Memorial service honored his continued legacy
The life of Texas Southern University’s legendary debate coach, Dr. Thomas F. Freeman, was celebrated on June 16, 2020, on the campus where he taught for the last seven decades.
The admired educator, vibrant centenarian and powerful preacher died on June 6, 2020. He was 100.
Hundreds of mourners attended a public visitation at the TSU Health and Physical Education Arena, before the memorial service. They paid their respects to “Doc” while standing beside a gleaming white casket covered with a spray of crimson roses and flanked by large floral arrangements on each side.
For 70 years, Freeman had been a daily presence — even on weekends — in his TSU office until the COVID-19 pandemic closed the campus and forced him to remain at home for the last few months.
Though he officially retired in 2013, Freeman remained a distinguished professor of forensics emeritus at TSU and the head coach emeritus of the internally recognized TSU debate team, which he founded in 1949. He was honored to become the namesake of the university’s honors college in 2009. The debate suite of offices and classrooms are named the T.F. Freeman Center for Forensic Excellence.
Also bi-vocational, Freeman served as pastor of Mt. Horem Baptist Church in Houston’s Fifth Ward for 69 years.
Tuesday’s two-hour service included expressions from loved ones and dignitaries.
Oldest son Thomas F. Freeman Jr. and daughter Carlotta Freeman, M.D., a California physician, presided over the ceremony. Youngest son, Carter Freeman, sat with the extended family beside their mother, Mrs. Clarice Freeman.
The Freeman children thanked Texas Southern University and its constituents as well as those who bestowed countless honors and awards on their father over the decades.
“My father had the chance to smell the roses while he could smell them,” Thomas Freeman Jr. said.
Former Freeman student Dr. Gloria Batiste-Roberts, his successor as director and head coach of the TSU debate team, introduced a dozen debate team alumni who paid tribute to Freeman with spoken word performances.
“More important than his greatness was the greatness he inspired in others,” TSU Interim President Kenneth Huewitt said. “He was one of those individuals who left you better than you were before you met them.”
TSU Board of Regents Chairman Albert Myres emphasized that the occasion honored Freeman’s legacy – not his history.
“Legacy is something that is handed off and continues. Dr. Freeman was the embodiment of Texas Southern University,” said Myres. “This great university called Texas Southern University will keep that legacy going forward. We will harness this legacy because that’s what he would have wanted – and beyond that – that’s exactly what he deserves.”
TSU activist Georgia Provost announced her wish to erect a Dr. Thomas F. Freeman statue on campus, to a standing ovation, and urged donations for the Freeman Fund, which will provide continuing financial support for the debate team.
Grammy Award-winning and Stellar Award-honored gospel songstress Yolanda Adams sang “Never Give Up” in tribute to her former professor.
Other speakers included U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, U.S. Rep. Al Green, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, State Rep. Senfronia Thompson, State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis and Mayor Sylvester Turner, who proclaimed Tuesday as Dr. Thomas Franklin Freeman Day in the City of Houston.
Bishop Frank Rush, J.D., of Houston Praise and Worship Center, a graduate of TSU’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law, delivered the eulogy.
“Dr. Freeman leaves his legacy to you,” he told those gathered, “to take up the baton and run the race of your life. … Doc has fought a good fight. He’s finished his course. And he kept the faith.”
The service’s culminating events included the voice of Freeman himself in a July 2019 video clip of his acceptance speech after receiving a lifetime achievement award from the National Speech & Debate Association.