When a teacher named Hattie Mae White was elected to the Houston ISD School Board in 1958, she became the first black elected official in Texas since Reconstruction in the 1870s. At the time, Houston schools were still segregated. She led the fight for integration. A week after her election, someone shot out her car windshield and she found a burning cross in her front yard. After serving two terms, she returned to teaching and died in 1993 at the age of 77.