IN OUR OWN WORDS Reed Magazine surveyed Black alumni across the years about their experience at the college. In an attempt to capture the variety of lives impacted and enriched, here’s a sample of the responses, edited for brevity and clarity.
MILESTONES IN BLACK HISTORY AT REED
WHAT WAS YOUR LIFE LIKE ON CAMPUS? HOW DID YOUR BLACKNESS INFLUENCE YOUR EXPERIENCE OF REED RITES LIKE PAIDEIA, THESIS PARADE, HUM CONFERENCE, AND/OR DANCES ON CAMPUS? I really loved being a student at Reed, but it definitely wasn’t a place where I felt affirmed as a Black student. Even now, 20 years later, I can remember walking into the Hum lecture hall, and there was this sea of white students, and this older white guy at the podium below, and me. The feeling of being out of place really hit home in my first seminar following that lecture. Students were discussing The Iliad as if they’d been groomed to have these sorts of discussions all the time. Reed was a place where I felt free to explore who I was and how I wanted to be in the world, but it wasn’t an environment where ideas about what it meant to be minoritized in white spaces was explored. And the dances? Wow, that was
1932 1947
1953 1958 1964
Geraldine Turner ’32 becomes Reed’s first Black graduate.
Prof William Couch Jr. becomes Reed’s first Black professor.
Eastmoreland bar refuses to serve Inez Freeman ’48 because she is Black. Incident sparks the “Fair Rose” movement to end discrimination by hotels and restaurants in Portland.
20 Reed Magazine june 2021
Rockefeller Foundation makes $275,000 grant to help Reed recruit minority students.
Paul Robeson holds a concert at Reed in the face of McCarthy discrimination.
