Willard home, and family legacy, endure
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David and Kim Willard stand among a stairwell filled with family photographs in their home, which is the first brick residence ever built by and for a Black family in Beaumont. The two-story home on Gladys Avenue was built by David s great-grandfather Elmo Riley Willard, I, who was born in August of 1867 on the Calder Plantation, where his parents, Riley Elmo Willard and Margaret Willard, were slaves. A placard mounted near the front door lists the home as a Historical Cultural Landmark within the city. Photo taken Thursday, February 11, 2021 Kim Brent/The EnterpriseKim Brent/The EnterpriseShow MoreShow Less
The Change of Plans That Made Rufus Cormier a Trailblazer
The attorney never wanted to practice law, but he ended up in the middle of history.
By
Emma Schkloven
12/14/2020 at 6:00am
Published in the December 2020 issue of
Houstonia
Rufus Cormier, retired partner at Baker Botts, never planned to go into law. But a campus protest during his junior year at Southern Methodist University changed everything.Â
It started when the schoolâs Black students decided to occupy the presidentâs office and demand that more Black students and faculty be recruited to the school. After a couple of days the collegeâs president organized a meeting between two representatives of the Black campus community and the universityâs law school. Cormier, an All-Southwest Conference nose tackle who played alongside future Houston Oiler Jerry LeVias, was named one of those representatives. He and another student argued their classmatesâ point of view to several law professors,