A year after the death of Lusia Harris-Stewart, advocates are still calling for Delta State University to honor the basketball legend by renaming its coliseum after her.
Ben Proudfoot, who directed the award-winning documentary about Harris-Stewart, “The Queen of Basketball,” wrote an op-ed for The New York Times Jan. 12 asking the university to change the name of Walter Sillers Coliseum and rename it after Harris-Stewart, who was named Lusia Harris while at DSU.
Lusia Harris
Harris-Stewart, a Minter City native, is one of Leflore County’s most famous athletes.
She played basketball at Amanda Elzy High School and won three national championships at Delta State as the only Black player on the team. In 1976, she scored the first points in the first women’s basketball game at the Olympics. She was the first and only woman drafted by an NBA team.
Despite her accomplishments, Proudfoot has found no recognition on Delta State’s campus about the woman known as “Lucy” Harris.
He recalled sitting down with her for their first interview and realizing that it was a piece of history that he and his film crew “needed to get right.”
“I remember specifically asking her, ‘Have you ever told this story to anyone?” She said, ‘No.’ I asked her why. She said, ‘No one ever asked.’”
He spent lots of time with Harris-Stewart before and after making the documentary.
He fondly remembers eating Chinese food with her in the driveway of her home on the former Cherry Street, which has since been renamed in her honor.
In 2021, the two of them also attended the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, where the documentary premiered.
Harris-Stewart died on Jan. 18, 2022. Weeks later, her children, along with Proudfoot, accepted an Academy Award for the documentary on her life.
“We want to get it done,” Proudfoot said of the renaming. “The family had tried for years in private to have this discussion to no avail. I had tried in private to have this discussion to no avail.”
The next step was an open letter that was published on friendsoflucyharris.com. Still, Proudfoot said, the university took no action.
“The problem remains unsolved. So there is kind of one thing left to do — tell the story of what happened in an open, honest and fair way and let other people decide what they think.”
The coliseum is named after Walter Sillers Jr., the longest-tenured speaker in the history of the Mississippi House of Representatives. Sillers was instrumental in the founding of Delta State, but historians have also recognized him as an ardent supporter of segregation.
Proudfoot said discussions with universities about buildings and facilities named after controversial figures are common, though this particular one at Delta State appears to be conducted in silence.
“I never heard anyone say this,” Proudfoot said, “but I guess there are people that are advocating that Walter Sillers deserves the spot on the coliseum for one reason or another, which I don’t think is a defensible position given who he was and what his record was.”
When Proudfoot visited the coliseum with Harris-Stewart to shoot footage for the documentary, he found memorials to other figures important in DSU’s basketball history.
A statue of Margaret Wade, who coached the championship teams on which Harris played, stands in front of the coliseum.
The basketball court is named after Lloyd Clark, who was named the women’s basketball coach over Harris in 1983. Clark earned five Gulf South Conference Coach of the Year awards while coaching the Lady Statesmen.
“We see the court named after Lloyd Clark,” Proudfoot remembered. “I said, ‘Who’s Lloyd Clark?’ And she said, ‘Well, he’s the coach that they hired instead of me.’ And I looked at her and I said, ‘Lucy, where is your statue? Where is your memorial dedicated to you?’ And she just shook her head softly. It doesn’t exist.”
He called it a “stark and painful” moment of realization that there was no recognition of what Harris-Stewart had accomplished on campus.
“Even the court is named after somebody else,” he said. “Not one scrap of commemoration for Lucy Harris. It’s just unjust. And to look her in the eyes and watch her see that and see the disappointment and the hurt on her face — that’s what compels me.”
Last summer, DSU’s president, William LaForge, was ousted by the state College Board due to declining enrollment numbers. Following his dismissal, Proudfoot said LaForge sent an email to Harris-Stewart’s family expressing his support for renaming the coliseum and his regret that he was unable to get it done.
“I was surprised to learn that,” Proudfoot said. “Obviously, I wish if that was his opinion all along, I wish he had expressed that to us, and I wish he had gotten it done while he was in office. All we knew was what we were hearing from the university, which was a very vague response. It was very frustrating and exasperating for the family.”
In response to an inquiry from The Clarion Ledger last week, Delta State’s interim president, Butch Caston, issued a statement that the university will not involve itself in naming or renaming of any facilities until a permanent president is in place.
Proudfoot said he hopes the next administration is willing to continue talks. If the renaming issue is a concern about money, Proudfoot has offered to organize a fundraiser.
He rejected the “nasty rumor” that he or the family were seeking some sort of financial gain from the renaming.
He said he doesn’t believe there is much opposition to renaming the coliseum beyond a small group of individuals.
“Those opinions are not being aired publicly,” he said. “You’re not seeing an op-ed or a letter to the editor with somebody’s name signed to it arguing the opposite — why Walter Sillers is a great man and deserves the honor.”
Proudfoot also said it is not lost on him that Harris-Stewart, a Black woman, lacks recognition on campus, while a plethora of white individuals have been recognized.
“It seems like an issue of race,” he said. “The people who disagree, they’re entitled to their opinion, but they need to unmask themselves and come forward with their argument if they have one.”
- Contact Kevin Edwards at 662-581-7233 or kedwards@gwcommonwealth.com.
