Texas Local News, Politics, Sports & Business

As soon as-segregated Marfa college will get historic designation – Houston Chronicle

[ad_1]

WASHINGTON — A once-segregated college in Marfa will quickly have a historic designation after the Home handed a invoice to make it a Nationwide Historic Web site. 

The laws, which is headed to the White Home for President Joe Biden’s signature, caps a years-long effort to place the Blackwell College — a tiny schoolhouse within the far West Texas city the place Mexican and Mexican-American kids have been taught for almost 60 years — beneath the supervision of the Nationwide Park Service.

The invoice was pushed by U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican. It handed the Home on a 414-12 vote on Tuesday. U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin was the lone Texan to oppose the laws. 

TEXAS TAKE: Get political headlines from across the state sent directly to your inbox

“We should work collectively in Congress to color a extra correct image of how this nation got here to be. And that image isn’t full with out together with the historical past of Mexican People,” Gonzales mentioned in a press release. “For many years, the Blackwell College has been an essential piece of historical past for Marfa, west Texas and Mexican People throughout the nation. Establishing the Blackwell College as a Nationwide Historic Web site will cement its wealthy, difficult legacy for generations to come back.”  

Whereas there was no state regulation that mandated separate colleges for Hispanic college students, many Texas college districts, together with in Marfa, segregated college students, in response to the Texas Historic Fee.

Blackwell, named for its longtime principal Jesse Blackwell, served as an elementary and center college till 1965, when Marfa’s colleges have been built-in and a lot of the Blackwell campus buildings have been razed.

[email protected]

[ad_2]

Comments are closed.