Black Spring Break

The best fun I've ever had was during vacation. Ever notice that when they show Spring Break videos featuring college students having fun, they almost never show black students? That's messed up, you know. I guess that's why my friends and I decided to make our own black-themed Spring Break video. Show the world they were wrong and display once and for all the fact that black male and black female college students can get down with the best of thing. After all, I'm pretty sure our ancestors invented partying and other cultures merely imported it.

My name is Juanita Dolce. I'm a young black woman living in the city of Boston. I am fortunate enough to attend the prestigious W.E.B. Dubois University, named after legendary African-American intellectual and civil rights activist W.E.B. Dubois. We're the first black Ivy League school in America. Founded in 1964, one year after the death of that legendary writer. It started out as a small private school. Forty five years later, it was considered one of the best schools in the country. Dubois University has an endowment of two billion dollars, and offers associates, bachelors, masters and doctorates in more than eighty fields. The school has sixty three thousand students, spread over quite a few campuses. We have locations throughout Massachusetts including Great Barrington, Boston, Plymouth, Allston, Andover, Peabody, Lynn and Fitchburg. The Boston campus is the flagship of the university, with its thirty eight thousand students.

The Boston campus of W.E.B. Dubois University is the place I call home these days. I left my native Houston, Texas at the start of my freshman year and I haven't looked back ever since. I came to my school mostly because I'd heard great things about it. Next to Morehouse College and Spelman College, it was considered the top black school in North America. Let's be honest. It's the only top-notch private coeducational school in New England where the student body population is over sixty two percent black. Dubois University has produced senators, congressmen, business leaders and maybe someday a president or two. Personally, I came for all the handsome black studs. I'm not going to lie. I aim to get myself a husband at this school, on top of my master's degree in business administration. Demographically, the place was promising. Fifty one percent of the student population was male, which just made dating a lot easier for us young black ladies. It's hard to find a good-looking, educated, single black man in this country. Historically black colleges and universities are a sister's best bet.

The other reason why I came, other than the surprisingly affordable tuition (Dubois University costs twenty three grand a year, including room and board) was the astounding athletic opportunities they had for students of both sexes. The school has a reputation as an athletic powerhouse. The Dubois University Department of Athletics sponsors Men's Intercollegiate Baseball, Basketball, Cycling, Bowling, Fencing, Cross Country, Soccer, Swimming, Water Polo, Volleyball, Gymnastics, Track & Field, Football, Wrestling, Ice Hockey, Rowing, Golf, Lacrosse, Sailing, Rugby, Rifle and Archery along with Women's Intercollegiate Softball, Basketball, Bowling, Cross Country, Soccer, Swimming, Cycling, Water Polo, Gymnastics, Track & Field, Field Hockey, Sailing, Fencing, Rowing, Wrestling, Ice Hockey, Golf, Lacrosse, Equestrian, Rugby, Volleyball, Rifle and Archery. All teams compete in the NCAA Division One. We're collectively known as the Troopers and the Lady Troopers.

Upon enrolling at the school, I joined the Women's Rugby team. I've always heard good things about rugby but never tried it. I thought it was just football without helmets or pads. It turned out to be much more than that. I was one of five black women on the women's varsity rugby team. I guess some things never change. Even at a historically black school, most black students stuck to their traditional sports like football, men's and women's basketball, men's baseball, women's softball, men's and women's wrestling and men's and women's volleyball. The men's and women's ice hockey teams were nearly all white. As were the men's and women's rowing, men's and women's sailing and men's and women's tennis teams. Don't even get me started about the men's and women's gymnastics and fencing teams. You get the picture.

I think I tried rugby because it wasn't expected of me. I got really good at it too. I've played football with the guys on the dirt roads of my Houston neighborhood growing up. I was a tough tomboy, not a dainty little lady. At six-foot-one and 240 pounds, I meant business no matter which contact sport I tried. I've always been a big girl and I don't see that changing anytime soon. When women's rugby season ended, I tried my hand at coed varsity cycling. Now that was a demanding sport. It's lot tougher and more tiring than it looks. The constant motion and endurance requirements were an exercise in resilience. I got a real kick out of it.

It was while cycling that I met someone who changed my life forever. Jacob Hazel, cousin of my best friend Rachel Hazel. I met Rachel while on the rugby team. She is a six-foot-tall, broad-shouldered and deeply muscular, dark-skinned and short-haired young black woman who could easily pass for a professional bodybuilder. Back in high school, she was a football player and a varsity wrestler. At Dubois University she joined the women's rugby team and tried wrestling for a season or two before giving it up to focus on rugby. Rachel was a sweet gal, though she was tough-looking and had a scary glare. She was friendly and open-minded. We became pals. Sometimes, we hung out on the streets of Boston. Riding our bikes and also checking out the cute guys. Rachel had recently lost her boyfriend Jamal Stone to a trigger-happy cop's bullet during a traffic stop. The cop shot him because he thought he had a gun when Jamal reached for his wallet. This incident filled her with hatred for the police. There was a media circus and the cop was put on trial. Unfortunately, he was acquitted by a jury of his peers in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Rachel was mad as hell as you can imagine. She lobbied to create Racial Profiling Awareness Day on campus and got her wish.

Jacob Hazel was Rachel's cousin from Atlanta, Georgia. He transferred to Dubois University as a sophomore, following a year spent at the University of Georgia. He joined our football team because his old school didn't have one, though they were planning on fielding one in the near future. When I first met him, I thought he was really cute. A six-foot-three, broad-shouldered and muscular, good-looking young man with dark brown skin, almond-shaped gray eyes and curly black hair. He looked really good, even with the permanent egotistical half-smirk he always wore on that handsome mug of his. Or perhaps because of it. I'm not sure.

Anyhow, I soon began running into Jacob Hazel all the time. When I worked out at the gym, he was often there. Always surrounded by at least two of his football team buddies and their girlfriends. A lot of brothers around campus, especially the jocks, had white girlfriends. What's up with that? I'm not hating. I'm just curious. Jacob, I noticed, was often without a hot chick on his arm. I don't usually go for younger men but this time, I made an exception. I basically pumped Rachel for example, surreptitiously of course. Without being too obvious about it, I asked her about her hunky cousin. Naturally, she saw right through me. I wasn't sure how she'd feel about my dating him. So I was careful as to what I said to her. Rachel laughed and told me it was cool that I liked her cousin. I had her blessing, so to speak.

Jacob and I began hanging out. We'd go to the movies together or have lunch. He was mad cool, I noticed. We had a lot in common. Both of us came from prominent black families. My father, John Dolce is a State Representative in Houston, Texas. My mother Joan Harrington Dolce is a Texas Ranger. Jacob's father was the Athletic Director of the University of Atlanta Tech in his native Georgia. His mother was dead from cancer. He didn't like to talk about her much. I respected his privacy. I'm not big on stirring up unpleasant memories. Tends to lead to awkward moments.

Jacob and I had been seeing each other for a couple of weeks when he invited me to go on Spring Break with him. I didn't know what to say. Yes, of course! That was before he told me that his cousin Rachel was coming with us, along with her friend Jonathan Shay. Yay! And here I thought I was going to have my sexy new boyfriend to myself for a week at the beach. Of course he had to bring his moody cousin and her lovestruck pal along. Jonathan was a tall, good-looking, bald-headed light-skinned black man. One of four ethnic minority members of the Men's Ice Hockey team. He's one of those rich and naïve black folks who've never heard of hardship. Not my favorite kind of person. Of course, that was before he invited us to spend Spring Break with him at his parents mansion in Oak Bluffs, the wealthy black enclave on Martha's Vineyard.

When the big day came, we all crammed ourselves in Jonathan Shay's big red Hummer and set a course for the Vineyard. We left Boston. Jonathan and Rachel sat up front. Jacob and I sat in the back. That part I didn't mind. Jacob held my hand in his and gently squeezed it as we rolled down the highway. I smiled and gave him a quick kiss. I don't know why but I feel shy about kissing him with his cousin around. Rachel Hazel is very protective of the men in her life and she has this habit of giving that deadly glare to any woman who comes too close. Even though we were tight, I wouldn't put it past her to give me that glare someday.

I rolled down my window and let some air through. I love the feel of the wind through my hair. That's what life was all about. I'm in a car with my best friend and my boyfriend, and some random but friendly guy who was letting us stay at his tricked-out house. All four of us were black college students doing some traveling and having some fun during Spring Break. Just like millions of others all over the country. Except ours would be a black Spring Break. I smiled. I must say I liked the sound of that.