Painter Hall

The Tower as seen from the north side helps deepen our contemplation of the significance of the campus layout. This view highlights the buildings and statuary on the northern side of the Tower to contemplate the contrasting and changing nature of memorialization on campus and its significance to the image of the University. This view of the tower also becomes visually important for discussions of the tower and its surroundings in the tour stops that follow.

Most of this tour focuses on the monuments and buildings erected during the early 20th century. However, since the 1980s, student-led initiatives have brought new statues to the UT campus. These statues honor more contemporary figures. Their selection and erection were responses to the symbolism of earlier statuary at the same time that these representations convey values of this new era.

MLK Statue UT Austin Campus, undated, Alcalde Magazine Website

The first student-led effort was to erect a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1987, students gained the support of then UT President William Cunningham and the Board of Regents, who authorized funding for the statue’s pedestal. The students initiated an unsuccessful fundraising campaign to gather the remaining funds for the statue. In 1995, the student government established, with the approval of the legislature, a student fee to raise up to $500,000. They also created a committee to select an artist. Following a call-for-artists, a group of five artists was selected to create models. Jeffrey Varilla and Anna Koh-Varilla’s entry was ultimately chosen. The MLK statue was unveiled in 1999 and stands on the East Mall near the Student Activities Center (SAC). It was the second MLK statue erected on a college campus, the first at Morehouse College in Atlanta, King’s alma mater.[1]

Barbara Jordan at UT Austin, 1980, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History

Another student-led effort drove the creation of the Barbara Jordan statue. A major figure in recent Texas history, Barbara Jordan (1936–1996) was a Texas politician, lawyer, and educator. Jordan was a professor at UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs from 1979 until her death in 1996. During her life, and especially after her passing, Jordan became a symbol of a changing Texas, inclusive of Black and women’s social advancement. A successful student initiative erected her statue on campus in 2009. In 2002, the Orange Jackets, a student organization, seeking to remedy the lack of statues of women on campus, chose Jordan for her service to the State and UT and what she modeled for women. During 2003, the Orange Jackets collaborated with another student-led initiative, the Cesar Chavez Statue Project, and Student Government to initiate a student fee to raise funds for the statue. Backed by state legislators and later the Regents, the sculpture was commissioned to the artist Bruce Wolfe in the 2006–2007 academic year. The Barbara Jordan statue was unveiled on April 24, 2009.[2] It stands south, across 24th street, from the Littlefield House.

Cesar Chavez Statue, 2012, Daily Texan

A sculpture of Jordan also greets visitors and residents at the Austin airport and another stands in the San Antonio Convention Center. The aforementioned student-led initiative, the Cesar Chavez Statue Project, succeeded in erecting a statue of Chavez (1927–1993)—a labor organizer and leader as well as civil rights activist. His likeness is the first sculpture of a Latinx person on Campus, unveiled October 9, 2007. It stands on the West Mall.

[1] Jim Nicar, “How the MLK statue came to the East Mall,” Alcalde, February 2, 2012, https://alcalde.texasexes.org/2012/02/mlk-on-the-east-mall/

[2] “Barbara Jordan Statue Project,” Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, accessed February 18, 2019, http://diversity.utexas.edu/barbarajordanstatue/

For more information on Barbara Jordan see:

https://tshaonline.org/ha

ndbook/online/articles/fjoas

We are now on the north side of the main tower of the University of Texas. I want you to look closely at what’s here and what’s not here.
We’ve just passed the Barbara Jordan statue which is a way, or is a symbol of the ways, in which the University of Texas is trying to rethink itself. Particularly in relationship to some of the other features of the geography and artwork that we’re gonna see on campus. We’re also, you can see off in the distance, a building.
It’s called Painter Hall and we are going to sorta think, at least briefly, about what the significance of a building on our campus is that’s named after Mr. Painter. To fill that in, Mr. Painter was a president of the University of Texas. Mr. Painter was also a chief defendant, or represented the University as a defendant, in a key Supreme Court decision. That Supreme Court decision was Sweatt v. Painter in which, in 1946, a postman by the name of Heman Sweatt decided he wanted to enter the University of Texas. He was at law school. He was denied admission because he was black.
He then decided, along with the NAACP, to sue the University of Texas for admission. After four years and various other kinds of ups and downs, the Supreme Court decided against the University of Texas and decided that Heman Sweatt should be admitted to the University of Texas in which he did so in the fall of 1950. So we have a building here named after Painter who is the namesake for a key Civil Rights decision. A precursor to the Brown VS Board of Education decision in 1954, but on the wrong side, at least from my perspective alongside of history.
As you’re passing Painter Hall, I also want you to look catty-corner and behind us at another building called Gearing Hall and Gearing Hall will play a significant role in another set of points that I wanna make at a different point in the tour, but I want you just to have a notice of Gearing Hall and at this point I also want you to notice what’s not here. We’re at the north side of the tower. We’re going to look at what’s on the west side and the south side and the east side and I want you to be able to make a comparison between what’s going on, on these sides of the towers. So, just have a look and see for yourself what’s here. Let’s proceed on.

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Changing...

Next Stop

5. Steps of West Mall

1933 architectural planning map of the University of Texas rendered by Paul Philippe Cret, with the location of the Steps of West Mall tour stop marked.