Lonnie Fogle

“In Nacogdoches the theaters integrated. When they said ‘integrated’, it means the blacks sit in the balcony and the whites sit downstairs. But in Austin on the Drag, we were not even offered that opportunity at the Varsity and the Texas Theater. There was a newspaper article that featured Booker T. Bonner sitting on a upside down bucket with some crackers and bread on a hunger strike in front of the Texas theater. That was probably the motivating factor that caused us to join in and start demonstrations. All you had to do was go to one meeting and you were in and that was what I did.“

Lonnie Fogle was one of the first black students to attend The University of Texas at Austin. Fogle graduated from the College of Natural Sciences with a bachelor’s of science in chemistry in 1966. Now a retired senior chemical engineer from Dupont, Fogle is currently the president of the Precursors, a group made up of about 100 individuals who were among the first black students that attended the university from the late 1950’s to mid 1960’s.