Gregg roared to the soldiers, “Attention, Texas Brigade! Forward! The Eyes of General Lee are upon you!” After recounting this story, Prather told students: “I give you your marching orders for the session: ‘Forward! The eyes of Texas are upon you!” To inspire his brigade in the presence of Lee, Gen. 15, 1900, Prather regaled incoming UT students with a Civil War tale centering on Lee and Confederate Gen. Lee is said to have been fond of telling students, “The Eyes of the South are upon you” - although the committee said it found no primary source to verify that. Lee was university president at the time and was “clearly a beloved figure to Prather,” the report said. Prather attended Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Virginia after the Civil War. In writing them, Sinclair drew inspiration from then-university president William Prather’s favorite saying: “The Eyes of Texas are upon you.” “We can make sure we revisit student fan conduct in our games and venues to make sure that we do all we can there to make up the right kind of atmosphere we want for our student-athletes when they’re competing,” Hartzell said.Īmong the most contentious aspects of the report are likely to be its examination of the lyrics’ origin.
Memorial falls to Round Rock Westwood in state tennis finalĪs for protecting the right of student-athletes or band members to protest the song, the report included recommended ways to “memorialize” the song’s history and encourage “healthy” conversation. Senior safety DeMarvion Overshown tweeted, “All we can do is pray for them but we will not stop fighting for what’s right.” Longhorns fans, including a contingent of the athletic department’s boosters, have sent Hartzell messages rife with bigoted language and threats to withdraw or cease donations because of student protests over the song.įormer Texas football safety Caden Sterns, a vocal critic of the song, said some alumni told him and several teammates that they could “find jobs outside of Texas” if they did not participate in singing the alma mater. And instead, we tasked the committee with getting the facts out in the open.” “I think if the committee had been formed, asked to cast a decision or cast a vote, if you will, over the future of the song, I think it would be hard for it to do the same kind of work. “I think it actually protected the effort of the committee,” he said. Hartzell said in an interview this week that he did not believe that limitation undermined the committee’s ability to analyze the song without bias. Hartzell announced last July that the song “will continue to be our alma mater.” The Eyes of Texas History Committee “was never charged with considering whether the song should be changed,” the report states. On : As Black athletes speak up, UT faces neo-Confederate origins “Although it was not written in dialect and does not appear to have been composed as a minstrel song, we are pained and uncomfortable with this aspect of its history,” the report said. Later, Texas Cowboys minstrel shows, first held in Hogg Auditorium in 1940 and later in Gregory Gym, featured renditions of the song in blackface. It was first performed by the varsity quartet of the UT glee club on May 12,1903, during a student-organized minstrel show to raise money for the track team.
The report said the song, written by John Lang Sinclair, was “a message of encouragement and accountability to the students and faculty at the then-fledgling university.” The report said the song’s lyrics were not intended to show “nostalgia for slavery” and that there was “a very low likelihood” that “The Eyes of Texas” had been inspired by a line long attributed to Lee: “The eyes of the South are upon you.”
When protests continued, UT president Jay Hartzell in November appointed the Eyes of Texas History Committee to examine the origins of the song and propose ways “to educate the community on its history.” The 24 members included alumni, current students, former athletes, historians and others. The university renamed some buildings and acceded to some of the athletes’ other requests, but UT leaders stuck by “The Eyes of Texas,” despite complaints that its association with early 20th century minstrel shows made it an emblem of racism. A group of UT student-athletes called on the university last summer to rename campus buildings named after segregationists, remove statues of Confederate figures and discontinue “The Eyes of Texas,” among other demands.
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