Growing up, John Chase dreamed of creating homes and buildings in which people could live, work and enjoy for generations. He not only became a trailblazing architect but along the way also helped desegregate higher education.
When he died in late March at age 87, Chase had achieved an admirable list of “firsts” among African-Americans. Easily the most significant, observers say, was him being the first to enroll as a graduate student in 1950 at the University of Texas at Austin in the wake of a historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling that essentially ordered public colleges to admit African-Americans to its graduate-level and professional programs.
“He was a true pioneer and a giant,” says Leslie Cedar, chief executive officer and executive director of Texas Exes, the UT alumni association. She described Chase, who was chosen in 1998 as Texas Exes president, as “graceful and humble.”
Current Texas Exes president and 1991 law graduate Machree Gibson also became acquainted with Chase because they shared mutual relatives. “He was definitely someone to look up to and a very fine role model,” Gibson recalls.
A Maryland native, Chase earned a bachelor’s in architecture from Hampton University and took a drafting job in Philadelphia. Another job led to the move to Austin, where he realized he needed a graduate degree to improve his chances of actually becoming an architect. Meanwhile, the Sweatt v. Painter case was pending, in which Heman Sweatt sued UT after being automatically denied admission to its law school because he was Black.
Chase contacted the head of UT’s architecture program anyway, and the latter advised him to apply for admission and await the outcome of the Sweatt case. Once the High Court handed down its ruling, UT complied, although the undergraduate level did not desegregate until after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling of 1954.
In a 2006 interview for the UT-based Shirley Bird Perry Oral History Project, Chase described how news reporters in 1950 were “more excited than I was” by his history-making registration as a graduate student. Two days after the Sweatt decision, Chase was joined at registration on campus by Horace Lincoln Heath, an African-American who was pursuing graduate studies in another discipline. While they stood in line among White peers, one of the journalists on hand suggested Chase pay his tuition, then “turn around and smile” for a news photo.
