We recently received a small package that held a large treasure: a dozen beautiful color slides of the the student and faculty march in February, 1969 that wound down the inner loop and across to the lawn on the front side of Lovett, where a beleaguered William Masterson spoke to the crowd about his appointment as Rice’s new president. The slides were sent by alumna Kathy Amen ’71 and taken by her husband Henry Amen ’72, who covered a lot of territory as he was shooting the pictures. (I hope she told him she was sending them!) We’re very grateful to them. No one knows better than I do that this was an extremely important event, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I focus on some very small things.
First, we’ve seen pictures before of Masterson on the quad side of Lovett with a bullhorn:
Looking at these new images I was fascinated by how much that bullhorn moved around that morning. Take a look:
I think the young Alan Grob, English professor and firebrand of the revolt, has it in the next shot:
Second, many people were taking pictures–I know there must be more floating around somewhere.
And here’s something rather odd on the other side of the sallyport– it looks like some sort of jeep or small truck on one side a some loose lumber on the other. Was there construction going on?
One more just for the heck of it, taken from a great vantage point. Note the empty coke bottles:
As always, any thoughts, identifications, or explanations are welcome. Tell me something I don’t know!
Bonus: These days this is usually a very quiet spot but a lot of stuff happened in this general vicinity over the years.
