Accessing Housing: A Story Of Limited Options
Accessing student housing was, to put it lightly, a difficult process for Black Women during this time period. Options were limited, both in quantity and size, and their distance from campus seemed specifically designed to impede the ability of these women to access an education. Through the attempts at exclusion, however, emerged limited but spirited attempts to improve Black Women's access to campus. The Almetris Co-Op, Cliff Courts, and the Eliza Dee Home For Girls all attempted to promote this access in some way, with varying degrees of success and longevity. Each, however, can be looked at as a stepping stone towards the ultimate goal: desegregation at UT Austin. The locactions of these facilities is displayed in the map below.
Sparse Options
Eliza Dee, Cliff Courts, and Almetris Co-Op, shown at left, demonstrate the limited options available to Black Women at UT. These options, spread over a wide area far from campus, were often small, ill-kept, and had stipulations attached.
Eliza Dee Home For Girls, for example, was operated by the Methodist Church on the campus of Samuel Huston College (todays Huston-Tillotson University). Eliza Dee would be torn down to make way for the constrution of I-35, further limiting access to housing.
Cliff Courts, located where Craven-Clark Field stands today, was a grouping of temporary housing units constructed after World War II.
Finally, the multiple iterations of Co-Ops on Whitis Avenue, located at 2506 and 2512 Whitis, made up the closest available housing to campus. Located near Kinsolving Hall, a frequent site of sit-ins and protests sparked by the University's segregated housing, these two houses were the location of the bulk of Almetris Duren's work at UT, and would become the future site of the women's co-ops championed by Duren and Dorothy Gebauer.
A Timeline of Progress
This timeline, found in the Almetris Duren Papers, provides context for the construction of women's housing units on the university campus. It details efforts by the Office of the Dean Of Women to construct new housing units for women. This office, established in the early 1900's, was vital in obtaining access for women at UT. First held by Helen Kirby, more information about the office and Kirby herself can be found in another exhibit on this site, Bridging Gaps, Creating Change, and Defining Heritage at the University of Texas.
The units detailed in this timeline were construncted at 2610 Whitis Avenue, just down the street from the Almetris Co-Op. These units, three built in 1952 and a further three in the mid 1960's, were specifically designed as University owned housing for women. Later, these units would be converted to co-op housing, and would eventually become a center for Black housing at UT. These buildings still stand today, as Whitis Court, an annex of sorts to Almetris Duren Residence Hall.