Betti Poindexter-Blackshear

Betti-Rachelle Poindexter-Blackshear Betti-Rachelle Poindexter-Blackshear was an engineer with an artist’s heart. And she was a visible—not a “Hidden Figure”—as she set out to blaze a new path in a field with few women and even fewer Black women. In fact, there were so few Black women in engineering when Betti enrolled at Prairie View A&M University as an engineering student in 1962 that it was a newsworthy event. Betti and four of her female classmates were featured in a newspaper article with the headline “Women in Engineering.” A gifted artist, Betti was torn between pursuing her passion for art or a career in engineering where she would use math and science, two of her favorite subjects. By the time she graduated from Prairie View High School, officially called Prairie View Training School, in 1962 as the salutatorian, she had picked architectural engineering over art. According to an oral history interview that her sister Paula conducted with her in 1987, Betti said the financial security of engineering ultimately influenced her career path. But it was also important to Betti that she do something different. In fact, she said in the oral history that she wanted to do “something that wasn’t ordinary.” And that’s exactly what she did! Engineering certainly wasn’t ordinary for a woman of any color in the 1960s. And protesting for civil rights in Waller County while a student at Prairie View A&M and later at the University of Texas, also wasn’t ordinary. And neither was graduating from the School of Architecture at the University of Texas, where Betti transferred in 1964. When she received her Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1970, Betti was one of only two women to graduate that year in a class of 39. And Betti was among the first cohorts of women engineers to work in the aerospace industry in California in the early 1970s. And having started her dream of doing something that wasn’t ordinary at Prairie View A&M, Betti returned as an administrator in the College of Engineering in 1997, where she also mentored and taught future engineers. No doubt, Betti’s dream of blazing a new path was extraordinary considering the times in which she grew up. Born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1944, she was the second of five children of Alfred and Rachael Poindexter. In 1944, Betti’s father was one year away from receiving his veterinary degree from Kansas State University and accepting a job at Prairie View A&M where he would teach animal science and start his large and small animal veterinary practice. With the new job, Alfred and Rachael and their two young children, Betti and Alfred III, whom everyone called Butch, moved to Prairie View, Texas, where they first lived in a campus cottage, down the street from the Veterinary Hospital. Growing up in Prairie View, Betti was a Girl Scout, she played tennis, and she had many friends. All the Poindexter children played a musical instrument and Betti played classical piano. Being the child of a veterinarian also meant different pets, including dogs Pups and Traveler, a horse named Dart, a rabbit, and Dixie, the baby calf. Pups was Betti’s favorite. Betti excelled in school and was always on the honor roll. Plus, she was the May Queen, Miss New Homemaker, and at age 16, she was the First Runner-Up to Miss Texas High. For her talent in the Miss Texas High competition, Betti painted a portrait of a woman from a blank canvas. Betti and her friends had lots of fun; they went to dances, picnics, and movies. She loved Halloween because she said it gave her the opportunity to dress up in a flamboyant costume. And the School of Agriculture’s annual family Christmas party was one of her favorite events, especially because the kids received a bag filled with pecans, candy, and fruit. Betti, like her mother, knew how to sew. She was most proud of the fully lined suit that she made during her Home Economics class. Betti was active in St. Francis Episcopal Church, where she was confirmed May 31, 1959. And she was very involved with the EYC, the Episcopal Young Churchmen. Betti’s school work, friends, piano, tennis, Girl Scouts and other organizations kept her busy but not so busy that she didn’t keep up with her art. Betti was not just dedicated to her art—art was who she was. As she said in the oral history, she painted from the time she was a kid and there was no medium that she wasn’t good at—crayons, pencil, oils, sketching, sculpting, etc. As Betti was finishing high school and starting college, she was beginning to learn about civil rights activists who, through boycotts, marches, freedom rides, and sit-ins, were trying to dismantle the laws and traditions that segregated schools, restaurants, hotels, swimming pools, movie theaters, county fairs, etc., and prevented Black Americans from realizing their dreams. Learning about the Civil Rights Movement through Jet magazine and the Pittsburg Courier newspaper which her parents subscribed to, Betti was inspired to join this non-violent force to desegregate America. She started marching to desegregate nearby Hempstead, Texas and after she transferred to the University of Texas in 1964 to study architecture, she and fellow Black students marched to integrate the dormitories on campus which she wasn’t allowed to live in. Plus, Betti and other Black students ventured beyond campus with a goal of desegregating the city of Austin. In 2018, The Daily Texan, the student newspaper at the University of Texas, interviewed Betti and reported on the hostility that she experienced as the first Black female to enroll in the School of Architecture in the 1960s. The Feb. 23, 2018 article, “Black Alumna Details Racism” also revealed Betti’s courage and leadership as she and other Black students protested on and off campus, including at football games where there were no Black players. It was at the University of Texas where Betti became a Delta. Joining Delta Sigma Theta Sorority made being a Black student on the campus tolerable. Betti told the reporter that “for Black students at that time, Black Greek life was often their only outlet, because they were excluded from other aspects of campus and social life.” Before graduating from the University of Texas, Betti married Ed Harris. Their daughter Shelli Denise Harris was born in Houston where Betti worked for the architectural firm of John Chase, a renown Black architect. Now a single mother, Betti moved to Los Angeles where after working for black architectural firms, she switched back to her engineering roots and blazed a new path in the aerospace industry, working for Rockwell International. It was at Rockwell that Betti met and married her second husband Jim Blackshear, also an engineer. After their February 26, 1977 marriage, their family increased to five with Jim’s daughter, Toya Denean, Betti’s daughter Shelli Denise, and Betti and Jim’s son, Corey Nelson who was born August 23, 1977. In 1987, Jim adopted Shelli who became Shelli Harris-Blackshear. After earning her M.S. Degree in Administration at Cal State, Dominguez Hills, Betti joined McDonnell Douglas Corp., where she received the 1990 Woman of Achievement Award for Excellence and Professionalism. A half decade later, Betti, Jim, and Corey moved to Texas and Shelli remained in Los Angeles where she worked in the insurance industry after graduating from UCLA. Back in Texas, Betti returned to Prairie View A&M University as an administrator in the College of Engineering. She retired as Assistant Dean, September 1, 2007. On September 22, 2020 after a brief illness, Betti died in Los Angeles while visiting her daughter, Shelli. She will be buried in Veteran’s Memorial Cemetery in Houston, next to her husband Jim Blackshear, who died September 25, 2019. The children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and other family members and friends of Betti-Rachelle Poindexter-Blackshear remember her with love, respect, and gratitude: Shelli Harris-Blackshear; Corey and Monique Blackshear; Toya and Isidro Ayala Illiama Ayala, Ava Ayala and Isidro Ayala Jr Alfred Poindexter III and Lisa; Bruce Poindexter and Hilda; Paula Poindexter; Yvette Poindexter and Wendy Parker Nicole Poindexter; Alfred Poindexter IV, Silvania, Alfred V and Lilly; Nichelle Poindexter and Corey McCoy; William Stickney III, Christrina and Carmen; Alexandra Garrick, Jonn, Harper and Kennedy Edward Tillmon and Barbara; Coni Nettles; Bobbi Tillmon and Cecil Brim Peggy Engram

Betti Poindexter-Blackshear

June 2, 1944 - September 22, 2020