Fresno State honors professor who helped launch Black and ethnic studies programs in ’60s
Richard Keyes worked at Fresno State for just a few years in the late 1960s.
But the legacy he created over his career — and into retirement— continues to be felt throughout the city and on campus, where flags were to be lowered Friday to honor his legacy.
Keyes died Sept. 27. He was 85 years old.
Fresno State president Joseph Castro ordered the tribute as a way to honor Keyes’ “visionary leadership in the development of Black studies and ethnic studies at Fresno State, at a time when such programs were just beginning throughout the country.”
Said Castro said in a statement: “One of Professor Keyes’ most powerful legacies is a strong and vibrant Africana Studies program that now exists at Fresno State.”
An administrative overreach?
Keyes was recruited to Fresno State in 1968 and was on campus during a tumultuous time for students and staff.
He was thrust into controversy as Head of the Ethnic Studies Program in 1969 when he hired a Black Muslim named Marvin X. The hire caused an uproar from some faculty members and others in the community, who opposed the presence of an outspoken Black Muslim on the faculty and called for the man to be fired.
This led to the eventual resignation of the school’s president and the loss of eight members of the Ethnic Studies department — 60% of the faculty of color at the time. The staff members, including Keyes, were not-retained when the interim president took over.
“Because he was an activist, he was kind of black balled by Fresno State,” says Linda Hayes, board chair of the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission, where Keyes served for than more than two decades as a board member and commissioner.
“That fueled him to go and do more work,” Hayes says.
The fight for equity
After leaving Fresno State, Keyes taught at UC Santa Cruz and started a consulting firm specializing in community economic development. Later, as executive vice president of RHA Inc., he managed statewide energy conservation projects serving low-income consumers.
In Fresno, he was part of various organizations within the community. He helped to merge Fresno’s two area Black chambers and served as treasurer of the Fresno Metro Black Chamber Foundation. He served on the board the African American Museum and the Fresno Chapter of the United Negro College Fund.
Keyes will be remembered for his activism, his ongoing fight for equitable programs in Fresno and his vast historic and institutional knowledge of the community, Hayes says. He understood why people in Fresno are still living in poverty and knew the things that had already been tried to foster equity — what worked, what failed and why, Hayes says.
Moreover, he was generous in sharing his knowledge. Hayes says she could call Keyes with questions about policy and actions at the EOC. and often did, at all hours of the day.
He would call her also, when he thought she needed the help.
“That’s just what he did,” she says.
His work with the EOC lasted up to his passing. Hayes had an online meeting with Keyes on the Thursday before his death. When he missed it, she knew something was wrong.
The EOC hosted an online memorial earlier this month.
Honoring what he stood for, and against
Leonel Alvarado met Keyes while a student, working in the Educational Opportunities Program at Fresno State. Alvarado was an older student at the time, restarting his education after coming back from the war in Vietnam. He never had Keyes as an instructor, but knew him through working with minority students in the EOP office and came to appreciate Keyes after watching him interact students.
The two became lifelong friends.
“What stands out to me was his wisdom and how he looked at the world,” Alvarado says.
“He was always looking forward.”
He would challenge people, to see if they really understand and could stand behind their words. In honoring Keyes, the university shows that it understands the man’s contribution to the community and its students, Alvarado says.
“They are honoring what he stood for,” he says.
“And what he stood against.”
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation be made to:
c/o Richard Keyes Memorial
161 N. Van Ness Blvd., Fresno, CA, 93701