Black activist seeks admission to segregated university

On this day in 1946, black activist Heman Sweatt, accompanied by a delegation from the NAACP, met with University of Texas president Theophilus S. Painter and other university officials to present a formal request for admission to the UT law school. The legal case resulting from this request, Sweatt v. Painter, was a landmark civil-rights decision, one of several that struck down the doctrine of "separate but equal" educational facilities. Sweatt finally registered at the University of Texas law school on September 19, 1950.