Lunch and Learn: Slavery, Segregation, and the Second Founding of Rice University
🍽️ Lunch & Learn: Slavery, Segregation, and the Second Founding of Rice University
Thursday, May 21, 2026 • Noon The Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park
The Heritage Society welcomes Dr. W. Caleb McDaniel and Dr. Alexander X. Byrd of Rice University for a special Lunch & Learn exploring their forthcoming book, Slavery, Segregation, and the Second Founding of Rice University (Louisiana State University Press, 2025). Their research—conducted as co‑chairs of the Rice University Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice—reveals new insights into the university’s origins, its entanglements with slavery and segregation, and the long arc of racial justice work on campus.
This program also connects directly to The Heritage Society’s own landscape of history: the Nichols‑Rice‑Cherry House, relocated to Sam Houston Park, which preserves the legacy of William Marsh Rice, the university’s founder. The speakers will discuss Rice’s life, the world he inhabited, and how his legacy has been re‑examined through new archival findings.
📘 About the Program
Dr. McDaniel and Dr. Byrd will discuss:
The historical foundations of Rice University and its ties to slavery
How segregation shaped the university’s early decades
The “second founding” of Rice through integration and civil rights activism
New archival discoveries from their research for the Task Force
How public history sites—like the Nichols‑Rice‑Cherry House—help contextualize Rice’s legacy
This session offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from the scholars leading Rice University’s most significant historical reassessment in its modern era.
🎙️ Featured Speakers
Dr. W. Caleb McDaniel
Dr. McDaniel is the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University. His research focuses on the nineteenth‑century United States, the Civil War era, slavery, abolition, and emancipation. He co‑chaired the Rice University Task Force on Slavery, Segregation, and Racial Injustice from 2019–2023.
He is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America (2019), which also received major awards from the Organization of American Historians. His earlier book, The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery, won the Merle Curti Award and the James H. Broussard Prize. His scholarship has appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, and leading academic journals.
McDaniel holds a PhD from Johns Hopkins University and BA/MA degrees from Texas A&M University.
Dr. Alexander X. Byrd
Dr. Byrd is Vice Provost for Access and Institutional Excellence and Associate Professor of History at Rice University. His expertise centers on Afro‑America, the African diaspora, and Black life in the Atlantic world and the Jim Crow South.
He is the award‑winning author of Captives & Voyagers, which received the Wesley‑Logan Prize in African diaspora history. His scholarship includes influential essays on the transatlantic slave trade, the nativity of Olaudah Equiano, and the social consequences of racial violence. He is also a celebrated educator, having received Rice’s George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching four times.
Byrd earned his BA from Rice University and his PhD from Duke University.
📅 Event Details
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2026 Time: Noon Location: The Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park Admission: Free to members and $10 for non members
