Orville Bullington
Encyclopedia
Orville Bullington was an attorney and business
man in Wichita Falls
, Texas
, who was the unsuccessful Republican
gubernatorial nominee in 1932 against former Governor
Miriam Wallace "Ma" Ferguson.
in Vernon County in western Missouri
, to William Isiac Bullington and the former Sarah Holmes, both natives of Tennessee
. He was educated at a private school in Tennessee and at some point during childhood relocated with his family to Poolville
in Parker County
west of Fort Worth
. He enrolled at Sam Houston State University
in Huntsville
, then a normal school
, from which he graduated in 1901. Bullington taught school for two years before he enrolled at the University of Texas Law School in Austin
in 1903. He completed the three-year curriculum in two years, was admitted to the Texas bar, and in 1906 established his law office in Munday
in Knox County
in West Texas
. He served a term as the Knox county attorney
.
In June 1909, Bullington moved to Wichita Falls, where he practiced law for the remainder of his life, first with partners Charles C. Huff and Joe H. Barwise, and later with T.R. "Dan" Boone and Leslie Humphrey (1884–1967), who served for a time as the district attorney
from Henrietta
in nearby Clay County
and was a long-time Democratic Party advocate. The Bullington firm is now known as Gibson Davenport Anderson.
Bullington enlisted as a private
in the United States Army
during World War I
and was discharged as a lieutenant colonel
from the 8th Infantry.
On June 28, 1911, Bullington married the former Sadie Kell (born ca. 1886), daughter of railroad executive Frank Kell (1859–1941) of Wichita Falls, and the couple had one son, William Orville Bullington (1923–1951). Sadie's wedding gown is among the exhibits at the Kell House Museum in Wichita Falls. In 1929, Bullington was named president of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce
. His business investments included petroleum
and farm and ranch holdings in Wichita Falls and the Texas Panhandle
. He was also affiliated with the American National Bank, Kemp Hotel Corporation (named for Joseph A. Kemp, Frank Kell's brother-in-law), and the Wichita Falls and Southern Railroad. In 1929, Bullington became partners with Frank P. Jackson and J. M. Gilliam in the first radio
station in Waco
, WJAD, which soon changed its named to WACO, now based on Burleson
, Texas.
, Bullington switched parties in 1918. As the Republican nominee for governor in 1932, he waged a vigorous campaign. He polled the largest popular vote for a Republican gubernatorial in Texas up until that time though his final percent was three points below that received in 1924 by George C. Butte
of Austin in his race against Miriam Ferguson, when Ferguson won the first of her two nonconsecutive terms as governor. Bullington, who stressed the corrupt practices from the earlier Ferguson administration, including that of her husband, James E. Ferguson
(service: 1915-1917), received 322,589 votes (38.1 percent) to Ferguson's 521,395 (61.6 percent). Bullington polled more than three times the votes of his ticket-mate, U.S. President Herbert Hoover
, who though he had won Texas in 1928, procured only 97,959 ballots (11.4 percent) in 1932.
In 1936, Bullington charged that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
's New Deal
was being managed by communists. Bullington was a delegate to eight Republican national conventions from 1928–1956 and a member of the Texas Republican Executive Committee from 1947-1952. He was the party's state chairman from 1951–1952. He was a member of the temporary platform
committee for the 1948 Republican National Convention
, which met in Philadelphia
, Pennsylvania
, to nominate the Thomas E. Dewey/Earl Warren
ticket. At that convention, Bullington led a protest demanding that a spokesman from the Deep South
be involved in the drafting of the civil rights
plank of the GOP
platform. As a result of his protest, Bullington and three other southerners were named to the platform committee.
At the 1952 Republican National Convention
in Chicago, Illinois
, Bullington supported U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio
for the presidential nomination against the native-born Texan, Dwight D. Eisenhower
. Bullington sought to impose a loyalty pledge for participants in the 1952 Texas Republican precinct, county, and state conventions. Later in the year, Bullington was among several men accused of having engaged in unfair practices to derail Eisenhower's nomination. Bullington soon wavered in his support for Taft, and, as the state GOP chairman in 1952, publicly confessed that his own faction had been unfair to the Eisenhower Republicans in delegate selection. The Texas delegation, after a bitterly divided state convention in Mineral Wells
, finally voted thirty-three for Eisenhower and five for Taft though the latter forces claimed that Democrats had provided Eisenhower's margin by packing the early precinct conventions. Senator Taft himself said that the divisions within the Texas GOP had been brewing for some time and that the presidential contest brought them to the surface.
, a former Republican while previously residing in Kansas
, appointed Bullington a regent of the University of Texas at Austin
, a position that he held until March 1947. Bullington and several other O'Daniel appointees sought to slash UT funding, remove alleged communists from both faculty and student ranks, and to restrict the instruction of certain subjects. When UT president Homer P. Rainey
, later an unsuccessful 1946 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, denounced the interference, the regents dismissed Rainey. Bullington produced what he considered "conclusive evidence" of Rainey's "incompetence." Bullington said that Rainey had "discovered a nest of homosexuals in the faculty as early as September 1943. He did not disclose it to any member of the board until eight months later, despite the rules requiring immediate reporting of such conditions. . . . . We felt that he was not handling [the matter] vigorously enough and decided to take it over for ourselves."
In 1944, Bullington had erroneously predicted that no minority students would attend UT so long as the existing regents remained on board: "There is not the slightest danger of any Negro
attending the University of Texas, regardless of what Franklin D., Eleanor
, or the Supreme Court says, so long as you have a Board of Regents with as much intestinal fortitude as the present one has." In 1950, Heman Sweatt became the first African American
to attend the UT law school. He described the racial atmosphere at UT as "terrifying. I think I was in the law school five minutes before I was pulled out of a registration line and cussed out. While in the law school, I had threats against my life. The first Friday in school, there was a Ku Klux Klan
demonstration on campus.
, Texas. The Kells are interred at Riverside Cemetery in Wichita Falls. There is no reference to Bullington's religious preference though the Kells were Methodist.
Active in the UT B-Hall Association, Bullington was also a board member of the UT Ex-Students' Association for twenty years and its president from 1921-1923. He helped to establish the Barker
History Center at UT. During his tenure, regent Lula Kemp Kell (1867–1957), Bullington's mother-in-law, presented to UT the Frank Kell Collection of Texana and Western Books. Bullington also contributed some of his own books as well as a major part of the original endowment to maintain the collection. Bullington was a patron of the Texas State Historical Association
. From 1928-1932, he had been president of the Sam Houston State Ex-Students' Association.
One of Bullington's cousins, Lou Bullington Tower (1920–2001), a California
native, was the first wife of Republican U.S. Senator John G. Tower of Texas. Bullington's father-in-law, Frank Kell, was the maternal grandfather and namesake of Frank Kell Cahoon
(born 1934) of Midland
, the only Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives
in 1965,. following the landslide defeat of Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona
by Texan Lyndon B. Johnson
in the presidential election.
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
man in Wichita Falls
Wichita Falls, Texas
Wichita Falls is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Texas, United States, United States. Wichita Falls is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay and Wichita counties. According to the U.S. Census estimate of 2010,...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, who was the unsuccessful Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
gubernatorial nominee in 1932 against former Governor
Governor of Texas
The governor of Texas is the head of the executive branch of Texas's government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Texas Legislature, and to convene the legislature...
Miriam Wallace "Ma" Ferguson.
Early years, education, family, military
Bullington was born in Indian Springs, northwest of Schell CitySchell City, Missouri
Schell City is a city in Vernon County, Missouri, United States. The population was 286 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Schell City is located at ....
in Vernon County in western Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, to William Isiac Bullington and the former Sarah Holmes, both natives of Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
. He was educated at a private school in Tennessee and at some point during childhood relocated with his family to Poolville
Poolville, Texas
Poolville is an unincorporated town in Parker County, Texas, United States located along Farm Road 920, about seventeen miles northwest of Weatherford, the county seat...
in Parker County
Parker County, Texas
As of the census of 2003, there were 98,495 people, 31,131 households, and 24,313 families residing in the county. The population density was 98 people per square mile . There were 34,084 housing units at an average density of 38 per square mile...
west of Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
. He enrolled at Sam Houston State University
Sam Houston State University
Sam Houston State University was founded in 1879 and is the third oldest public institution of higher learning in the State of Texas. It is located in Huntsville, Texas. It is one of the oldest purpose-built institutions for the instruction of teachers west of the Mississippi River and the first...
in Huntsville
Huntsville, Texas
Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas, United States. The population was 35,508 at the 2010 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area....
, then a normal school
Normal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...
, from which he graduated in 1901. Bullington taught school for two years before he enrolled at the University of Texas Law School in Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
in 1903. He completed the three-year curriculum in two years, was admitted to the Texas bar, and in 1906 established his law office in Munday
Munday, Texas
Munday is a city in Knox County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,527 at the 2000 census. The 2010 U.S. Census Bureau placed the population at 1,300....
in Knox County
Knox County, Texas
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,253 people, 1,690 households, and 1,166 families residing in the county. The population density was 5 people per square mile . There were 2,129 housing units at an average density of 2 per square mile...
in West Texas
West Texas
West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....
. He served a term as the Knox county attorney
County attorney
A county attorney in many areas of the United States is the chief legal officer for a county or local judicial district. It is usually an elected position...
.
In June 1909, Bullington moved to Wichita Falls, where he practiced law for the remainder of his life, first with partners Charles C. Huff and Joe H. Barwise, and later with T.R. "Dan" Boone and Leslie Humphrey (1884–1967), who served for a time as the district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
from Henrietta
Henrietta, Texas
Henrietta is a city in and the county seat of Clay County, Texas, United States. It is part of the Wichita Falls, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 3,264 at the 2000 census.-History:...
in nearby Clay County
Clay County, Texas
As of the census of 2000, there were 11,006 people, 4,323 households, and 3,181 families residing in the county. The population density was 10 people per square mile . There were 4,992 housing units at an average density of 4 per square mile...
and was a long-time Democratic Party advocate. The Bullington firm is now known as Gibson Davenport Anderson.
Bullington enlisted as a private
Private (rank)
A Private is a soldier of the lowest military rank .In modern military parlance, 'Private' is shortened to 'Pte' in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and to 'Pvt.' in the United States.Notably both Sir Fitzroy MacLean and Enoch Powell are examples of, rare, rapid career...
in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and was discharged as a lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
from the 8th Infantry.
On June 28, 1911, Bullington married the former Sadie Kell (born ca. 1886), daughter of railroad executive Frank Kell (1859–1941) of Wichita Falls, and the couple had one son, William Orville Bullington (1923–1951). Sadie's wedding gown is among the exhibits at the Kell House Museum in Wichita Falls. In 1929, Bullington was named president of the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
. His business investments included petroleum
Petroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
and farm and ranch holdings in Wichita Falls and the Texas Panhandle
Texas Panhandle
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a rectangular area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east...
. He was also affiliated with the American National Bank, Kemp Hotel Corporation (named for Joseph A. Kemp, Frank Kell's brother-in-law), and the Wichita Falls and Southern Railroad. In 1929, Bullington became partners with Frank P. Jackson and J. M. Gilliam in the first radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
station in Waco
Waco, Texas
Waco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. Situated along the Brazos River and on the I-35 corridor, halfway between Dallas and Austin, it is the economic, cultural, and academic center of the 'Heart of Texas' region....
, WJAD, which soon changed its named to WACO, now based on Burleson
Burleson, Texas
Burleson is a city in Johnson and Tarrant counties in the U.S. state of Texas. It is considered a suburb of Fort Worth and is located in the rapidly growing suburban expanse just south of the city. As of the 2010 census, the population was 36,690, having increased from the 20,976 residents counted...
, Texas.
Republican politics
Originally a DemocratDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
, Bullington switched parties in 1918. As the Republican nominee for governor in 1932, he waged a vigorous campaign. He polled the largest popular vote for a Republican gubernatorial in Texas up until that time though his final percent was three points below that received in 1924 by George C. Butte
George C. Butte
George Charles Butte was a jurist, educator, and Republican politician from the U.S. state of Texas, who was his party's gubernatorial nominee in 1924 against the controversial Democrat Miriam Wallace "Ma" Ferguson, one of the first two women governors in the United States.U.S...
of Austin in his race against Miriam Ferguson, when Ferguson won the first of her two nonconsecutive terms as governor. Bullington, who stressed the corrupt practices from the earlier Ferguson administration, including that of her husband, James E. Ferguson
James E. Ferguson
James Edward "Pa" Ferguson, Jr. , was a Democratic politician from the state of Texas.- Early life :Ferguson was born to the Reverend James Ferguson, Sr., and Fannie Ferguson near Salado in south Bell County, Texas. He entered Salado College at age twelve but was eventually expelled for...
(service: 1915-1917), received 322,589 votes (38.1 percent) to Ferguson's 521,395 (61.6 percent). Bullington polled more than three times the votes of his ticket-mate, U.S. President Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...
, who though he had won Texas in 1928, procured only 97,959 ballots (11.4 percent) in 1932.
In 1936, Bullington charged that U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
was being managed by communists. Bullington was a delegate to eight Republican national conventions from 1928–1956 and a member of the Texas Republican Executive Committee from 1947-1952. He was the party's state chairman from 1951–1952. He was a member of the temporary platform
Party platform
A party platform, or platform sometimes also referred to as a manifesto, is a list of the actions which a political party, individual candidate, or other organization supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said peoples' candidates voted into political office or...
committee for the 1948 Republican National Convention
1948 Republican National Convention
The 1948 Republican National Convention was held at the Municipal Auditorium, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from June 21 to 25, 1948.New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey had paved the way to win the Republican presidential nomination in the primary elections, where he had beaten Minnesota Governor...
, which met in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, to nominate the Thomas E. Dewey/Earl Warren
Earl Warren
Earl Warren was the 14th Chief Justice of the United States.He is known for the sweeping decisions of the Warren Court, which ended school segregation and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending public-school-sponsored prayer, and requiring...
ticket. At that convention, Bullington led a protest demanding that a spokesman from the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
be involved in the drafting of the civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
plank of the GOP
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
platform. As a result of his protest, Bullington and three other southerners were named to the platform committee.
At the 1952 Republican National Convention
1952 Republican National Convention
The 1952 Republican National Convention was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois from July 7 to July 11, 1952 and nominated the popular general and war hero Dwight D...
in Chicago, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
, Bullington supported U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
for the presidential nomination against the native-born Texan, Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
. Bullington sought to impose a loyalty pledge for participants in the 1952 Texas Republican precinct, county, and state conventions. Later in the year, Bullington was among several men accused of having engaged in unfair practices to derail Eisenhower's nomination. Bullington soon wavered in his support for Taft, and, as the state GOP chairman in 1952, publicly confessed that his own faction had been unfair to the Eisenhower Republicans in delegate selection. The Texas delegation, after a bitterly divided state convention in Mineral Wells
Mineral Wells, Texas
Mineral Wells is a city in Palo Pinto and Parker counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 16,946 at the 2000 census. The city is named for mineral springs in the area, which were highly popular in the early 1900s...
, finally voted thirty-three for Eisenhower and five for Taft though the latter forces claimed that Democrats had provided Eisenhower's margin by packing the early precinct conventions. Senator Taft himself said that the divisions within the Texas GOP had been brewing for some time and that the presidential contest brought them to the surface.
Active UT regent
In January 1941, Texas Democratic Governor W. Lee O'DanielW. Lee O'Daniel
Wilbert Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, , was a conservative Democratic Party politician from Texas, who came to prominence by hosting a popular radio program. Known for his populist appeal, Pappy O'Daniel was the governor of Texas and later its junior U.S. Senator. He is also the only person ever to have...
, a former Republican while previously residing in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, appointed Bullington a regent of the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
, a position that he held until March 1947. Bullington and several other O'Daniel appointees sought to slash UT funding, remove alleged communists from both faculty and student ranks, and to restrict the instruction of certain subjects. When UT president Homer P. Rainey
Homer Rainey
Homer Price Rainey was a U.S. college president and professor. He was born in Eliasville in Young County, Texas, and served as the president of the University of Texas at Austin from 1939 to 1944, when he was fired after a lengthy battle over academic freedom with the university regents...
, later an unsuccessful 1946 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, denounced the interference, the regents dismissed Rainey. Bullington produced what he considered "conclusive evidence" of Rainey's "incompetence." Bullington said that Rainey had "discovered a nest of homosexuals in the faculty as early as September 1943. He did not disclose it to any member of the board until eight months later, despite the rules requiring immediate reporting of such conditions. . . . . We felt that he was not handling [the matter] vigorously enough and decided to take it over for ourselves."
In 1944, Bullington had erroneously predicted that no minority students would attend UT so long as the existing regents remained on board: "There is not the slightest danger of any Negro
Negro
The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
attending the University of Texas, regardless of what Franklin D., Eleanor
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...
, or the Supreme Court says, so long as you have a Board of Regents with as much intestinal fortitude as the present one has." In 1950, Heman Sweatt became the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
to attend the UT law school. He described the racial atmosphere at UT as "terrifying. I think I was in the law school five minutes before I was pulled out of a registration line and cussed out. While in the law school, I had threats against my life. The first Friday in school, there was a Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
demonstration on campus.
Death and legacy
Bullington died in Wichita Falls at the age of seventy-four. He and his wife are entombed at Hillcrest Mausoleum in DallasDallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, Texas. The Kells are interred at Riverside Cemetery in Wichita Falls. There is no reference to Bullington's religious preference though the Kells were Methodist.
Active in the UT B-Hall Association, Bullington was also a board member of the UT Ex-Students' Association for twenty years and its president from 1921-1923. He helped to establish the Barker
Eugene C. Barker
Eugene Campbell Barker was a distinguished professor of Texas history at the University of Texas at Austin. He was the first living person to have a UT campus building, the Eugene C. Barker Texas History Center, named in his honor. The structure is part of the Center for American History and was...
History Center at UT. During his tenure, regent Lula Kemp Kell (1867–1957), Bullington's mother-in-law, presented to UT the Frank Kell Collection of Texana and Western Books. Bullington also contributed some of his own books as well as a major part of the original endowment to maintain the collection. Bullington was a patron of the Texas State Historical Association
Texas State Historical Association
The Texas State Historical Association or abbreviated TSHA, is a non-profit educational organization, dedicated to documenting the rich and unique history of Texas. It was founded on March 2, 1897. As of November 2008, TSHA moved from Austin to the University of North Texas in Denton.The executive...
. From 1928-1932, he had been president of the Sam Houston State Ex-Students' Association.
One of Bullington's cousins, Lou Bullington Tower (1920–2001), a California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
native, was the first wife of Republican U.S. Senator John G. Tower of Texas. Bullington's father-in-law, Frank Kell, was the maternal grandfather and namesake of Frank Kell Cahoon
Frank Kell Cahoon
Frank Kell Cahoon is an oilman and natural gas entrepreneur from Midland, Texas, who was the only Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives in the regular 1965 legislative session. Cahoon served two terms in the legislature from 1965 to 1969...
(born 1934) of Midland
Midland, Texas
Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Texas, United States, on the Southern Plains of the state's western area. A small portion of the city extends into Martin County. As of 2010, the population of Midland was 111,147. It is the principal city of the Midland, Texas...
, the only Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives
Texas House of Representatives
The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the Texas Legislature. The House is composed of 150 members elected from single-member districts across the state. The average district has about 150,000 people. Representatives are elected to two-year terms with no term limits...
in 1965,. following the landslide defeat of Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
by Texan Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
in the presidential election.