Felix Thruston's Fight for Equality

During his time in college, Felix did not only find success on the basketball court, but also around Trinity's community. Most notably, he is known for his involvement in the eqality movement. One specific way that he was involved was by encouraging a meeting between students and faculty regarding the charges made against personnel in the athletic department being racist in 1971.

Felix was intent on shedding light on the fact that “the Trinity institution is racist from the top” and that it needs to start there in order to be fixed. Felix Thruston rallied a group of black students to bring four different proposals to the meeting, each aimed to rectify a different problem. The proposals mainly covered the need for more black students in general, not just ones that were recruited to come as athletes. They also suggested a need for more black individuals in the administrative offices as well as black advisors to help black students upon arrival to Trinity. Overall, he advocated for recognizing that there is indeed a problem and actively working to fix it.

During his time at Trinity, Felix was a huge advocate for equality and he used his influence as an athlete to spur changes. Because Felix was an athlete, he was able to see a different side of Trinity’s institutionalized racism and attack it from a different perspective. For one, he was able to address the fact that recruiting black athletes as students was not a sufficient fix to diversity. Additionally, being an athlete gave him the opportunity to know, and converse with, those who were in the athletic department that otherwise probably would have gone unnoticed.