Jacob H. Carruthers Jr.

News Obituary Listing

Jacob H. Carruthers Jr. attended the University of Texas School of Law for only one landmark year — 1950 — when he and five other African American students became the first to integrate the school.

Carruthers, a native Texan, spent his career teaching at Northeastern Illinois University and was regarded as an expert on African history. He died of pancreatic cancer Sunday at his Chicago home. He was 73. More than 1,500 people attended the funeral, which was held Friday.

"Dr. Carruthers was one of the great professors, a master teacher who impacted his students and his colleagues immensely," said Conrad Worrill, director of the Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern.

Carruthers graduated from high school in Houston and received his bachelor's degree in political science from Samuel Huston College, now Huston-Tillotson College, in Austin. In 1950, along with Heman Sweatt and others, he integrated the UT Law School.

Sweatt's lawsuit over admission to the Law School struck a severe blow against the prevailing doctrine of "separate but equal" educational facilities. The Law School now has 698 African American alumni.

Worrill said Carruthers cherished a framed photo of his first day at Law School.

"After a year, he decided law wasn't his thing, and he was tired of the treatment. He talked about the fact that the professors there wouldn't call on the black students," Worrill said.

Keith Smith, president of the school's Thurgood Marshall Legal Society, credited Carruthers with clearing a path for African Americans. The society is an affiliate of the National Black Law Students Association.

"We are forever indebted to him for his dedication to the cause of advancing civil rights," Smith said.

Carruthers earned a master's degree in government from Texas Southern University in Houston and taught at Prairie View A&M College, now Prairie View A&M University, before receiving his doctorate from the University of Colorado.

In 1968, he began teaching at Northeastern Illinois, where he worked for the Center for Inner City Studies.

Carruthers was also the founding director of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and a founding member of both the Kemetic Institute of Chicago and the Temple of the African Community of Chicago.

He is survived by his wife, Linda Ifé, three sons, a daughter, a sister, two brothers, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

sjayson@statesman.com; 445-3620