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I think I can say good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. It's a good, chilly Houston day.

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I don't know if this was true in your household, but even the mere mention of the possibility of flurries overnight had, had some people hoping for a snow day today. Some of the younger members, some of the younger members of the household, who have not been around Houston long enough to know that whispers of snow flurries are not enough

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to put your hopes in. No, they do not often transpire. More oft talked about than, than experienced. Yes. Yes. Although last spring we, we, you know, they remember last spring, so.

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Well we get we get cold. We get cold, or what passes for cold. It's true. It's true. No, it's hard, man.

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Snow is asking for a lot. Well, welcome to everyone who's joining us on our doc talk today. I'm Caleb McDaniel, the chair of the history department here at Rice, and co-chair of the Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice with my co-chair, Dr.

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Alex Byrd, the Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and my colleague here in the department of history. And we're so delighted that you've joined us today for our weekly doc talks. We're here every Friday in the spring semester at 12 central, and hope that you'll

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spread the word and invite any of your friends and colleagues, fellow students, staff, faculty, alumni, to join us and learn about some of the research work that we're engaged in on the task force. So I'm excited, Dr.

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Byrd, that you are going first today, and I'd love to hear about what documents you've been working through as you've been thinking about the task force this week. Alright, thank you, and you know I am always delighted to go first. After I go first, I spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure out how that

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happened and how I can keep it from happening next time. But yes, I stepped in it this morning and got myself put at the top of the agenda, and so here we go. And folks who were here last week will remember or may remember that I was in the

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process of looking into commemorations of Martin Luther King on campus and the events and ceremonies that black students and others at Rice got in the habit of, of organizing at the university. I didn't actually present on that, I got stuck on something else doing that, and ended

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up talking about kind of context of the city life and particularly problematics around black criminality that unfortunately contextualized, probably has contextualized black life on campus since there have been black people on campus, but quite keenly in the early 1980s.

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And today though, I am going to get to King, but maybe not commemorations of King on campus by black students. But I do want to talk about King at Rice and reactions to King and civil rights leaders at Rice, particularly in the mid 1960s, and what that says, what questions that might

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raise, for understanding the political context of early black students at the university, but also, and this is exciting for me, and I'm gonna bring Dr. McDaniel in it too, I think it's gonna be exciting for him too, for us as historians, because I think also what we'll get an opportunity to do today is to raise questions

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about how what happens at Rice vis-à-vis King speaks to and contributes to, may even contribute to and illuminate, the larger civil rights historiography of the, of the late 1960s and into the present. So, and I'm gonna start with a little historiography, but it really is only going

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to be a little. Actually, I've decided just at the last minute to put the historiography in the chat, Dr. McDaniel. There's a video there that I'm afraid to show because despite the fact that I have been

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working on Zoom for a very long time and am quite adept, one of the most adept Zoomers on campus, I'm scared to do it here. But I've taken you, please follow that link, either, either now or a little later, to the trailer of the HBO documentary that came out maybe about three or four years ago, 2018,

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maybe that's five years ago now, called King in the Wilderness. And if you haven't watched the whole thing, I encourage you to watch it, but at the very least, take a look at that trailer. And one of the things that that trailer does is it begins with an, a kind of upshot of

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King speaking in what is most likely a church, because there is a pulpit present, and a stained-glass window behind him. And the filmmaker is, has a clapper, and he's making the motion for King to start to, to talk.

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And before the clapper goes off, there is this just really compelling and stunning image of King that presents on the screen for a few seconds. It is a King that to my eye is exhausted, is worn out and down and tired.

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It is not the preacher King at the height of his powers. And what is important and fascinating about that start for this documentary is that it speaks to and informs a really important turn in the historiography of the civil rights movement.

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And it's a turn that sees itself as a kind of antidote to liberal progressive interpretations of the late civil rights movement that see the achievements of the NAACP and the SCLC, etc., as more or less inevitable in the late 20th century, and addresses a kind of post-1960

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celebration of that movement as the height of American democracy. And what King in the Wilderness does is really underline the ways in which, the particular kinds of civil rights work that King was doing, it was even seen as as being outside, by the late 1960s, being outside the mainstream of, of much of

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American life. And so that's, that's the start. Sorry, Dr. McDaniel.

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Well, that, that turn in the historiography reminds me some of the, the line we started with last week from the book recently published about the University of South Carolina's history of desegregation, which talked about both the progress that the university experienced in the 1960s and the costs for particular African American

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students on campus in that era, and urged us to think about desegregation as an ongoing process rather than a particular moment. So I think there's a resonance there with the the documentary you're describing. Absolutely. And we're gonna return to that resonance, I hope again, in a, in a couple of

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minutes. So, so I hope we have, I'm moving as if I'm sharing my screen. I have not shared my screen, I'm sorry. So now, here we go. Or I'm gonna try and get us going.

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Alright. So you should see the video, I hope, for the King documentary, and that, that, that sets the stage for much of the, much of the discussion I want to have today. And I guess it was last week when my my colleague Dr. McDaniel was working away in the Woodson and he sent me this wonderful screenshot of this

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letter from the chairman of the Rice Forum Committee. And we've talked about Rice Forum a few times over the course of the doc talks, over the past few weeks, as being a real driving force on campus, of bringing speakers to campus who are addressing really controversial issues and plays a large role

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in civil rights discourse on campus. And here we have this letter from February of 1963, which, which speaks to some work at Rice that is ongoing from the early 1960s. I exaggerate, but Rice students are forever trying to get Dr.

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King to campus, it seems to me, in the, in the early 1960s to the late 1960s, and the two co-chairs of the, of the task force are hard at work trying to figure out if he ever gets here. But, but so far, we have come up with very little evidence that he ever arrives here in an official capacity.

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He comes close in the early 1960s when he's been extended an invitation that has to then be very politely rescinded. And the scuttlebutt among students is that it's rescinded because the officers of the university don't want to compromise any of the work, any of the suit that is then

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underway for the desegregation of the university, the admission of black students and the charging of tuition. So this letter begins part of that, of, of that work of, shows some of that work of trying to get King to campus.

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So that, that, that, the previous letter comes from 1963. We see that in 1966, they're still hard at work trying to get King to campus. And we could have had twelve slides in between that 1963 letter and this 1966 issue of the, of the Thresher, where student, folks in student government, are trying to

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come up with new ways to get King to campus. But here in late 1966, we see the then head of the Forum Committee will again attempt to schedule Dr. Martin Luther King to come to campus.

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Again, we don't yet have any evidence that, that that happens. And, and a lot of the work, especially in the coverage of the Thresher concerning the Forum, concerning Rice Forum, in this moment in the 1960s, we have something transpiring at Rice, which is, I guess is the equivalent of our version of the free speech movement,

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right. The students are forever trying to get more controversial and radical, "radical," right, speakers to campus. And, and they find themselves, in their opinion, blocked at, at every turn. The administrator's apparently requiring permission for certain speakers, wanting to

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see slates of speakers over long periods of time in order to approve them as opposed to approving them individually. So this is, this is part of the context that, that we're in. And again, just to return to the historiography a bit, it really is in a Rice

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context, what historian Jeanne Theoharis speaks to as A More Beautiful and Terrible History. That's a history of the civil rights movement that pays close attention to its cost and the ways in which it was interpreted as quite radical and problematic during the time.

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So we don't have much evidence that King gets, we haven't found any evidence, that King gets to Rice in the, in the late or early 1960s. But man, I just wanna go back quickly and give Rice, give the Forum some credit again in February of 1963.

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This is February of 1963, it's not October of 1963 when they're disinviting King. It's February of 1963. He has, I don't, I don't think he's done his I Have a Dream speech even yet. Don't you, hey, I'm doing this, I feel like Dr.

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McDaniel put me on a date spot last, last week, so I'm trying to, I'm vaguely trying to do the same thing to him. Well, didn't he, didn't he, didn't it say in the letter, "King of Ebenezer Baptist Church," or something like that?

00:16:08.700 - 00:16:28.470

Yeah, yeah, it did say, it did say Ebenezer, which, now, see now, now Dr. McDaniel has turned the, the tables on me. He's, what he's asking, is King back at Ebenezer in Atlanta in 1963, or is he still at Dexter in Montgomery in 1963?

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I guess, I imagine he's co-pastoring with his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church in, in 1963. But, but again, okay, quickly, credit to the Forum, right, for, for bringing him here, even as plans are underway for, for the March on Washington. So we don't have any evidence that he gets to Rice by Rice's invitation.

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But, but students at Rice who want to see King should, should be excited in the late, late 1967, because King is coming to Houston, right, he comes to Houston as part of a benefit organized for the benefit of the Southern Christian Leadership Foundation, which is the foundation of King's civil rights organization, often called SCLC.

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And so we have here in this, in these couple of columns from the Houston Chronicle from October, early October 1967, on the entertainment page, that Harry Belafonte is coming to Houston. I'm just scrolling to the bottom to see, Dr.

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McDaniel might be interested to know that Charlie Byrd and his quintet are also on their way to town. But Belafonte was in the habit of cutting checks to SCLC and bailing King out of jail and organizing benefit concerts for various civil rights activities throughout his long

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career, is in the midst of organizing a seven-city tour for SCLC that's going to come to Houston. Belafonte will be there, Aretha Franklin will be there, Joan Baez will be there, Dr. King will, will speak.

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And it's gonna be held at the Sam Houston Coliseum and Music Hall in downtown Houston, which I didn't know, but learned is on the site of the Hobby Center now. So it's going to be a pretty big deal. And for Rice students who are interested in hearing Dr.

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King, who have been interested for years for bringing him to campus, must be happy that he's going to be nearby. And they're also targeted in particular for this speech because there's an actual ad in the Rice Thresher.

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So there, SCLC definitely wants Rice students here. And with, at $3.50, that, that seems, that seems, that seems doable. They can get their tickets downtown. Also, as someone who's interested in old suburbs in Houston, I'm quite excited that

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you can pick up tickets for this at Northline Mall, Sharpstown Mall, and Gulfgate Mall. This is the suburbs, right, they're, they're calling in, they're, they're selling tickets for this at the suburbs. Quick question, this isn't a historical question, Dr.

00:20:00.870 - 00:20:16.790

McDaniel. Out of those three headliners, who would you have been most interested in, in hearing that evening? Ooh. Well, that's, do I have to pick?

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I mean. Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin. Come on, now. Yeah, yeah, Aretha Franklin. I think I would go for Aretha Franklin as well.

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I think this is fascinating, right, from, we won't stay here long, but, right, this bill also reflects, right, some R&B reflection, right, but the fact that Franklin on this bill is bookended by Belafonte and Baez, Baez, speaks to, also speaks to a certain kind of particular focus that would have been quite attractive in the late 1960s, the

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folks inclined toward folk music and folk rock, etc. Are we supposed to focus on a document in doc talks? You're breaking the rules a little bit, but that's okay. We typically do that, so it's fine.

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I'm gonna, as long as I can show more than one document, I'll allow it. Absolutely. I'm almost to my document. This is all just context. This is all context.

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This is context. So maybe three more slides, so to speak. So for today, what I wanna do is just call attention to a couple of ways of treating this speech by King, and I've, I've, I've turned to this October 18th issue of the Houston Chronicle, which is published the day after the concert, which gives a rather

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straight news approach to what's going on, more or less straight news. So if you want an idea of what King talks about, that's here. If you want an idea of how the crowd reacts, that, that is here. You see there's been some controversy.

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Some folks have set off a stench bomb that, that marred the concert. But quite importantly here, what you get is a sense of the, of the, of what folks like Jeanne Theoharis wanna call our attention to, is the, the, the radical King, right. All of it's radical, but, but the kind of turning toward King in ways that his

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opponents thought was away from civil rights proper and into meddling into foreign affairs, and we get a really good glimpse of this in, in this new story. In the third column, second paragraph, "King lashed out at the Johnson administration for spending $500,000 for each enemy soldier killed in Vietnam, but only $53 per person in

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the antipoverty program." And then quoting King, the article says, "Our government is more concerned with winning an unjust war in Vietnam than in winning the war on poverty. I feel that all war is evil, and the war in Vietnam is the most evil of all. This war has left America morally isolated.

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I will not be harassed or intimidated," says King, he's talking about speaking out on civil rights, but more particularly here about Vietnam. "I will be heard." And then some of his, some of his rhetoric that's more familiar, some of his more Americanist rhetoric that's more familiar shows up later.

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Alright. So not long after the, the concert, the SCLC concert, it's reviewed in the Rice Thresher. And so we've arrived at my document with five minutes to go. I should have practiced.

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Sorry. No, this was great. You can keep going. I'll just, I'll just shove mine. Now, this is a, this is a great page, and I'm gonna cut a little bit what I want to say,

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it's a, it's a, it's a great page, because even though the document I, the story I most wanna focus on is this review of the SCLC concert, it also has a marvelous ad from Southwestern Bell at the, at the bottom of the page, in which we see a late 1960s example of what passes for, for kind of corporate social justice, critics will say

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posturing, straight readers will say advertising, right, social, corporate social justice advertising. And it's really worth reading in the context of this review of the SCLC benefit concert. Now, what's, what's really interesting to me here is the way the

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sabotage is treated at the, at the Sam Houston Coliseum, but the tenor, the tenor of the review is quite skeptical of the politics of, of, of the moment, and leans into the entertainment aspect of, of the moment. So Belafonte is, is criticized because he can hardly be heard, and his voice isn't all

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that, all that great, and also because he comes off as kind of rude and criticizing the hospitality of folks in and around Houston. If you read the straight news story from the Houston Chronicle, you get a better view of what that criticism of hospitality looked like.

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But then there's the treatment of King, which is, which is really, really quite remarkable. The writer dismisses Belafonte when he speaks too much about politics, but then questions, and, questions King and is impatient with his civil rights politics, but also quite impatient with his criticism of the Vietnam

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War. "What right does he have?" The right, it seems to suggest, to speak as he does, on, on, on, on this, on this war. The review takes a turn, a brighter turn. "No one will be surprised," once it turns to, back to Aretha Franklin and her singing,

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right. "This is, this is what we came here for." For those of you who have followed the kind of intersection of black entertainment and activism in the present decade, particularly in the era of Covid and in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder and subsequent, and the subsequent trial of his killers, we'll, we'll see, we'll hear a quite

00:28:18.940 - 00:28:47.190

familiar tone here. There's a sense in the review of, "Entertainers, be quiet and entertain. King, stay in your lane." And, and it's, it's interesting, I think, for our work as a, as a task force, to, to be charged with, or to take up the mission of trying to,

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trying to integrate this late 1960s view of the civil rights movement, right. A kind of criticism that runs counter to this progressive understanding of movement toward justice, and this impatience, right. "Are we still talking about civil rights in late 1960s.

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Don't we have--aren't there black people on campus now?" Okay. And now I'm gonna end. So this is, one, one of the, the thesis of King in the Wilderness, the main arguments of King in the Wilderness, is that the last 18 months of his life run comp--run quite

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counter to our present interpretation of, of King. And it raises the question of what comes in the wake of tragedy. What comes in the wake of death? Hero death, black death.

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What are, is, is tragedy necessary? Is black death necessary, right, for justice, for, for civil rights justice? And I wanna end with an issue of the, of the Thresher that comes out in the near aftermath of King's assassination and burial, and it's from Robert Porter.

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It's a letter from Robert Porter that is published in the Thresher. He's in the German department, and he's on his way to leaving Rice, and he wants to, gets a couple of things off his chest. And one of those things is the place of Rice, especially in the aftermath of King's

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murder and burial, the place that Rice holds, that he sees Rice holds, in the larger community. "I want to express my dismay," he writes, "as having been a part of an ivory tower that among the Houston Negro community has the reputation of being a white mecca, a white holy of holies." Now, that's, that's worth investigating, right, it's worth

00:31:30.010 - 00:31:51.000

investigating. I'm not reading it to take it as fact, though, though it's probably not far off, right, I wouldn't be surprised to, to find it. But then he goes on to this, this passage that speaks to this question of, of what happens in the aftermath of the death of King.

00:31:51.900 - 00:32:17.710

And so Porter writes, The only suitable memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King that this institution could make is the changing of this image. And this year, now. To those who claim that they cannot, to those who claim that they cannot find sufficiently

00:32:17.710 - 00:32:43.240

qualified Negro students, I would say, find them." Right. So Porter's on his way out, he's saying, in the aftermath of this tragedy, this liberal institution with so many folks dedicated to social justice, but the, but have no idea, apparently, the way that they're, that they're understood and interpreted from the

00:32:43.240 - 00:33:05.890

outside, and don't take seriously the lack, the utter lack, especially in the student body, of black students, how, how, how small the number is, how lonely they must be on campus, that the work we need to do now is changing the parts of the university that we actually have control over.

00:33:06.790 - 00:33:33.800

"And for those who say that there aren't black students to be found for Rice," Porter goes on to say, "we find all the students that we're interested in finding." I see that. And then he makes a proposal in the aftermath of King's death. "I would urge," right, "that there be found at least a dozen black students

00:33:33.800 - 00:34:02.850

to enter Rice this fall." So this is huge. This is not a small proposal. "This fall, as members of the newly formed Lovett College, then at least a dozen black students for each of the other colleges, just as soon as possible." It's worth,

00:34:02.850 - 00:34:21.650

it's worth completing, but I'm gonna, I'm going to end now, because it wraps up this larger question for me, or an important question for me, of, what follows in the aftermath of tragedy? What types of things does, do the, does the institution commit itself to?

00:34:21.660 - 00:34:43.920

What types of things is the institution called to commit itself to in, in, in the aftermath of tragedy? And, and, and what can be found by investigating those commitments over the long term, and those charges over the long term, and whether and how they, they come to

00:34:43.920 - 00:35:18.510

fruition. And I'm particularly interested in Porter's attention to Lovett College. It is, in a single sentence, a profoundly, it demonstrates a profoundly good grasp of, of, of the problematics of black life on campus in very few, in very few words, and speaks to an issue that we still grapple with, and offers a solution

00:35:20.740 - 00:35:46.310

that is bold. Whew, that's a lot to think about, and it actually segues really well into the document that I wanted to share, which is about Lovett College, today, but I wanna thank you for that and also think our audience members, we've gotten some, some comments to

00:35:46.310 - 00:36:09.590

us in the chat, I'm not sure everyone can see them, about some other appearances that King made in Houston around the time of the documents that you shared, Dr. Byrd, that I think will be great for us to, to follow up on, but, you know, the question you're posing about the aftermath of tragedy and the timing of things at an institutional

00:36:09.590 - 00:36:28.940

level put me in mind of another document that I wasn't prepared to talk about today, but it's from, it's from the Rice Thresher, and I thought I'd just pull it up here on the screen. What, what was the date of the Porter letter? Ah, April, hold on one second.

00:36:33.050 - 00:36:49.700

April, sorry, sorry, sorry. Screen refresh. April 25th, 1968. 1968. So this, this article comes from the Rice Thresher, September 19th, 1968, so the

00:36:49.700 - 00:37:09.560

following fall. And it's, it's covering an open forum that was held emphasizing the "necessity for liberalizing integration policies." "The question," the article begins, "was not what but how, for approximately 75 students and faculty members who gathered to discuss

00:37:09.560 - 00:37:28.700

'Integration and the Rice Admissions Policy' at the Senate meeting Tuesday night." And then it refers here to Drs. Alan Grob of the English department and Zevi Salsburg of the Chemistry department, and of course, I think we've, we've mentioned Alan Grob's name on the doc talk before.

00:37:28.700 - 00:37:52.370

If we haven't, we should have and we will, because Professor Grob is well known in the history of the institution for helping to lead some of these discussions at the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s about how to better recruit black students and retain black students at Rice.

00:37:52.370 - 00:38:09.170

And he formed a, so-called, the Grob Committee, or a committee on, on minority admissions. But what struck me as you were talking is the fact that this, this article is really giving us a history of the origins of that committee. When did it start?

00:38:10.410 - 00:38:34.020

Did it start immediately after the, the charter trial ended? According to this article, it, Dr. Grob and Dr. Salsburg "briefly commented on a," quote, "'spontaneously generated' faculty group which met after the King assassination to explore integration policies of the

00:38:34.020 - 00:39:01.800

admissions committee." And so I think that gets to a somber side of the history of the civil rights movement, of what catalyzes change, and, and when steps were taken to, to further desegregate an institution that was technically desegregated already, if we think about it and just in terms of policy changes.

00:39:01.800 - 00:39:21.990

And I think the, the letter that you read from Professor Porter gets us to think more broadly about critical masses of students and what students will need when they arrive at a place like Lovett College. The idea of, of a, of a group of twelve students joining a college at once and

00:39:21.990 - 00:39:46.010

providing some community and solidarity and support for one another, as well as for the broader college, is a really interesting idea. And it connects to me to the document from last week where we were discussing Hanszen College, and you remember that we had a letter from Dean Katherine Brown to President

00:39:46.070 - 00:40:02.940

Hackerman about the Greek Underground, and there was a worry that maybe some Rice students were joining fraternities. And we've, we saw in this letter from Dean Brown reassuring President Hackerman that Rice students were not very interested in fraternities, she said, but there was, there

00:40:02.940 - 00:40:24.270

was this one case that she heard about from Ira Gruber, who was the outgoing master at Hanszen College, of a black student who had quite openly joined a fraternity at Texas Southern University because he felt that his social experiences or his opportunities for social activities were very limited at Rice.

00:40:24.630 - 00:40:45.120

And this was in, I'm trying to remember the year, I think it was 1971, could be wrong about that, from, from last week. But it gets at what you were hinting at, that there were challenges that black students faced when they arrived within their colleges because of their, their

00:40:45.120 - 00:41:07.350

numbers, and because of the support that they were or weren't receiving from, from the institution. And the document that I wanted to talk about today, which I'll get to a little bit less quickly than I had planned, is another letter from Dean Brown to President Hackerman.

00:41:07.950 - 00:41:29.490

Let me see if I can find it and pull it up. And it comes from a few years after, if I'm remembering right, the, the letter from last week, and fittingly, although we hadn't planned this, it's a letter about Lovett College, that new college that, that Professor Porter was referring to in 1968

00:41:29.490 - 00:41:48.690

that was just getting under way. And this is from 1973. Before I get to the letter from Dean Brown, I wanna look at this letter that was sent to President Hackerman by the late Sidney Burris, who is well known to Rice people, a

00:41:48.690 - 00:42:07.380

former Dean of Engineering at Rice who passed away last spring and is greatly missed on campus. But in this letter, Professor Burris was writing to President Hackerman in his role as the master of Lovett College.

00:42:07.380 - 00:42:29.520

So you can see up here at the top that this letter is printed on the letterhead of Lovett College Office of the Master, and it's dated September 17th, 1973. And it reads, "Dear President Hackerman, this is a request that Mr. Jethro Terrell of the mechanical engineering department be appointed resident associate of

00:42:29.520 - 00:42:46.530

Lovett College for the academic year 1973-74. Mr. Terrell has been recommended to me by responsible members of the college, by several of the faculty associates of Lovett College, and other members of the Rice faculty." And let me pause here to mention that President Hackerman was himself an

00:42:46.530 - 00:43:03.990

associate of Lovett College at this, at this moment in time. The letter concludes, "Mr. Terrell impresses me as a responsible, mature, and congenial young man. He appears well suited for the position of resident associate at Lovett.

00:43:04.020 - 00:43:20.080

He is able to assume his residency at the college immediately. Sincerely, C.S. Burrus, Master. Now, Dr. Byrd, you've been in the colleges both as an RA and as a, a magister, so I'm curious,

00:43:20.090 - 00:43:34.910

what, do you notice anything in this letter that, that you homed in on or raises questions for you? Okay, go ahead. Two things. The, the first one is, I am no longer writing any more long recommendation letters.

00:43:34.910 - 00:43:50.180

I am following Dr. Burris from here on out. This is, this is the way to get ahead on writing references. But the, but the second thing is, in my experience in the colleges, when someone is

00:43:50.180 - 00:44:13.860

able to assume their residency, residency in the college immediately, that sometimes means something has happened, right, because the RA apartments are typically filled, right, and so... That's a good question. Why is, why is there an opening, and why is Mr.

00:44:13.860 - 00:44:34.050

Terrell able to move in immediately? Yeah, those are both good, good questions. Well, I think, it is a pretty brief letter and recommendation, and usually in these kinds of cases, the, the master's recommendation of a residential associate,

00:44:34.050 - 00:45:00.330

the college's recommendation of an RA, is, is pretty quickly approved by the president of the university, typically defers to the colleges to make those, those staffing decisions. In this case, it seemed like there was some real urgency to getting this approved, because on the top of this letter, there's a handwritten note written by someone

00:45:00.330 - 00:45:17.130

from Lovett College, Toni Paine, who, I have questions about who Toni Paine was, but I'm imagining perhaps the secretary of the college, on the same day, attaches to this letter, a handwritten note saying that "Dr. Burris would appreciate having this memo reach Dr.

00:45:17.130 - 00:45:29.060

Hackerman as soon as possible." Right. So there's some real urgency about, about Mr. Terrell's appointment. So those, as you can see from this image, are stapled together.

00:45:29.060 - 00:45:53.550

The real document that I wanted to discuss that may shed some light on, on this, is at the top, September 19th, two days after that letter, and this is the letter from Dean Katherine Brown to President Hackerman about this issue. It's a memorandum on the subject, "Jethro Terrell as resident associate of Lovett

00:45:53.550 - 00:46:07.860

College." And in this letter we learn quite a bit more about Mr. Terrell, but not as much as I would like to know. I'm sort of left with a lot of questions, but first, let me read what this typed letter says at the top.

00:46:08.880 - 00:46:24.330

"I talked to Dr. Burris today," Dean Brown says, "about his request to have Mr. Jethro Terrell appointed as resident associate of Lovett College. Mr. Terrell is a former faculty member of Grambling College in Louisiana who is

00:46:24.330 - 00:46:42.690

presently working for his PhD in mechanical engineering at Rice. I'm gonna hope everyone in the audience knows of Grambling College in Louisiana. Dr. Byrd, does that ring a bell for you? I want to say go Jaguars, but I'm scared to say it 'cause maybe, maybe they have a

00:46:42.690 - 00:46:55.410

different mascot. But yes. Of course... Historically black college in Louisiana, produced Doug Williams as one of the first

00:46:55.410 - 00:47:14.670

black quarterbacks, first quarter, black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, against my beloved Denver Broncos. So that's where, that's where Jethro Terrell had been a faculty member in the past, apparently, but was presently working for his PhD at Rice.

00:47:16.370 - 00:47:38.480

And now these next couple of sentences really get, I think, to, to some of, perhaps the urgency, and the reason why this requires some special approval from President Hackerman. Partly because, well, I'll just read on, I'll just read on. "Lovett College has six or seven black students as resident members, and an equal

00:47:38.480 - 00:47:53.840

number of non-resident black members. Dr. Burris felt that Mr. Terrell's presence in residence as a professionally oriented, very intelligent, and pleasant person would greatly strengthen the relationship of these students to the

00:47:53.840 - 00:48:16.550

college, and that because of these same qualities, he would also make a valuable contribution to the life of the college as a whole. An unspoken here is some important, an important detail about Mr. Terrell. But it's, while left unstated, I think, if we read between the lines and look

00:48:16.550 - 00:48:38.450

at his history as a former faculty member at this historically black college and university, infer that Mr. Terrell was himself a black student, a graduate student, at Rice in 1973. And it's his status as a graduate student that, that requires, according to Dean Brown,

00:48:38.480 - 00:48:53.570

this special consideration because he's a graduate student. "Dr. Burris discussed this appointment carefully, both with the members of the Lovett government, with the Committee of the Masters, all of whom would approve it." He was "recommended by the faculty in mechanical engineering," and Dean Brown can't

00:48:53.570 - 00:49:09.560

see any objection to his appointment. So she supports it as well. And then we see in President Hackerman's characteristic scrawl over here, an "OK NH." So he gives his approval to, to this request.

00:49:11.360 - 00:49:18.230

So what questions does this document raise for you, Dr. Byrd? It raises some... Oh, I love this. I love this, Dr.

00:49:18.230 - 00:49:51.250

McDaniel, And my first question is maybe a little idiosyncratic, so I want to apologize beforehand. It's my understanding, and I want to be, this is our charge for the weeks to come, I, I thought that Lovett College was one of the few, if only, residential colleges at the university whose constitution includes the

00:49:51.790 - 00:50:11.220

admission of graduate students into the fellowship of the college. I heard that during my time on the on the Committee of of Magisters. And so one of the questions it raises for me is, if that's true, hey, I didn't read the constitution, the Lovett magister told me.

00:50:11.460 - 00:50:27.210

If that's true, A, then B, I wonder what the origins of that constitutional plank are, and could these be the origins of that constitutional plank? So, sorry for that question. No, that's a good, it's a good question, because it's not typical for graduate

00:50:27.210 - 00:50:51.630

students to, to be members of the college. And it's happened more often since 1973, but probably was not very typical in 1973, for graduate students to serve as RAs. And of course, what caught my attention, given the discussion we were having earlier,

00:50:51.630 - 00:51:16.370

about a concern that at least two college masters had around this time, Ira Gruber at Hanszen mentioning the student who, who sought social opportunities outside campus, and now apparently Professor Burris, although he doesn't say this in his letter to President Hackerman, I think it's interesting that that's, that's never stated

00:51:16.370 - 00:51:41.060

explicitly in his letter to President Hackerman, it does come out in, in the conversation he has with Dean Brown, that he's concerned about the relationship of the six or seven black students who live at Lovett College to the college, and sees the appointment of Mr.

00:51:41.060 - 00:52:13.880

Terrell, a black graduate student in the PhD program in mechanical engineering, who has a background apparently as a faculty member at an HBCU, might assist in that, that challenge that both of these college masters are identifying around the, the sense of belonging or lack of a sense of belonging felt by, by the black members of

00:52:13.880 - 00:52:30.560

their college. Now, the questions I have are, are, that I still don't have all the answers to, are partly about Mr. Terrell himself. Because we could look at this letter on the one hand as a letter that reveals to us

00:52:30.560 - 00:52:56.100

something about the situation of black undergraduate students at Lovett College, but it also raises questions about the history of black graduate students at Rice. From this period, I think the names and the experiences of black undergraduate students at Rice are probably better now, and I'm gonna go out on a limb here, than that of

00:52:56.100 - 00:53:14.370

black graduate students, with the exception of one black graduate student, who we've talked about on the doc talk before, and of course, we've had an entire task force program around Dr. Raymond Johnson, the first to graduate with a graduate degree from, from Rice, first

00:53:14.370 - 00:53:40.140

black student to graduate with a graduate degree from Rice. But here apparently is some evidence of another black graduate student from the early years who, much like we've discussed before with, with Professor Johnson, was being asked, at the same time as he was pursuing his graduate studies in this intense academic

00:53:40.140 - 00:54:04.210

environment, to take on some additional work. And I'm gonna go ahead and describe it as work, because I've lived in the colleges, and I, and I know it's work to, to live in the colleges, and especially to, to live in the college with what's clearly a kind of implicit understanding of, of the, the

00:54:04.260 - 00:54:27.120

administrators in this case, that he will take on some, some work in, in helping black students in the college to feel more connected to the college. So what was that experience like for him, is a question I have. If he, in fact, accepted the, the appointment, which is another question I

00:54:27.120 - 00:54:47.850

have, I was trying to do some looking after finding this in the archive yesterday to see if there's any photographs of, of Mr. Terrell. There was in the 1973 Campanile no pictures of, of, of Lovett College as a group or of,

00:54:48.240 - 00:55:05.130

of its residential team. There was in 1974 a picture of Professor Burris and his family and a section in the Campanile dedicated to Lovett College, but no reference to, to Mr. Terrell in that Campanile or photograph of him.

00:55:06.780 - 00:55:35.740

I did find in the archive, let me see if I can share my screen, a different document here. I did find, I'm struggling today with my transitions. I did find the thesis written by Jethro Terrell while he was a graduate student at Rice University.

00:55:37.690 - 00:55:59.230

And you can see here the title page, "Rice University," I'm gonna mispronounce these scientific words, but the title of this thesis is, "Chemisorption of Hydrogen and Electrical Effects on Transition Metals by Jethro Terrell, a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, Thesis

00:55:59.230 - 00:56:21.400

Director's Signature, C. Girvin Harkins, Houston, Texas, May 1976." And I tried to make heads and tails of, of this work, but it's way over my head as a historian. My attention as a historian was drawn instead to a particular line on the title

00:56:21.400 - 00:56:42.700

page. Was there anything that struck you, Dr. Byrd, given what we've already seen? Well, yeah, so I was wondering, so this is his master of science degree, but he is pursuing, apparently, the PhD in mechanical engineering, which I imagine one

00:56:42.700 - 00:57:04.100

needs a dissertation to, to have that degree, and I feel like, you would have, you went searching, so my question is, why are you not sharing the PhD degree dissertation? Right. I haven't found it. Yeah. Did he complete the PhD?

00:57:04.850 - 00:57:22.160

You know, I'm still, I'm still doing a little bit of work to, to see what I can find out about about Mr. Terrell, who, it seems, may have appeared, may have returned to Grambling College and continued a career as an instructor there.

00:57:23.330 - 00:57:44.210

He had a master's degree even before coming to Rice in physics, which is, I think, how he received his faculty appointment at Grambling. But it raises all these questions, then, of what his experience at Rice was like. He came to work on a PhD, was asked to do this work in Lovett College that, that

00:57:44.330 - 00:58:03.110

Professor Porter, a few years before, had already kind of been seeing the need for in advance. We don't know whether he took it up. I also gather some things that, again, I'm not sure of, that suggest he may have been married with kids by this time.

00:58:03.260 - 00:58:22.670

And there's no reference in this, in this particular letter about whether his family would have moved into the the RA apartment as well. So there's lots of questions, I think, about, about this name that I had not heard of before seeing this, this letter.

00:58:22.760 - 00:58:45.410

Questions about the experience of black graduate students at Rice, which is something that I think warrants more attention from, from researchers, and at the same time, evidence about the experience of black undergraduate students in this, this first generation, and the concern that administrators seem to be having around this

00:58:45.410 - 00:59:10.310

time about, about the college system's relevance to those students, and support for, for those students. So there's lots more work to do, clearly. Fantastic find, and, and fantastic beginnings of a story that I know we will, will

00:59:10.310 - 00:59:33.590

follow in the, in the weeks ahead. I think it also connects to your point about, that you raised last week, beginning with the University of South Carolina, about cost, right, and you've raised it in a particular way around professional costs with, with Mr.

00:59:33.590 - 01:00:04.760

Williams. But there is also, in the, in the description of him from the dean, right, I think, I think I may even prefer Burris's, Dr. Burris's lack of description to the, the dean's description. There are some certain demands implied in that description that, that mean something in

01:00:04.760 - 01:00:27.870

1972 and 1973. So this is the era of the beginning of some black demands and some discomfort at the university, and, and there's an assurance, an implicit assurance, in the letter from the dean about what type of RA Lovett would be getting here.

01:00:27.890 - 01:00:38.810

Whether it applies or not, I'm not sure, but ... "Professionally oriented. Very intelligent and pleasant." "Pleasant." "Pleasant." Yes.

01:00:39.440 - 01:01:00.740

There's some, there's some language that we could, could unpack there, for sure. So lots to think about in these documents that, that I think ended up bringing us both to Lovett College in the end, and, and perhaps we'll have occasion to return there again in the weeks to come. We wanna thank all of you and the audience for sticking with

01:01:00.740 - 01:01:07.670

us and hope to see you again next Friday at same, same doc time, same doc place. Have a great weekend, everyone.