Bill Text: TX SR225 | 2023-2024 | 88th Legislature | Introduced
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
Bill Title: Recognizing the celebration of Black History Month at Texas School for the Deaf.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2023-02-28 - Reported enrolled [SR225 Detail]
Download: Texas-2023-SR225-Introduced.html
Bill Title: Recognizing the celebration of Black History Month at Texas School for the Deaf.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2023-02-28 - Reported enrolled [SR225 Detail]
Download: Texas-2023-SR225-Introduced.html
88R14547 BPG-D | ||
By: Eckhardt | S.R. No. 225 |
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WHEREAS, The Black History Month celebration at the Texas | ||
School for the Deaf on February 24, 2023, provides an ideal | ||
opportunity to reflect on the remarkable history of the Texas | ||
Blind, Deaf, and Orphan School in Austin; and | ||
WHEREAS, Established in 1887 as the Deaf and Dumb and Blind | ||
Asylum for Colored Youths, the school was led for 13 years by a man | ||
who can truly be called its founding superintendent; educator | ||
William H. Holland was born into slavery, fought in the Union Army's | ||
Sixteenth United States Colored Troops, and won election to the | ||
Texas House of Representatives in 1876; during his term in office, | ||
he sponsored the bill establishing Prairie View A&M University; he | ||
later successfully petitioned the legislature to create the school | ||
for the deaf, mute, and blind; and | ||
WHEREAS, The state purchased a 100-acre farm at 4101 Bull | ||
Creek Road for the school, which offered instruction in a variety of | ||
trades, as well as reading, arithmetic, citizenship, and other | ||
subjects; in the 1940s, the state closed the Negro Orphan School in | ||
Gilmer and transferred its students to Austin, naming the combined | ||
campus the Texas Blind, Deaf, and Orphan School; it moved to 601 | ||
Airport Boulevard in 1961, and four years later, it was integrated | ||
with the Texas School for the Deaf on South Congress Avenue; the | ||
Airport facilities became TSD's East Campus, which hosted early | ||
childhood and elementary programs until 1989; and | ||
WHEREAS, The Texas Blind, Deaf, and Orphan School benefited | ||
from numerous gifted educators over the years, among them principal | ||
teacher Eliza Holland, wife of Superintendent Holland, art teacher | ||
and historian Mattie White, and its last superintendent, J. C. | ||
McAdams; alumni Jack H. Hensley, a Gallaudet University graduate, | ||
and Mathew Givens, an evangelist, both went on to teach at the | ||
school, and following nearly four decades, Mr. Hensley became a | ||
director; the many other notable alumni include gospel music | ||
pioneer Arizona Dranes, who helped establish churches across | ||
Oklahoma and Texas, and Betty Henderson, a national advocate for | ||
the deaf; Azie Taylor Morton, the first Black United States | ||
treasurer, attended the school in the early 1950s as the daughter of | ||
a deaf single mother; following desegregation, Robert Smith became | ||
the first Black graduate of the Texas School for the Deaf, and | ||
Clarice Brown became TSD's first Black valedictorian; and | ||
WHEREAS, For 78 years, the dedicated faculty of the Texas | ||
Blind, Deaf, and Orphan School worked to make the campus a center of | ||
Black excellence, providing a quality education that opened | ||
pathways of opportunity to their students; now, therefore, be it | ||
RESOLVED, That the Senate of the 88th Texas Legislature | ||
hereby honor the legacy of the Texas Blind, Deaf, and Orphan School. |