Rhodes Scholarship
The prestigious academic scholarship established
and named after Cecil Rhodes, the white British
businessman, founder of the De Beers Consoli-
date Mines, imperialist, and Oxford University
graduate for whom the African nation Rhodesia
(present-day Zimbabwe) was renamed.
The awards, established in 1902, provide win-
ners with two or three years of study at Oxford
University. Applicants are selected from the
United States, Commonwealth Caribbean nations,
and select African and European nations. The fel-
lows are chosen on the basis of several criteria, in-
cluding academic achievement, character, and
leadership qualities.
In 1907, HARVARD UNIVERSITY graduate
ALAINLOCKEbecame the first African-American
to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. His intellec-
tual achievements, however, did not prevent a
number of the Oxford Colleges from refusing to
admit him because of his race. He finally gained
admission to Hertford College and during his fel-
lowship years studied Greek, Latin, literature, and
philosophy. Locke was the only African-American
to win the award until 1960.
Bibliography
Elton, Godfrey. The First Fifty Years of the Rhodes Trust
and the Rhodes Scholarships, 1903–1953.Oxford:
Blackwell, 1955.
Schaeper, Thomas, and Kathleen Schaeper. Cowboys
Into Gentlemen: Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the
Creation of an American Elite.New York: Berghahn
Books, 1998.
Thomas, Antony. Rhodes.New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1997.
Rice, Albert(1903–unknown)
A WASHINGTON, D.C., poet who thoroughly en-
joyed his access to the literary salons hosted by fel-
low Washingtonian GEORGIADOUGLASJOHNSON.
Rice lived in the nation’s capital until he graduated
from the renowned DUNBARHIGHSCHOOL. After
a brief and unsatisfying stint as a civil servant in
Washington, D.C., he relocated to NEW YORK
CITYin 1926. That same year, his work appeared
in the African-American issue of PALMS,a literary
journal that had published established writers such
as D. H. Lawrence and Mabel Dodge Luhan. Rice’s
poem “Black Madonna” appeared alongside works
by LEWISALEXANDER, W. E. B. DUBOIS, JESSIE
FAUSET, HELENEJOHNSON, ALAINLOCKE, ANNE
SPENCER, and others.
The primary source of information about
Rice’s evolution as a poet and his participation in
the Harlem Renaissance is his forthright autobio-
graphical statement in COUNTEECULLEN’s 1927
anthology, CAROLINGDUSK: ANANTHOLOGY OF
VERSE BYNEGROPOETS.
According to Rice, once in New York, he
“served an apprenticeship in literary vagabondage
with the bizarre and eccentric young vagabond
poet of High Harlem, Richard Bruce.” Rice was a
self-confessed fan of CLAUDEMCKAYand his “fa-
vorite poet.” He “abhor[red] all things Anglo-
Saxon” and “love[ed] New York because it is
crowded and noisy and an outpost of Europe.”
Caroling Dusk,which included illustrations
by AARON DOUGLAS, featured two poems by
Rice, the previously published poem “The Black
Madonna” and “To a Certain Woman.” The first
was inspired by a church visit in which Rice, “lost
in contemplation before Our Lady” at St. Mary’s
the Virgin, “thought of a Madonna of swart skin,
a Madonna of dark mien.” The 24-line poem with
three-line verses suggested a particular kinship
between the Holy Mother and the worshipper at
her feet. “Not as the white nations / know thee /
O Mother!” initiated Rice’s reclamation of the
Madonna as the embodiment of white woman-
hood. The second poem, “To a Certain Woman”
was a celebration of multiethnic womanhood.
The narrator’s enthusiastic compliments to the
woman before him prompted thoughts of “Black
diamonds / Of Hindustan / Figure silks / Of La-
hore / Scarlet flames / Of Fuji-Yama.” The poem
turned into a set of unfortunate realizations, how-
ever, about the woman’s poisonous vows, kisses,
and deceits.Bibliography
Cullen, Countee. Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by
Negro Poets.1927, reprint, New York: Harper &
Row, 1968.
Wirth, Thomas. Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Se-
lections from the Work of Richard Bruce Nugent.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2002.Rice, Albert 449