I had the pleasure of sitting with Leon Holland, a precursor at UT Austin. We talked about Austin in the mid-1950s, his return in the early 1990s, and how the city has shaped him along the way. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation.

Leon Holland

“… so that was the only place we'd go on, on The Drag. And I always tell people we didn't venture past, we didn't go into West Campus at all. That was all off limits. And, I'm saying this to say that once we arrived in Austin, this is when I really... and I'm not naive to segregation or, Jim Crow, because we had it in San Antonio as well. But you rode at the back of the bus, and if you went to the movie theater, you went to The Majestic or the Empire, and you had to go to the back door and go upstairs to the balconies. So, I was well aware of Jim Crow type things. But I was not aware of open hostility to Blacks if you're just walking down the street. And that's what we encountered here in Austin. Now let me tell you a little story. The first week on campus, we-- there was a football game between the University of Texas and University of Southern California. University of Southern California had two Black players, but one was outstanding, and people can look up his name. His name was C.R Roberts. He was a running back. And, there's another story about bringing the team to Austin because they had to find accommodations and so forth and so on because, of course, the conference was not integrated at that time. Of course, University of Texas did not have any Black players, not until the early '70s. Now this is '56. Anyway, I went to the went to the football game, sitting in the student section, but every time that C.R Roberts got the ball, he would just run right through our defense. And, he kept doing this, and he did it so often, the crowd in unison would say, "Kill that nigger."”

Robin

“Oh. Wow.”

Leon Holland

“"Kill that nigger." And here we are sitting in, in the student section, but having that roar throughout the stadium, and here we are sitting there the first week on campus, having that epithet around you, that was, that was, eye-opening to say the least.”

Leon Holland

“So that's when I began to feel that there was something different about Austin than what I'd experienced in San Antonio.”

Photo Courtesy of University Of Southern California Athletics

Image of University of Southern California fullback C.R. Roberts during the 1956 game against the University of Texas. This is the game Leon references when speaking about the legacy and memory of early Black athletes in college football.