Spartan Magazine
Reunion Chapel Honoring Bertha Sadler Means
PH OTO LEFT TO RIGHT: Bertha Sadler Means and Joan Means Khabele
During Reunion weekend, the St. Stephen’s community gathered for a special Chapel service on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015, to pay tribute to Bertha Sadler Means and celebrate a new endowment created in her honor by family and friends. A pioneering educator and Civil Rights activist, Means has fought against racial segregation and discrimination throughout the city of Austin for more than 60 years. A former trustee (1994–2000), Means is the mother of Patricia Means King ’66, St. Stephen’s first African-American student, and former trustee Joan Means Khabele (2004–2010). In addition, six of her grandchildren are Spartan alumni, including Dineo Khabele ’85, who paid tribute to her grandmother during the Chapel program.
She could not have imagined that things were going to get easier. She could not possibly have imagined that she would become a basketball star and a beauty queen in college or a teacher and then an administrator in the Austin public school system. She could not possibly have imagined that as a civil rights and political leader she would help integrate the public pools and public and private schools, such as St. Stephen’s, and that this would impact countless others. Or that she would be a delegate at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and attend the inauguration of the first African-American president of the United States. And she could not have imagined that she and my grandfather would raise five children or that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren would live in California, Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee, Texas and beyond. Throughout her 95 years of living in the United States, my grandmother has directly experienced the remnants of slavery and the share-cropping era — segregation, racism and discrimination that was, and is, often ignored by many and encouraged by some, even today. Yet, in her lifetime, she has embodied the fact that education and service can overcome ignorance and the accompanying ills of poverty, bigotry and hate. GiGi continues to live with chutzpah, and what a well-lived life! Family and friends, we are here today to honor Bertha Sadler Means by establishing the Bertha Sadler Means Endowment so that her legacy of service may continue in perpetuity. Our hope is that money from this fund will be used to help future generations who start from humble beginnings to live beyond their dreams. Thank you.
The Bertha Sadler Means Endowment was established to support financial aid for AfricanAmerican students and other students of color at St. Stephen’s. For more information, please contact Christine Aubrey, director of advancement, at caubrey@sstx.org.
My grandmother, also known as GiGi, has lived more than 95 years on this earth. That feat is amazing enough on its own. How she has spent her time is far more important. GiGi came from a humble background. One of my favorite pieces of art is a portrait of her as a child. In it she is sitting under a tree looking over the cotton fields. When she was a child, her days were spent with her family in hard labor, picking cotton. Her nights were spent with “the three Rs.” Thankfully, she had the tools to allow her mind to soar and dream of more. Looking over the cotton fields, she imagined something more for herself, and she used the tools she had —knowledge, hard work and a dose of chutzpah, which is Yiddish for audacity. I use the word in the best way possible. P H OTO Dineo Khabele ’85
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