It was 52 years ago that the first African American got an athletic scholarship at Texas Tech. The headline in the school newspaper about Danny Hardaway’s scholarship read: “Negro inks grid pact with Tech.” That same year, 1967, Hardaway was a charter member along with other black students in forming the Student Organization for Unity and Leadership, or SOUL.
Through the years, the group’s name changed. Today it’s known the Black Student Association, and its president now, Baahir Jinadu, says there is a standout goal for this year.
“This past year, I believe we had 90 plus members. One of our goals this year is to actually double that, so it’s a very difficult goal, but I think it’s very achievable, honestly. I think a lot of the time students aren’t involved in BSA because they don’t know about it. At the same time I find that a lot of non-black people don’t know that they’re actually welcome to the organization. Because at the end of the day, a big part of BSA is educating people on what it is to be black and how to help black people, and just general knowledge as well on the things going on in America. I think that’s definitely a key point in increasing our membership.”
Jinadu says he and other BSA members are grateful for the support from Carol Sumner, the university’s vice president of the division of diversity, equity and inclusion who is also the school’s chief of diversity, who is black.
“Dr. Sumner, I would say she’s been a big help. I think just seeing that representation on campus does, especially for the black women that want to rock their natural hair and things like that, I think it is a big help.”
The school wasn’t involved in a conference-wide organization until 2018. According to a story in last year’s Daily Toreador, Tech was officially inducted into the Big 12 Council on Black Student Government last year.
Jinadu says with the support of university President Lawrence Schovanec, Sumner and staff in her office, some BSA members – including him - attended a Big 12 Council conference earlier in 2019.
“I think that we’re a big help in terms of getting us to the conference. As well as President Schovanec. All of those people were an essential part in getting us funding to go to the Big 12 Conference. Just because you have a few events that come with the Big 12 Conference, you have the Fall transitional meeting, the Fall planning meeting, you have the Spring big meeting that all of the schools go to and things like that. So just taking those trips, getting students to those trips, and really you didn’t have to spend a dime as a student while there. That in itself has helped Texas Tech in my opinion, because there we go to workshops where we’re equipped with how to be a black student on campus, how to bring back the knowledge we obtain, bring it back, and hopefully make the university better as a whole.
According to a university Factbook for the 2018-2019 academic year, there were 2,674 black undergraduate, graduate and law students, making up 7 percent of the university’s overall enrollment. That was a 12 percent increase from the previous academic year’s numbers of 2,386.
The incoming freshman class in the 2018-2019 academic year enrolled 387 black students who were black, not of Hispanic Origin, or 6.27 percent of the 6,131 students enrolled that year.
Jinadu says the black student association recognizes that the West Texas region isn’t like bigger urban areas of the state where blacks make up larger segments of the population. But, he says, that can provide an opportunity.
“We definitely encourage people to come here, but we also want to paint the realities of what it is to be a black student at Texas Tech University. Being in West Texas, there is a certain amount of endurance that you’re going to have to have, as a black student on campus. But at the end of the day, I think that those things can kind of improve you as a person. You’re going to have to face that anywhere you go in the world, and that’s including if you’re in Africa, anywhere, unfortunately you’re going to face racism. I think being in a place like West Texas as a black student sort of equips you with the necessary tools to combat that in your everyday life, as unfortunate as that sounds, it can also be a good thing.”