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About TIPHC

The mission of the Texas Institute for The Preservation of History and Culture (TIPHC) is to collect, preserve, study, and make available research information, records, documents, artifacts, and other items relating to Texas history and culture and to the history and culture of the United States. The institute gives special emphasis on collecting, preserving, and studying information and items relating to the role and contributions of African Americans tin Texas history including education, military history, and the settlement and development of Texas. Towards this end TIPHC has employed both the visual media, lectures, exhibits, publishing and computer technology.

Our objective is threefold:

Supporting the knowledge and literacy of Texas History and specifically the legacy of African-Americans.
Reinforcing heritage research as a discipline and using such research as a strategy to reach all learners in the academic community, adults, students, and the general public.
Helping young people to develop a positive appreciation of cultural diversity thru education by helping educators to integrate otherwise neglected facts into the curriculum.
Partnerships
- Texas Sacred Places Project
- Rice University
- City of Prairie View, Texas
- Texas A&M University
Funding
- Office of Civil Rights
- The Brown Foundation Inc of Houston
- Additional funding is sought to continue the work of TIPHC 's education program such as new exhibits and to develop public programs that serve the campus and alumni; teachers and students in local communities; and, a broader public beyond the university.

In spring of 1999, the 76th Texas Legislature’s House Bill 889 created the TIPHC and charged it with the mission “to collect, preserve, study, and make available for research information, records, documents, artifacts, and other items relating to Texas history and culture and to the history and culture of the United States and the Americas as that history and culture relates to Texas.” “Special emphasis is given to collecting, preserving, and studying information and items relating to the role and contributions of African Americans to Texas history and culture.”

Many communities and institutions around Texas face similar cultural and educational issues of definition and the dissemination of knowledge. Many experience limited success, frustration and the vital importance of the realizing the vision of transforming places and communities. To explore the themes of our lecture series, TIPHC invited a list of prestigious speakers from academic institutions to share their knowledge and expertise in the preservation of culture and the regeneration of ideas. Each lecturer was asked to include the standard degree of knowledge commonly expected of subject matter experts in the field of American History, African Diaspora, African-American History and related disciplines taught at the University-level based on creative and scholarly research that is factual and academic.

In Black History month, February 2007, TIPHC sponsored three lecture events. The first event took place on February 7 2007. Dr. Terry Birdwhistell, noted professor and Associate Dean of Special Collections and Digital Programs Division University of Kentucky, presented a lecture entitled “Preserving Our Past One Story at A Time: The Promise and Challenge of Oral History.” On February 21st, Dr. Sherman Jackson, professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, a Visiting Professor of Law and a Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor presented a lecture entitled “Islam in Black America: From Slavery to Hip-Hop.” There was standing room only for this lecture; faculty and students attended the presentation in record numbers. Dr. Wade Nobles presented the third lecture in Black History month.

Dr. Nobles is an experimental social psychologist. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University and is a renowned psychologist in the field of African Psychology and Professor at San Francisco State University. On April 4, 2007, Melvin Mitchell FAIA lectured on several hypotheses: (1) that black genius underlay original modern American music, dance, art, and possibly architecture; (2) that architecture should have been an integral part of black cultural excellence that was asserted during the Harlem Renaissance. His lecture, The Crisis of the African-American Architect: Conflicting Cultures of Architecture and (Black) Power”, debated what role-trained black architects played (or failed to play), the role of the HBCU (historical black colleges and universities) architecture programs, and what changes of course are required in the 21st century.

TIPHC presented a one-day academic round table session by Dr. Finnie Coleman on April 18, 2007, on the topic: “Diaspora, Diversity, Dissent and Development.” Dr. Finnie Coleman is the Director Africana Studies Program and Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico. The presentation of the lecture and round table discussion with academic and community leaders addressed the impact of the African Diaspora and its relevance to the continued migration of the local Houston community and across the globe.