RE Log Spring 2019

14 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2019 Sean Spence ’93 RE by way of the islands Steffan Alexander ’92 and broth- ers Chris Spence ’90 and Sean Spence ’93 arrived in Miami from Caribbean nations with single mothers who considered education supremely important but couldn’t afford private- school tuition. Alexander’s mother believed her Trinidad-educated son – so strong academically that he tested ahead three grades in Florida’s public school system – would be enriched by Ransom Everglades’s curriculum. For all three boys, it was non-nego- tiable to attend Ransom Everglades after they were accepted and awarded finan- cial aid. The boys found the culture shock at RE extended beyond the school’s mostly white community. “For me, it wasn’t just a black-and- white thing; our [island] heritage was different from black Americans,” said Sean Spence, who along with his brother Chris attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and went on to a 25-year career in the U.S. Army. “It wasn’t just isolation from the white com- munity, it was also isolation from the black community.” Alexander’s family lived on Franklin Avenue in a two-bedroom apartment but moved south in the wake of the Lozano riots, which were sparked by the infamous police shooting that divided the city in 1989. The racial volatility troubled him; he remembered no such unrest back home in Trinidad, which was 40 percent black. “Racism and conflicts between blacks and whites were things I didn’t encounter in Trinidad,” said Alexander, a University of Florida graduate and trial lawyer at Markowitz Herbold in Portland, Oregon. “At the same time, I was also trying to figure out what it meant to be a black American. It was a period of discovery and learning for me.” Alexander recalled feeling some con- cern that his involvement with the BSA could be perceived as closing himself off to non-black students, but he recognized the importance of the organization. When five students were expelled for racial slurs against a black Upper School teacher during his senior year – a story prominently chronicled in the Miami Herald – the BSA became a campus focal point, as RE students rallied in support of the teacher and condemned racism on cam- pus. Alexander was asked to contribute to a column for the school’s Catalyst newspaper in which he shared his expe- riences as a black teen male in Coconut Grove. “I wish I never knew the mean- ing of racism,” he wrote, describing how clerks followed him around local stores. “Prejudice is still very visible in society.” Miami’s movers Erica McKinney ’89 , Beverly Watson ’90 and Gordon Myers ’92 grew up in well-connected families with parents who had ties and contacts in Miami’s legal, educational or arts communities. All attended the Henry S. West Laboratory School, a public magnet school known as “Westlab” on the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables. McKinney’s father, Robert, a University of Miami School of Law graduate and prominent criminal defense lawyer, was eulogized in the Miami Herald in a story that focused on his advocacy for his alma mater, Booker T. Washington Senior High. Watson’s Jamaican-born father, Carlos, served as a professor at Florida International University, and her mother, Rose, who held a PhD, also worked at the university. Myers’ Jamaican-born mother Rosie Gordon-Wallace was a medical mi- crobiologist who worked for years for Searle Pharmaceuticals before founding Having the opportunity to meet different people from different walks of life, being able to share those experiences, that can only enhance the richness of the academic experience. I don’t think there are many things more important than diversity, particularly at a place like Ransom Everglades.” – N. Patrick Range II ’95 “