Prairie View A&M University

Prairie View students have had to fight for the ballot in the county that hosts them. In October 1976 the U.S. Attorney General sued Waller County's voter registrar, LeRoy Symm, over a residency questionnaire given to students. A three-judge court found it violated the Twenty-sixth Amendment, and on January 15, 1979 the Supreme Court affirmed without an opinion. Later came a 2004 prosecutor's letter threatening student voters, settled with an apology, and a 2008 Justice Department suit over rejected registrations, most of them from students.

What the plaque says

Prairie View A&M University Authorized by the Texas legislature in 1876, the "Agricultural and Mechanical College for Colored Youth" was Texas' second state-supported institution of higher learning. As a land grant college, it occupied a 1434-acre former slave plantation. Organized by the Texas A&M Board of Directors, Prairie View has remained a part of the Texas A&M system. The first eight students enrolled on March 11, 1878, but low enrollment caused the school to close. The following year the "Prairie View Normal Institute" was organized with emphasis on preparing teachers in trade and agricultural subjects. A coeducational college, Prairie View's enrollment of 16 soon reached 60. In ten years, industrial training was added to the curriculum. Intercollegiate athletics began in 1904. By 1931 the campus boasted 31 main buildings and 50 cottages. In 1934 the Southern Association of Schools granted a class "A" rating. In 1947 the institution became "Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical College". Integrated during the 1960s, the name changed to "Prairie View A&M University" in 1973. The University's motto is "Prairie View produces productive people".

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Star of the Republic Museum — 19 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site — 21 mi
  Stephen F. Austin's colonial capital on a Brazos bluff, the town of the Consultation and the first Texas newspapers, burned by its own garrison in the Runaway Scrape of 1836.
• Navasota — 22 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.

More markers nearby

• Jacob E. Freeman — 0.5 mi
• Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery — 1.1 mi
• Groce Family Plantations — 2.3 mi
• Liendo — 2.5 mi