NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, November 18, 2019 — In 1966 and 1967, Deidre Dumas Labat and Reynold T. Décou became the first African American undergraduates to earn degrees from Newcomb College and Tulane, respectively. On Nov. 16, 2019, these distinguished alumni were recognized with the naming of the buildings formerly known as Willow Residences in their honor.
The dedication of The Décou-Labat Residences began at 11 a.m. with a celebratory brunch. Following brunch, guests were led by a second-line band to the newly named Décou-Labat Residences for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The day concluded with Conversations in Color, a discussion between Labat and Décou moderated by Kim Boyle, member of the Board of Tulane as well as board president and chair of the Amistad Research Center, which hosts the Conversations in Color speaker series. The conversation centered around the undergraduate experiences of Labat and Décou.
As Boyle asked questions, guests listened attentively as Labat and Décou described their day-to-day life at Newcomb and Tulane. Their accounts revealed the racism and hostility within their new academic communities, as well as the institutional and social challenges they faced. For example, Labat said that she took an English class during her second year at Newcomb, and her professor consistently graded her work lower than the rest of the class. When Labat asked her professor how she could improve her grade, she was met with scorn.
“She said, ‘You knew before you came here that you couldn’t compete,’” Labat quoted. “‘You knew you couldn’t handle these girls here.’”
While Décou was also faced with racism during his time at Tulane, his experience was different. Unlike Labat, Décou lived on campus for the first few months of his college career, and because of this he endured constant harassment from his fellow residents. This included residents knocking on his door and calling him racial slurs and even leaving bags filled with human excrement at his door. https://news.tulane.edu/node/1647141
