Story.
WHAT’S YOURS?
lacrosse and in the university band. A World War II vet. Electrical engineer. Husband of 67 years. Father of three. Later in life, after a change of heart while working for a weapons company during the Vietnam War, he became a research analyst at a hospital. He volunteered at food pantries. At 90, Fenn danced for the fi nal time in a traditional English troupe. “He had a great life, was really a multi-faceted person, and had a care for humanity,” Ellison said. "I felt it was important to preserve this.” Ellison found Fenn’s son, Paul, online, too. They exchanged information. In a black-and-white photo of the 1941 Harvard men’s lacrosse team, the wooden stick rested between Fenn’s gloved right hand and right thigh. One row back and three men to the right stood Alexis, a New Orleans native who aspired to be a doctor. He was the Crimson’s lone black player in 1941. He was the only
black student in the entire junior class. When the lacrosse team showed up to Annapolis 75 years ago as part of a spring break trip, Admiral Russell Willson ordered the mess hall to be cleared. He approached Harvard coach Dick Snibbe to say that midshipmen would not play on the same fi eld as a black man. The fi rst black man did not graduate from the academy for another eight years. Snibbe refused to play without Alexis.
Harvard was prepared to forfeit the game, but athletic director William Bingham directed the coach to do as Navy said. Alexis, who played against Maryland the day before, told the team he would ride a train home that night. “I get tears in my eyes when I think about it,” Harvard’s All-American goalie, George Hanford, told The Boston Globe. The next day, Navy beat Harvard 12-0. “Harvard has kowtowed to Jim- Crowism,” the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, said. Students protested on campus. Congressmen weighed in and rights groups asked for
explanations.The outcry led Harvard to say no one would be left behind again. The incident is one of many thought to have persuaded President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Harvard graduate, to sign Executive Order 8802 that prohibited racial disc rimination in the defense industry and promoted that all play a role in the World War II effort. The same week Navy forced Alexis home, Duke banned a black member of Harvard’s glee club from singing in a chapel. Fenn was Harvard's captain the next
Fenn (bottom row, third from left), Alexis (back right) in 1941 Harvard team photo
laxmagazine.com
year. In the 1942 team picture, he sits in the center, Alexis three seats to the left. The memories never left. Years later in 1965, Paul Fenn asked his mom, Carolyn, why they were not members of a pool club in Greenwich, Conn. All of his friends were. She told him the family was on a waiting list, but the day offi cials from the club arrived to interview them, his father and sister weren’t home. “They're at a civil rights march,” Paul Fenn recalls his mom saying. “We never got invited. … My parents were both progressive thinkers. They always understood right from wrong.” Alexis returned to New Orleans after graduation. Harvard medical school originally accepted him, but then said he could not attend because he had no other black person to room with. He became head of a small business school for black students back home. He died in 1975 at age 53. Every stick has a story. What’s
yours? April 2016» LACROSSE MAGAZINE 15
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