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In this photo, Jacqueline McCauley, the first Black woman undergraduate to attend Rice, is shown looking forward with Willy's statue in the background. I find this photo really captivating because current Black students have expressed the discomfort that this statue brings to their experience on Rice's campus. But here Ms. McCauley looks on, paying no attention to the statue. And I'm left wondering, how did she feel about the statue? Was it simply peripheral to her experience because she had goals that extended way beyond the meaning of the statue? Or did it bother her just as much as it does many Black students today?

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I often wonder what it was like for Black women studying at Rice in the earliest years of desegregation. What would it have felt like to be the only person like you in the student body? How did she experience Rice's campus?

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The context of this moment in time appears to be that the BSU President Geri Richardson had called for a Sunday meeting to talk about how the Rice President Hackerman had denied her request to provide funding to clubs like the BSU, RAMAS-HACER, and the Chinese Student Union. This is what was stated in the article alongside the photograph of the students, which is captioned, “Students at the BSU meeting,” and most likely is taken inside Sewall Hall 301. This context is important to understanding how Sewall, specifically lecture hall 301, was understood in 1984 by these minority students. At that moment in time, Sewall 301 was considered a meeting space where students could discuss matters essential to their education and their comfortability at Rice.

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Rice University Welcome Center, Rice University, Main street, Houston, TX, USA

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VISION was my first experience on Rice's campus. It was a program that invited students, predominantly students of color, to be hosted as prospective students on Rice's campus. Rice has many different programs like this including SOAR, RESP, and Owl Days--where students get a taste of student life at Rice. In talking to current Black students, many say that these programs exist as some of their first memories of Rice.

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Humanities Building, College Way, Houston, TX, USA

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My memory of the Humanities building exists primarily in my Freshman year at Rice, Spring 2020. It was the first time I had sat in a predominantly Black class with a Black professor, discussing the Black Experience at Rice. It was one of the most informative, influential, and emotional experiences I've ever had in my life.

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Young, Gifted and Black: Reflections from Black Alumni at Rice

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Young, Gifted and Black: Reflections from Black Alumni” was sponsored by the Association of Rice University Black Alumni  (ARUBA) in honor of Rice’s Centennial Celebration. Fifteen distinguished Black alumni tell their stories about the challenges and opportunities they faced and how Rice contributed to shaping their careers and lives. 

Included in the film are Raymond Johnson, the first African-American to be admitted to Rice; Alex Byrd, who grew up in Houston’s Third Ward and became a Rice history professor; and Pamela Carrington Scott, chairwoman of the board of trustees at Salem State University. 

Each of the 15 vignettes is compelling and moving — a historical treasure for Rice and the Black community of Houston.

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From Dr. Alexander Byrd:

"The Humanities Building has been my academic home at the university for quite some time.  So a great many of the most important memories of my career are rooted there. Since the department’s move the Humanities Building I think I may have even transferred memories that rightly belong to other places on campus to this spot.

Quickly, though, a couple of things:

1) I daily watched the building go up from my former office on the Fourth Floor of the Fondren Library.  Daily.  It is quite a remarkable thing to watch a massive structure slowly emerge, more or less, out of the ground.  I often wondered how I would behave if I were one of the people who had built it (built anything like it, actually).  I thought then that I would be insufferable to the young folks in my family if I had built marvelous things.  In my retirement, I would certainly drag my children’s children across the city to and fro pointing out the things—real things, massive things, forever things—that I had helped to make possible in this city.

2) The first generation to occupy the building got to design our own offices.  The contractors built out full scale mock ups out on the concourses of the Rice Stadium, and we went out there to put together our own particualr offices as if we were making plans for a custom home.

3) Karen Stokes helped to choreograph a series of dances that opened the building.  I’m still affected by what I saw and experienced then.

4) There is a tree on the loop-road side of the Humanities Building dedicated to E. A. S. Atieno Odhiambo, and another in the courtyard dedicated to Linda Quaidy (check spelling). When I was a student here, I knew Ms. Quaidy best from her ability to skillfully interpret the handwriting  of one of my professors for whmo she served as an administrator.  When I returned to Rice and saw that tree, I thought how can she be dead?  I don’t have space or time to capture the meaning that Dr. Odhiambo’s tree holds for me (other than to say it dominates the space in my mind).

5) We Byrds have more than a few family pictures from the HUMA Building courtyard."

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William Marsh Rice Statue, Houston, TX, USA

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Willy's Statue is a contested site that is important to the present experiences of Black students at Rice. Because of the ongoing protests and it's removal being included on the "Tangible Ways to Improve the Black Experience, as Demanded by Black Students: Inaction is Not an Option" from 2020, it is a significant part of the collective memory that is inscribed on campus.

Down With Willy: https://downwithwilly.carrd.co/

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Tangible Ways to Improve the Black Experience, as Demanded by Black Students_ Inaction is Not an Option.pdf

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Begin here, at Sewall Hall, where our ANTH 355 class meets every week.