Doc Talks

On this episode, we discuss two letters to presidents, written one hundred years apart. One letter, written by William Marsh Rice to U.S. President Andrew Johnson, raises questions about Rice’s loyalties during the Civil War. The other, written by Raymond Johnson to Rice president Kenneth Pitzer in 1965, opens a window onto the experience of the first African American student to enroll at Rice University.

On this episode, we are joined by four special guests---two former and two current Rice students---to talk about four documents: a page from a business ledger belonging to William Marsh Rice; a survey of the courses that have been offered at Rice over time; and two application essays---one by Linda Faye Williams, a trailblazing Black student and scholar, and one by J. W. Slaughter, an early member of the faculty at the Rice Institute.

On this episode, we have an iconic photograph of Jacqueline McCauley, the first African American woman to enroll at Rice University. We also have a legal document that reveals one of the ways that William Marsh Rice, the university's founder, profited from slavery, and that also opens a window onto the culture and identities of African people forcibly brought to Texas through the Atlantic slave trade.