News release Public Information Office   SLU 10880   Hammond, LA 70402   phone: 985-549-2341   fax: 985-549-2061 publicinfo@selu.edu     www.selu.edu/news Contact: Christina Chapple Date: 6/24/03   Click on image for publication quality photo BOARD OF REGENTS FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENT – Reginald Span, center, a Southeastern Louisiana University alumnus, has been awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Louisiana Board of Regents to pursue a doctoral degree in history at Tulane University. With Span are his Southeastern mentors, from left, History and Political Science Department Head Bill Robison; Samuel Hyde Jr., director of the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies and Ford Chair in Regional Studies; Michael Kurtz, dean of the Graduate School, and Andrew Traver, departmental graduate coordinator. SOUTHEASTERN GRADUATE RECEIVES REGENTS FELLOWSHIP       HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University alumnus Reginald Span has received a prestigious fellowship from the Louisiana Board of Regents.       Span, a resident of Bogalusa who earned a master’s degree in history from Southeastern last fall and was a part-time history instructor, was awarded a four-year Board of Regents Support Fund Graduate Fellowship at Tulane University. The fellowship is awarded to a superior student from Louisiana who plans to pursue a doctoral degree in history at Tulane.       The fellowship is funded at $15,000 per year, plus full waiver of tuition. No work or teaching is attached to the fellowship.       As a Tulane doctoral student, Span hopes to expand on the research he conducted for his Southeastern master’s thesis, “Prosperity and Peril in the Piney Woods: An Examination of the Negro Communities of Louisiana’s Eastern Florida Parishes, 1920-1940.”       Examining Depression-era census data and other archival records for Tangipahoa, St. Tammany and Washington parishes, Span said he found that the African-American population generally faired better economically than the country as a whole.       He attributes the black residents’ relative prosperity to the steady employment offered by area lumber companies and to the patronage of the area by Louisiana Governor Huey Long.       “The Great Southern Lumber Company kept operations going as long as possible, not closing until 1938,” Span said. Since many of the lumber companies’ employees were white, “The black population moved back onto the land,” he said. As subsistence truck farmers, they supported their own families, but also helped supply food to the community.       “While there were approximately 750 Negro-owned farms in 1920, by 1940 that number had risen to 4,000,” Span said.       He also found that public works projects allotted to the area by Long, who had strong support in areas such as Washington Parish, employed a number of African American residents.       Span said he began seriously pursuing an interest in history as an adolescent. “I was always interested in the Great Depression,” he said. “I read about the want, poverty and starvation and wondered, if the white society was suffering, what impact did the hard times have on black citizens?”       Continuing his interest in African-Americans and the Depression as a history major, he found, “There was not a lot of information available in regards to small towns. Most of the information concentrated on share croppers or big cities.       “When I asked my own family how they survived during those years, they said they were okay,” Span said. “They said it was just another day for them.”       A graduate of Bogalusa High School, Span spent four years in the U.S. Navy and then worked on off-shore oil rigs before enrolling in Southeastern.       Span will begin his Tulane fellowship in August. His record at Southeastern is highly praised by his mentors on Southeastern’s history faculty, including Department Head Bill Robison; Samuel Hyde Jr., director of the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies and Ford Chair in Regional Studies; Michael Kurtz, dean of the Graduate School, and Andrew Traver, departmental graduate coordinator.       Robison said Span’s performance on the department’s masters degree examination, which includes a 10-hour written and two-hour oral tests, “was the best that we have ever seen here at Southeastern.” Return to News Releases