1954, Alfred Tennyson Miller, first African American student admitted to NT Ph.D. program (awarded posthumously)

1955, Joe Atkins, filed lawsuit to enroll as undergraduate student, earned M.Ed. from NT in 1967

UNT concluded the yearlong observance of its 50th anniversary of desegregation by awarding honorary doctor of humane letters degrees to two barrier-breaking alumni — A. Tennyson Miller (posthumously) and Joe L. Atkins — during the 2004 fall university commencement ceremony Dec. 18.

The two were recognized for initiating the university's nonviolent desegregation, making it possible for thousands of African Americans to pursue their college education at North Texas.

In the summer of 1954, doctoral student Miller became the first African American to attend North Texas, and a lawsuit filed by Atkins ('66 M.Ed.) a year later paved the way for all African American students to enroll. Miller worked as a principal in Port Arthur until 1967, when he accepted a position as integration specialist with the U.S. Office of Education. He died in 1993.

Atkins served as a public school teacher and went on to be a field representative for the Texas State Teachers Association from 1974 to 1997. Today he is a real estate broker in Dallas. For his civic and professional accomplishments, the Texas Legislative Black Caucus presented him with the Outstanding Texan Award in March 2001.

		Alfred Tennyson Miller

Alfred Tennyson Miller, a Port Arthur high school principal who had coached and taught at Denton's Frederick Douglass Colored School, was the first African American to be admitted to North Texas when he enrolled in the educational administration doctoral program in Summer 1954. In The Story of North Texas, James Rogers quotes a letter Miller wrote to President J.C. Matthews before receiving news of his acceptance into the program.

"It is my conviction that my entrance now would contribute much to the successful, inevitable integration of Negroes into the school," Miller wrote. "My every effort would be toward the quality of deportment and performance that would dispel much of the apprehension that some may be harboring at this time. Knowing even in my own work the burdened seriousness of making an unusual decision, I understand why any caution may be yours. Yet there are decisions to be made, and we cannot be without the courage to make them."

Miller, who held a bachelor's degree from Prairie View and a master's from the University of Wisconsin, was a principal in Port Arthur until 1967, when he accepted a position as an integration specialist with the U.S. Office of Education. He died in 1993.