The Anthony Reeves Experience

As a member of Black Generation X, I often have to remind people that the way many of us moved into predominantly white spaces was not always as deep, strategic, or emotionally prepared as people might assume. When I attended the University of Tampa in the fall of 1987, I did not get on the road thinking about the fact that I was heading to a predominantly white institution. I was not sitting there processing that it was a private school. I was not calculating that I might be one of the few Black students in most of my classes. I was not thinking that I might be the only Black student in my biology courses, the only Black cadet in my freshman ROTC class, or the only Black person on my dorm floor. All of those things turned out to be true. But none of those things crossed my mind before I got there. Looking back, that is interesting to me because today we often talk about representation, cultural fit, racial isolation, and the emotional weight of being “the only one.” Those conversa...

Most people who know me know that I have spent a lot of time driving. Long drives were never unusual for me. They were part of my rhythm and how I moved through the world. But when I really think about it, driving was never just about transportation. For me, it started as freedom. Back in 1991, I bought my first car. I still remember how happy I was because that car represented independence. Before that, I had spent time riding buses back and forth from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to Tampa, Florida. The bus got me where I needed to go, but it did not give me control. Having my own car changed that. When I drove from Tampa to Pine Bluff, I decided when I left. I decided when I stopped. I knew the route. I knew the gas stations. I knew how far I could push myself before I needed a break. That car gave me control over the experience. And at that point in my life, control felt like independence. When I was in graduate school, my friends and fraternity brothers knew I made regular trips f...

  In 1991, I completed a milestone that I don’t think I fully appreciated at the time. I graduated from the University of Tampa. Now, on the surface, that may sound simple. A young man goes to college, works his way through, earns his degree, and moves on to the next phase of life. But when I look back on it now, I realize it was much bigger than that. I was the first person in my family — and to this day, the only person in my family — to graduate from the University of Tampa. And that mattered. Not because the University of Tampa was the only school that mattered. Not because my family didn’t have a history of education. In fact, I had family members who had gone to college, family members who had attended private schools, family members who had gone away to school, and family members who had attended predominantly white institutions. But my experience was different. I was a Black kid from a single-parent household in the rural Deep South, attending a predominantly white p...