Roundtable: "'The Eyes of Texas': Historians’ Perspectives on the Origins of the Song"

Faculty, Students, Friends:

This turned out to be a vigorous conversation on the origins of the Eyes of Texas song and its merits. For those of you that missed this, here is the video of the event that's housed at the "Not Even Past" website: https://notevenpast.org/ihs-roundtable-the-eyes-of-texas-historians-perspectives-on-the-origins-of-the-song/

The outcome for the panelists was that a new song should get written. 

-Angela Valenzuela

Roundtable: "'The Eyes of Texas': Historians’ Perspectives on the Origins of the Song"

Monday November 8, 2021 • Webinar

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM

"The Eyes of Texas" is such a controversial school song that last year the UT President established a Committee to investigate the origins of the song and its evolution over time. The Committee concluded that the song did not have explicit, obvious racist origins. Recently in series of detailed archival studies, Professor Alberto A. Martinez argued that the Committee drew on knowledge that relied entirely on the testimony of an utterly unreliable witness who participated in the creation of the song. This panel will convene to try to establish whether the Presidential Committee got the history of the origins of the song right.

Featuring Historians:

• Dr. H. W. Brands
  Professor; Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History
  The University of Texas at Austin
• Dr. Dwonna Naomi Goldstone
  Associate Professor of History, and
  Director, African American Studies Program
  Texas State University
• Dr. Alberto A. Martínez
  Professor of History, and Director, History and Philosophy of Science
  The University of Texas at Austin

Co-Moderators:

• Dr. Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
  Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of History; and Director, Institute for Historical Studies,
  The University of Texas at Austin
• Dr. Edmund T. Gordon
  Vice Provost for Diversity, Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost; Executive Director of Commemorative and Contextualization Projects; Associate Professor, African and African Diaspora Studies and John L Warfield Center for African and African American Studies,
  The University of Texas at Austin

Queries/Contact: cmeador@austin.utexas.edu

Event details: https://bit.ly/3GHnfZ9

Please register at the link below in order to receive the link to access the event: https://utexas.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-jbR7mbFSemo1Od3lYjroA