From Texas Magazine

John Butler didn’t set out to break the color barrier at Louisiana State University. He just wanted to go to college.“I went to LSU to get a degree,” says Butler, professor of management at McCombs. “I didn’t go to change anybody. It was about going to school, not solving the racism problem of America.”

In 1965, Butler was part of the second class of black students to desegregate LSU, and he was the first black student to march in the LSU Tiger Band—historic steps that paved the way for future generations of African-Americans.

In February, LSU honored Butler as a “Tiger Torchbearer” for his contributions to desegregation at the university.

A fourth-generation college student, Butler grew up in Franklinton, La., in an upper-middle-class home. Roughly 60 percent of the students from his all-black high school went to college, and he spent a lot of time on the campus of his parents’ alma mater, Southern University, in nearby Baton Rouge, and Indiana University where his older brother was a student and member of the IU Marching 100 Band. In other words, Butler was no stranger to the world of higher education. Read the full story.