AUSTIN (KXAN) — A souvenir from 83-year-old Texanna Huff’s sophomore year of high school is stapled to the front page of her 1956 Austin High yearbook.
It was a letter from her 15-year-old self: one she had almost forgotten, summarizing a historic year for the country — and in her own life.
The year she, and 11 other students, became the first Black children to integrate Austin schools.
Struggling to decipher her own cursive writing, Huff read part of the letter dated the fall of 1955, back when she was Texanna Davis: “I think back now, and I was very naïve and innocent to what was happening at that time. It never crossed my mind that I was making history in Austin.”
Rose Fowler picture in her Travis High School yearbook (Austin Independent School District yearbooks courtesy of the Austin History Center)
“Hicks, myself — it was like the four of us. We tried to go to events and participate. Sometimes they would throw stuff at you, but we just had to ignore it until we got some friends. Once we got some friends, we didn’t have too many problems because they stood up for us,” Shaw said. “I remember their names because they would talk to you regardless — in the hall or the kitchen.”
Shaw said he recalled Rushing, and her brother Terry Bray, would come and talk to the Black students around the school.
“We would go sit at a table by ourselves, and they would come there and sit and talk,” Shaw said. “Which helped a lot. It helped ease the tension with everybody.”
“I feel bad that he was going through it, but I know it was happening at the time. It was just the way it was,” Rushing said. “That means a lot to know that without even thinking about it, we were kind to someone and treated them the way they should be.”
McCallum High School
The late Margie Bedford (née Hendricks) was the only Black student to enroll at McCallum High School during the first year of integration. Hendricks lived in northwest Austin, but her mother worked down the street from McCallum.
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