♪ (somber instrumental music) ♪ - If we truly subscribe to this idea of what starts here changes the world, maybe we start by having conversations that are not easy to have. This school song starts almost at the university's inception, and it goes to the present day. So you can tell a story
about the University of Texas through the story of the song. There are parts of the history that are really hard to stomach, painful in certain points. If we are to embrace "The Eyes of Texas," we need to embrace all of its history. All of its tradition and legacy, however difficult it may be. The University of Texas
was, to put it bluntly, a Jim Crow University in a Jim Crow state. Anything that emerged from that background could be said to have racist origins. Now, does the song, absent
that, independent of that, does it connote anything racist to anybody who doesn't know anything
about the origins? - They all performed songs that they borrowed from
other universities, they didn't have a song, unique to Texas. - It was a small school, we're talking about 1500 to 2000 students, 20 people in the band, the University of Texas didn't
have a good reputation yet. If you really had money,
or if you could do it, you went to the private schools in Texas. - So the idea was, this
is very much about us showing people by our example, that we are a scholarly
institution of merit. It's pretty clear from the evidence, "The eyes of Texas are upon you" is exhorting people to
do their absolute best because you are being scrutinized. You do not have the benefit
of being a university that has a long tradition, students were referred to as barbarians and the faculty were looked down upon. - "The eyes of Texas are upon you," because Texas, for the students, Texas is subsidizing your education, Texas is looking to you for great things. - One of the things that we
need to make sure we understand is this, the melody is the, you know, "I've Been Working on the Railroad," that is a widespread,
universally known song. - Sinclair was not a
musician, he was a writer. So he couldn't have
written the music himself. He needed a song, he needed
a tune that already existed. The idea of stealing a tune, well, the American national anthem is a stolen British drinking tune. - I had looked at the tune of the song, "I've Been Working on the
Railroad" and those lyrics, those racist, horrible lyrics, so my expectations
about what I would learn and find out about the true
facts about "The Eyes of Texas," I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect anything good. The biggest eye opener
about the history of "The Eyes of Texas" was that
that song and those lyrics were not written in the
so-called Negro dialect, unlike the tune, and the song, "I've Been Working on the Railroad." As I looked for my own truth
about the University of Texas, "Eyes of Texas" school song, I couldn't see, I couldn't find, I could not identify
anything in the lyrics that were racist to me. - I have no reason to think whatsoever that there was anything in terms
of "we're surveilling you," "we are watching you behind the scenes," or anything like that, or that it was intended at all, in the direction of Black people. They just weren't part of the audience. They weren't part of the
people he was thinking about, because there weren't any Black students. And the fact that it was
performed at a minstrel show was almost happenstance. So Sinclair and Johnson
tried another song, "The Jolly Students of the Varsity." And they premiered that,
not at a minstrel show, but at a student talent show, where, no blackface anywhere around. And if that one had caught on, then that would have been what
became "The Eyes of Texas." It was a fundraiser for the track team. It was happenstance
that "The Eyes of Texas" premiered at a minstrel show, that wasn't part of the design, that wasn't part of the intention. - But there was an
underbelly to the 40 Acres, the state of Texas, the
United States of America, of real rampant racial segregation, and just policies that
prevented all Texans from having access to
the supply chain of power and privilege and prestige
and educational attainment that was the 40 Acres. This was a racist society, period. That is the history of the United States. When we wrote the report, there are parts where we talk about, look who's not present here. So I think, like, the origins
of "The Eyes of Texas," or our football team being
all white until 1969, or the band playing in
minstrel shows, it's demeaning. It says so many things about the status and the roles of
African-Americans at that time, as perceived by white people. People sang "The Eyes" for decades when the country was racially segregated, but because of racial privilege, they didn't even think about
that racial segregation. - The two most serious uses of the song for protest reasons was
when James Ferguson, Governor Ferguson, vetoed the
university's entire budget, a band of co-eds marched past
the governor's office window, and he was standing there as they sang "The Eyes of Texas" at him. And then when Homer Rainey was dismissed by the Board of Regents in 1944, as the University of Texas president, the regents were afraid that he was going to push for racial
desegregation of the campus. So they just went down to the Capitol, and again, sang "The Eyes
of Texas" as a protest song, to the legislature and to the regents. Those activities were
nearly 30 years apart. These are two different
generations of students. The thing about the song
is its organic evolution. It wasn't a song that the Board of Regents hired a songwriter to
write an official anthem for the University of Texas at Austin. You know, it really is from the roots up, it's from, you know, it
started with the students. And it evolved over time to take on all of this institutional meaning. - One thing about songs is, that in a certain way, they're new every time somebody sings it. It's not like a building. It's not even a statue. A statue is there, and it is the, it is the creation of the sculptor. - If you have statues
of Confederate generals and the president of the
Confederacy out on your main lawn, leading up to your administration building in the pathway between
the Capitol and the Tower, that's transmitting a message as well. They were racist. There's no question about it. The papers that exist that
show that, people admitted it. That's not the case with this song. "The Eyes of Texas" is a
completely different story here. But they're both symbols, one of them I think we can be proud of. - I didn't sing the song
when I was a student, but I came here in 1968, a time of protest for civil rights. I came to the school because
I received a scholarship, but I felt not necessarily connected in every way to the school. So if the facts revealed that the history of that song is, was, racist, I have to say that it would
not have surprised me. The surprise for me is that it wasn't. - A conversation and a
historical reflection has been initiated. How do we show progress? And how do we show accountability? We're all going to have
the opportunity, I think, to rest and sit with really complex issues and one of them is the
story of this university. ♪ (somber instrumental music) ♪
