TCU’s first Black student-athlete is now immortalized on campus. Here’s his story.
A bronze statue of a young Black man, his hand extending to the sky with a basketball, now prominently stands on the campus of Texas Christian University, immortalizing a Fort Worth native who’s a trailblazer on and off the basketball court.
The statue of James Cash was unveiled Friday in front of Schollmaier Arena as part of TCU’s Race & Reconciliation Initiative. Cash was TCU’s first Black student-athlete, the first Black basketball player in the Southwest Conference and the first Black tenured professor at Harvard Business School.
The ceremony included former TCU basketball players, Fort Worth and Tarrant County leaders, Cash’s family, current TCU players and representatives of I.M. Terrell Academy.
Cash attended a segregated I.M. Terrell High School in the early 1960s.
“During those times, strictly with Jim Crow segregation, I was blessed to have teachers with advanced degrees, who required absolute excellence from all of us,” he said.
Cash graduated from I.M. Terrell High School before TCU signed him in 1965 at the height of the civil rights movement.
He said he chose TCU because of faculty members who helped his mother’s education.
During the 1950s, these professors offered classes at Black Fort Worth ISD schools to help Black teachers pursue higher education because they were not permitted to be on campus. Cash’s mother Juanita, who was a teacher for the district for 27 years, took advantage of that opportunity.
TCU was desegregated in 1962, and Juanita enrolled to complete her master’s in 1965.
“This institution represented for me, starting at that point, a place that really set the standard for not accepting mediocre commitments and social constraints,” Cash said.
At TCU, Cash became an Academic All-American, was named First Team All-Southwest Conference in 1968 and led TCU to the Southwest Conference championship the same year. Cash is one of only four people to have their jersey retired for TCU basketball, and he’s one of five players in program history with at least 1,000 points and 800 rebounds.
In 1969, Cash graduated with a bachelor of science degree.
After his time at TCU, Cash earned master’s and doctorate degrees at Purdue and joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1976.
In 1985, Cash became the first Black faculty member to receive tenure at Harvard and was later honored with a building on the campus of the Harvard Business School.
Cash is now the James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School.
Cash has or is serving on the board of directors of several corporations, including General Electric, The Chubb Corporation, Walmart and Veracode. In 2003, Cash joined the Boston Celtics’ ownership group, where he helped begin community-based initiatives focused on addressing racism and racial inequality.
Roy Charles Brooks, a Tarrant County commissioner and fellow graduate of I. M. Terrell High School, said Friday was a celebration for those of who grew up amid segregation in Fort Worth.
“We’re proud of you,” he said. ”We honor you. We celebrate you, and we lift you up for the entire community to see.”
Cash said people at TCU continue to work to make society a better place.
“In high school we were not permitted to be on campus. But now this amazing university is putting up a statue of me,” he said.
Cash was also honored with an honorary doctorate of science degree, a proclamation by Tarrant County and a proclamation by the city of Fort Worth marking Nov. 11, 2022, as Dr. James Cash Day.
