Mina Ward School
Bastrop, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Bastrop was established as a Mexican municipality (later renamed Mina) in 1832. As in many Texas towns, early 20th century grade schools here were segregated into three campuses, with separate facilities for Mexican American, African American and Anglo American students. Bastrop established a school for Mexican Americans in the 1910s, and in 1933 built the Mina Ward School on land east of Main Street and north of the M-K-T railroad tracks. The one-story yellow frame schoolhouse had classroom space and a stage for one or two teachers educating eight grades of students from Bastrop and the surrounding rural area. In 1947, Samuel and Nemesia García asked school officials to let their granddaughter attend the Anglo American school, but the request was denied. On Nov. 17, 1947, on behalf of twenty students in four local school districts, San Antonio attorney Gustavo (Gus) C. Garcia, supported by University of Texas professor George I. Sanchez and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), filed a class action lawsuit titled Minerva Delgado, et al. vs. Bastrop Independent School District of Bastrop County, et al. The complaint accused the schools of depriving children of equal educational opportunities. At the hearing on Jun. 15, 1948, federal judge Ben H. Rice issued a summary judgment, ruling the segregation of children of "Mexican or other Latin American descent" was "arbitrary and discriminatory and in violation of plaintiff's constiutional rights as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States." The Mina Ward School closed, but statewide the decision preserved segregation of African American students and any first graders who did not exhibit English-language proficiency. The school and the Delgado v. Bastrop case are remembered for their significant contributions to the Civil Rights movement and for providing greater opportunities for generations of Texans. (2015)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1933, the Mina Ward School was the yellow frame schoolhouse where Bastrop's Mexican American children were educated apart from Anglo students, one of three segregated campuses in town. When Samuel and Nemesia García were refused enrollment for their granddaughter at the Anglo school in 1947, attorney Gus C. Garcia, professor George I. Sanchez, and LULAC filed the class action Delgado v. Bastrop ISD. In 1948 federal judge Ben H. Rice ruled that segregating children of Mexican descent violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
Why it matters
Delgado v. Bastrop was a landmark in Mexican American civil rights, striking down a whole category of school segregation years before Brown v. Board and helping open the classroom door for generations of Texans.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Gustavo C. Garcia
- · George I. Sanchez
- · Ben H. Rice
Related events
- · Delgado v. Bastrop ISD
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Willow Ranch Negro School
Travis County, TX
Across the rural South and Southwest, Black communities educated their children in separate, unequal schoolhouses through the long decades of Jim Crow. A "Negro school" like this one in Travis County was often built and sustained by the very families it served, because the state provided so little to Black education. Small and plain, such buildings were nonetheless engines of literacy, faith, and community for African American families shut out of white classrooms.
Holy Cross Catholic Church and Community
Austin, TX
In 1936 Father Francis R. Weber celebrated the first Mass of Holy Cross, the first Catholic parish to serve Austin's African American community, in the home of William M. Tears—just as the city's 1928 plan pushed Black residents into East Austin. Parishioners built the church in 1937 and went on to found a second parish, a school, and Holy Cross Hospital, the first in Austin to let Black physicians practice, staffed by physician-nun Sister Mary Celine Heitzman. Its members shaped civic and political life, including the first Black speaker pro tem of the Texas Legislature.
Site of Old Anderson High School, Kealing Junior High School
Austin, TX
Austin's first high school for Black students opened in 1884 as Robertson Hill School and, through several moves and renamings, became L. C. Anderson High School, honoring a longtime principal. Kealing Junior High, the city's first junior high for Black students, opened on this site in 1930, named for educator Hightower Theodore Kealing, and later merged with the Anderson buildings. The schools here closed in 1971 under court-ordered desegregation, and the old buildings were later razed or lost to fire.
Lockhart Vocational High School (Carver HS)
Lockhart, TX
Built in 1923 for Lockhart's African American students—reportedly with materials salvaged from a former white school—this two-story brick and stucco schoolhouse was designed and partly funded through the Rosenwald Foundation, with the district and Black citizens raising the rest. Before it opened, Black children had studied in scattered churches, lodges, and even a funeral parlor. Accredited in 1926 and renamed G.W. Carver High School in 1946, it closed with integration in 1964 and later housed a Head Start program.