#noma

Stone Frog Yoke

Veracruz Culture, Gulf Coast Mexico, c. 600-900 CE

JOHN SAUNDERS CHASE JR. FAIA (1925-2012)

When Mr Chase went to college in the 1940s, only 10% of the population had undergraduate degrees, and very few of those were people of color. 

Mr Chase enrolled in Hampton University and went on to become the first Black graduate from the University of Texas. In 1952, he was the first Black architect in Texas to get an architectural license. 

Because no firms would hire him, to fulfill a required apprenticeship, Chase appealed to the State of Texas to take his licensing exam without the required apprenticeship. He took it and passed.

Soon after, he designed a sleek Modernist building at 1191 Navasota Street in East Austin for the offices of the Colored Teachers State Association of Texas. About 70 years later the building was acquired by the University of Texas at Austin.

Mr Chase took work where he could find it, which in the beginning meant Black clientele. He designed Riverside National Bank in Texas, and he designed several buildings for Texas Southern University. As his career continued to grow, Chase opened offices in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and Washington DC.

Throughout his life Chase was an advocate for the arts, encouraging other people of color to become architects, and in 1971 he became one of the 12 co-founders of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), architects who met at the 1971 Detroit AIA Conference.

Mr Chase was the first Black member of the Texas Society of Architects and the Houston AIA.  In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed him as the first Black member of the US Commission of Fine Arts.

The stories about Rene are pertinent to the Bear today because Rene has come out and said he's aware, sorry and has been to therapy over the past decade or so.

I was relieved to read that

But I didn't live through it.

He hurt people badly, mocked them, psychologically purposefully hurt them

The people he hurt though

They remember it VIVIDLY

It's a reminder of what the say in the BEAR

You can't be awful to people

Then just apologize

And everything will magically be better

So we will see how this goes for him

But he said THERAPY helped him (LOUDER FOR CARMY IN THE BACK)

Actions instead of 'meaningless' I'm sorry

Treat your people right

He also said he didn't remember a lot of the details of what he did

Doesn't matter because the people he did that stuff to, they remember

And none of them said he apologized TO THEM PERSONALLY (from what I read)

Also this apology came out an hour before the NYT article apparently

Geez this is a mess