Modified:
Sep 30, 2025
The Hannah Hall Murals: A Visual Archive at Texas Southern University
More than 120 student murals adorn the walls of Texas Southern University’s Hannah Hall. From the 1950s to 2010s, senior TSU art majors, hailing from Texas to Thailand, painted the building’s walls as a crowning achievement of their undergraduate studies. The Hannah Hall murals serve as a visual archive, providing a lens into the experiences, worldviews, and imaginations of young, Black artists.
The mural program was the brainchild of Dr. John T. Biggers, who lobbied TSU president Dr. Samuel M. Nabrit to allow his senior art majors to paint the walls of what was then the only academic building on campus. Dr. Biggers came to TSU from Hampton University, where he had assisted Charles White, his teacher, with a mural that he created specifically for Hampton’s campus. While Dr. Biggers demanded quality, he never censored students’ expression and the murals cover a range of topics including politics, religion, nature, futurism, and rural life in the South.
Credit: Richard Pipes, Houston Chronicle. May 1965.
View the mural-making process
Under the instruction of Dr. Biggers, students would go through a drafting, pre-study, sketching, and finally painting process.
Roy Williams, Mural Study for "From Sun-up to Sun-down," 1977
Students would propose a design to Dr. Biggers for approval, after which they would paint a scale mural study.
After that study was approved, they would sketch on their wall, using grid lines to ensure proportions were accurate.
Jesse Sifuentes, Pre-Sketch of J.W. Sampson's Hannah Hall Mural, c. 1977
Credit: The Tiger, 1959. https://digitalscholarship.tsu.edu/yearbook/12/.
Finally, the student artists would paint the walls, leaving their lasting mark on Hannah Hall.
The University Museum at Texas Southern has been hard at work digitizing the Hannah Hall murals. 42 murals have been digitized, with another 9 in the pipeline for the coming year. 21 of the digitized murals are paired with short essays and supplementary materials on this site. A short documentary detailing the digitization process can be viewed below.
Credits
Ben Schachter, Digital Humanities Program Manager, University Museum at Texas Southern
Further Readings
- North, William. “Symbols of resistance in a temple to the imagination: the murals of Texas Southern University.” A Gathering Together, Spring 2019. https://agatheringtogether.squarespace.com/blog/symbols-of-resistance-in-a-temple-to-the-imagination-the-murals-of-texas-southern-university.
- Wardlaw, Alvia J. “Heart of Third Ward: Texas Southern University.” Cite, vol. 35, Fall 1996, pp. 20-1. https://repository.rice.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/3f63801e-07ca-4b57-8d18-12db3d7781c1/content.
- Biggers, John Thomas, et al. Black Art in Houston: The Texas Southern University Experience: Presenting the Art of Biggers, Simms and Their Students. Texas A&M University Press, 1978.
How to Cite This Source
"The Hannah Hall Murals: A Visual Archive at Texas Southern University," in HCAC Beta, https://hcacbeta.org/hannahhallmurals [accessed Month, Day, Year]