on the TCU Digital Repository online. The letter, located under the “Reader Feedback” section, was sent to the Editor by Sandy Wall in response to an article in an earlier issue about the history of black students at TCU. It is telling that this crucial information on the history of black students at TCU was only included in The Daily Skiff due to a teacher willing to write in to a column in which all submissions are published. The original article written by Ed Timms was meant to speak on Black Awareness Week occurring at TCU. Timms’s article, shorter even than Mrs. Wall’s letter to the editor, made short mentions of the black students enrolled at the Evening College and the pioneer students to enroll in Harris College, yet listed none by name. Towards the end of his article, Timms makes note of James Cash, Juanita’s son, breaking down barriers as the first black basketball player for TCU and in the entire Southwest Conference. Sandy Wall did the work that Timms did not in saying the names of these black women who accomplished the truly remarkable feat of obtaining their education in whatever ways available to them. There are several other notable black women mentioned in this article, including Reva Bell and Lottie Hamilton. Mrs. Hamilton, principal of the elementary schools where the classes were held, also partook in the classes. Along with another woman, Mrs. Bertice Bates, she took every course offered at the time to work towards completing the hours for a Master’s degree. Reva Bell, who graduated with Juanita Cash in 1965, went on to become a professor at TCU and was granted tenure in 1980.
Connection to Our Class
The article, while making it clear that this group of Fort Worth teachers enrolled at the Evening College was significant due to their blackness, does not make notice of their significance as women of color. In a world in which higher education was for so many years dominated by white men, it is a noteworthy fact that the majority of TCU’s first black students, both undergraduate and graduate, were women. Black feminist bell hooks, whom we have discussed often in our class, reminisces on this phenomenon, when she remarks on how black women are socialized to accept their lot as doubly-oppressed individuals and see race as the only relevant label of identification.
I think that, using the framework which we have used to study the histories of women of color at TCU, Juanita Cash should be considered among those early black women who broke barriers by pursuing higher education in a newly integrated university; not because of her son’s identity with TCU Basketball, but because of her obtaining a graduate degree in less than easy circumstances. Unfortunately, despite all of my searching, I could not locate a single image of Juanita Cash, whether as a Fort Worth teacher or a TCU Master’s graduate.
Significance to our TCU Community
Juanita Cash’s legacy still lives on today at TCU, as many students have been recipients of a College of Education Fellowship founded in her name by her son. In a news article located on the TCU College of Education website, Dr. James Cash says that he and his sister, Pamela, established this award “to honor their mother’s courage, and the courage of the School of Education faculty who helped her succeed.” The article mentions that Juanita Cash taught in public schools in Fort Worth for 27 years while on her journey to complete her graduate studies. Another webpage which lists all of the available TCU College of Education scholarships mentions only that James Cash established the award to honor his mother, a retired Fort Worth schoolteacher. It is unclear if students who receive this fellowship are aware of Juanita Cash’s full significance to the history of women of color at TCU, simply demonstrating how this work of uncovering their histories is so important.
