When Cheryl Wyatt tried to enroll at John Henry Brown Elementary<\/a> in 1955, a principal told the 10-year-old to go home. <\/p>\n Dallas ISD refused to integrate its schools in the wake of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.<\/a> So Wyatt\u2019s family sued, making her one of 28 children represented in the first legal attempt to desegregate Dallas\u2019 public education system<\/a>. <\/p>\n The Education Lab<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cMy dad would tell us, \u2018You all are just as important,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBut still, we had that feeling. We lived a life of separation.\u201d <\/p>\n Wyatt, 81, will tell you she didn\u2019t realize she was making history. She just wanted an education. <\/p>\n \u2018There\u2019s education in everything you do\u2019<\/p>\n An education means you get wise. You learn about life. You become a different person. <\/p>\n That\u2019s what Wyatt\u2019s dad, who dropped out of school in fourth grade, told her. Growing up, she watched him come home from work, scarf down dinner and drive to Lincoln High School, where he took night classes to earn his diploma. <\/p>\n In 2021, after a lifetime of working in salons, of raising two children, of cooing over her grandchildren, Wyatt wanted to be a different person. <\/p>\n She remembered a promise she made to herself in 2010 when she heard the University of North Texas System<\/a> was opening a campus in southern Dallas. All of her brothers had gone to college, launching careers as a lawyer, a principal and a technician. For a long time, she wanted that, too. <\/p>\n \u201cI read about it,\u201d she recalled. \u201cAnd I said to myself, \u2018I\u2019m going to that school.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n UNT Dallas, which was founded with a mission to make college degrees accessible<\/a> and affordable for urban Dallas students, was close enough to her Duncanville home that she could drive to campus. In-state tuition was affordable, so Wyatt called Texas Southern University in Houston, where she spent three semesters before leaving in 1964, and asked for her transcript. <\/p>\n \u201cThe next thing I knew, I was in class,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Cheryl Wyatt, 81, receives her college diploma from the University of North Texas at Dallas on Dec. 16, 2025. <\/p>\n Steve Hamm<\/p>\n She had planned to study grant writing. For 30 years she headed Alpha Chi Pi Omega, a national Greek organization for beauty professionals, and they always needed more money to sponsor their youth programs. Maybe she could help. <\/p>\n After she had completed the few grant-writing classes UNT Dallas offered, she wasn\u2019t sure what she should major in. Her professors, including Robert Tinajero, an associate professor of English and rhetoric, nudged her to major in applied English,<\/a> which focuses on building marketable language and communication skills. <\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s not afraid to talk and give her opinions. She has so much experience in life that it was really great for the other students to hear her when she spoke up in class,\u201d Tinajero said. \u201cThey and I learned a lot from her.\u201d <\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Wyatt took creative writing courses, wrote poems and short stories, and recorded a podcast about her life. She often sat in the front row and hardly ever missed class. <\/p>\n When she had back surgery in January, she didn\u2019t take time off. Instead, her days blurred between her computer and bed: She would wake up, take her medication and log onto class. After a few hours, she\u2019d stop to take a nap. <\/p>\n On campus, she tried to coax her young classmates to come out of their shells. <\/p>\n \u201cI would always try to start a conversation and they would just answer, point blank, yes, no, yes, no,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was kind of hard connecting with this generation. They don\u2019t open up as freely.\u201d <\/p>\n Wyatt took four classes with Tinajero, including one that explored social issues through the lens of hip-hop. Before the semester started, Tinajero recalled, Wyatt was worried she wouldn\u2019t do well. She didn\u2019t like to listen to rap music. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I heard rapping, I heard curse words. I had a negative impression of what rapping is,\u201d Wyatt said. \u201cBut after that class, I learned that those artists are very intelligent \u2026 This was their way to express themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n Her lived experience became lessons for Tinajero\u2019s students. <\/p>\n \u201cShe was an 80-year-old analyzing Kendrick Lamar lyrics,\u201d Tinajero said. \u201cAnd while my other students have seen things, it\u2019s mostly through them reading about it or learning about it on social media. To have somebody in class that\u2019s actually lived through it was pretty awesome.\u201d <\/p>\n For Tinajero\u2019s new media class, Wyatt made a podcast about her experience<\/a> in the 1955 lawsuit, recounting the crowded courtroom and the flashes of reporters\u2019 cameras. She brought in a newspaper clipping with a photo of her and seven other plaintiffs, including her brother and twin sister. <\/p>\n \u201cI know segregation was really not that long ago, but having someone who lived through it here among us in our class was just a stark reminder that this is something that affected and still has effects on people who are very much still alive today,\u201d said Michelle McWhorter, 30, who took classes with Wyatt. <\/p>\n Eight of the 28 plaintiffs in the first desegregation lawsuit filed against Dallas schools were photographed in September 1955 at an NAACP meeting held to let the plaintiffs and their families get acquainted. Pictured are (back row, from left) Maudie Sims, Alonzo Nickerson Jr., Rosa Sims, Daurity Smith, Pamela Boson and Ronald Hurdle, and (seated) Carol Hurdle and Cheryl Hurdle. \/ Special to The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n Special to the Dallas Morning News \/ Special to TDMN<\/p>\n At college, Wyatt started to see things \u2014 rap music, artificial intelligence, the joys of writing \u2014 in a new light. <\/p>\n \u201cI know now that there\u2019s education in everything you do, everything you learn,\u201d she said. \u201cThe things that I knew before that I thought were negative, I see now as positive.\u201d <\/p>\n This life, she realized, was what her dad had been chasing, driving off in the dark to night school. This was what he wanted for her when they walked to Brown Elementary\u2019s doorsteps. <\/p>\n On the cusp of history<\/p>\n Wyatt\u2019s 1955 lawsuit against Dallas ISD was short-lived. <\/p>\n Days after the NAACP filed suit, U.S. District Judge William Hawley Atwell dismissed it, saying the school district should be given more time to integrate, according to a 1988 Dallas Morning News article. Wyatt never attended a desegregated school in Dallas. <\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n The suit \u201cbegan a succession of others, a series of lawsuits that put integration in the hands of the federal courts,\u201d according to the 1988 article. In a similar case in 1957, the NAACP represented two Black children<\/a> who wanted to attend a white school closer to their Dallas home. In 1970, Sam Tasby<\/a>, a father of six children<\/a>, filed a landmark lawsuit that brought a federal desegregation order against the district. <\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n It would take 48 years after Wyatt\u2019s case for a district judge to declare Dallas ISD desegregated<\/a> in 2003. <\/p>\n Wyatt said her father didn\u2019t tell her back then that the case had been dismissed. <\/p>\n \u201cMy father taught us to not give up. Just stick with it,\u201d she said. \u201cSome people think that the first time you fail, you\u2019re a failure. You just need to get up and shake yourself off and keep trying, because you\u2019re going to win if you keep trying.\u201d <\/p>\n![\"Victor](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/6YY4FKWOOBF53J6BTRYAE6OAXE.jpg\")
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