DeCosta-Willis was determined to become the first AfricanAmerican teacher at the University and did just that, breaking the racial barrier in 1966 when she was hired as an assistant professor of Spanish. She says she received overwhelming support from fellow faculty as the lone black professor. She remained at the U of M until 1970 and says she is proud to have paved the way for others who followed in her footsteps.
“I got tremendous support from the faculty. These were educated people, not the segregationist riff raff. It was a good experience,” she says. DeCosta-Willis was in her first year of teaching when she completed her PhD from Johns Hopkins University in one year. “I had a full load. I don’t remember my schedule, but at most colleges you taught every day of the week. It was really, really rough. Toward the end of my dissertation, I checked into a motel and just wrote from when I got there Friday after class until Sunday. The year of writing my dissertation, I went down to 100 pounds.” DeCosta-Willis also became adviser in 1968 to the newly formed Black Student Association. “The highlight was when we orchestrated a sit-in of President Humphreys’ office,” says DeCosta-Willis. “As a result, more than 100 students were arrested. The sit-in W W W. M E M P H I S . E D U
was for different things. We wanted more black faculty members to be hired. A black woman had run for Miss Memphis State and they changed all the rules, making it more difficult for her. We were also pushing for Black Studies to be added to the course offerings.” DeCosta-Willis also organized a Faculty Forum after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “The city was very tense after that,” she says. “This was an attempt to bring the faculty together in support of the movement and to try to explain to those who did not know what was going on and how they could lend support. I thought maybe 20 to 25 of my friends would come. The place was packed. I was so elated to get that kind of support from faculty, many of whom I did not know.” As Memphis and the nation experienced turbulent times with the Civil Rights Movement, so did the University campus. “Memphis State was not an island by any means. There was very much a give and take between town and gown. By the same token, the things that were going on on campus had a definite effect on the community. A lot of those students at MSU were involved in the protests of the public schools. It was a give and take very much.” As the NAACP education committee chair, DeCostaWillis helped plan a boycott of the Memphis Public Schools in 1969 due to the lack of African-American representation on the school board and administration. “I did not go to work, I wore my black arm band,” says DeCosta-Willis. “Even though desegregation had taken place, the schools were run from the top down. We organized a series of Black Mondays in which black teachers and students would not go to work on these Mondays.” DeCosta-Willis remained at the University until 1970 and went to teach at Howard University. She focused her scholarship on black and Hispanic literature. “Every article, every book that I publish has had to do with the preservation, celebration, analysis of African literature in some form: African-American, African, Afro-Latin, Afro-Cuban. I became an activist scholar instead of just an activist.” Since Howard, DeCosta-Willis has taught at several other universities, including: LeMoyne-Owen College, George Mason University and the University of Maryland-Baltimore. She has published 10 books and plans to publish a memoir. “Any of us who became the first anything stand on the shoulders of all those pioneers who came before us. I stood on the shoulders of (Rev.) George Lee, Jesse Turner, both of my husbands, Robert Church, Ida B. Wells. They opened doors. I opened one more door.” SP R I NG 2014
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