Through the support of then Director of the Law Library, Marguerite Butler, and the Law School Dean McKen Carrington, the Law Library Special Collections made its debut in 2002. It was conceived with the historical backdrop of Heman Marion Sweatt 1912-1982) as its foundation.

In summary, Sweatt desired to pursue a legal education at the University of Texas law school in 1946.  However, Jim Crow laws precluded him from enrolling in the predominately Anglo-American institution of higher learning because of his race.    Hence, he was denied admission into the university. Subsequently, through the assistance of the NAACP, Sweatt filed a lawsuit against the University of Texas.  Thurgood Marshall, one of the lead counsels, appealed his case up to the United States Supreme Court, where it ruled in Sweatt’s favor in 1950.  However, prior to the Court’s decision, the Texas State Legislature responded to this high profile case by creating a makeshift law school for “Negroes” in Austin, later transferred to the newly established Texas State University for Negroes in 1947.  The name was changed to Texas Southern University in 1951.  And although Sweatt never attended the Law School at Texas Southern University, he was the direct cause for its very existence.

The Sweatt experience teaches us that life is a battle.  The first, and probably the most important one, is the battle of the mind.  With that being said, the Law Library is called into existence not only to meet the curriculum needs and research demands of a rigorous law school education.  It is, above all, an institution borne from the travails of social justice, self-determination and human triumph.  Therefore, the role of the Law Library is much more than an environment to tap legal information and resources.  Through the agency of its Special Collections, the Law Library is charged with the mission and responsibility to collect, to store, and to disseminate information that analyzes, interprets, discusses and comments on the legal, political and social history of people of African descent in the State of Texas and abroad as well as to preserve the institutional memory of the Law School.

The following list highlights selected microform titles from the Special Collections:

• Black Abolitionist Papers, 1831-1865
• The Black Power Movement, Parts II (Papers of Robert F. Williams) & IV (League of Revolutionary Black Workers, 1965-1976)
• Civil Rights during the Johnson Administration, Parts I-V
• Civil Rights during the Kennedy Administration, Parts I & II
• Civil Rights during the Nixon Administration, Part I
• Federal Surveillance of Afro-Americans (1918-1925): First World War, Red Scare, and Garvey Movement
• Federal Writers’ Project
• The Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company: Letters Received by the Commissioners, 1870-1914
• The Freedmen’s Hospital, 1872-1910: Correspondence and Memoranda
• Hampton University Newspaper Clipping File
• The Martin Luther King Jr FBI Files, Parts I & II (King-Levison File)
• New Deal Agencies and Black America
• Papers of the American Slave Trade (selected series and parts)
• President Truman’s Committee on Civil Rights
• Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks, Parts I (Petition to Southern Legislatures, 1777-1867) & II (Petition to Southern County Courts, 1775-1867)
• Records of the National Negro Business League
• Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War (selected series and parts)
• Records of the Tuskegee Airmen, Part I (Records of the Army Air Forces)
• Records of U.S. Colored Troops, Part I (Letters Related to Recruitment of African Americans, 1863-1865)
• Slavery and Anti-Slavery Pamphlets from the Libraries of Salmon P. Chase & John P. Hale
• Slavery in Ante-Bellum Southern Industries (selected series and parts)
• Yoruba Collection of William and Berta Bascom, 1841-1973

For a complete list of microform titles, click here.

Special Collections materials are generally non-circulating and must be viewed in the Law Library. Annotated bibliographies, finding aids, and guides are currently in progress. Located in Room B30 of the Law Library Basement, the hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 9:00a.m. to 6:00p.m. For more information, please contact Olusola Babatunde 713.313.1978 or Email: obabatunde@tmslaw.tsu.edu.