Chapter 4: The Spooks Sitting by the Door: A Black Faculty Couple Retaining Their Spirit at a Rural Predominantly White Research University

Much like the 1969 novel that was turned into an action crime-drama film in 1973 titled, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, written by Sam Greenlee; We, the authors, sometimes feel like the story’s character, Dan Freeman who is enlisted into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a Black man that is exposed intimately to a white dominated space that very few African Americans get experience and see. In the case of the titular protagonist Freeman in the story, he became disillusioned with the disingenuousness and hypocrisy of his work environment.

To be unapologetically Black in a town, county and state that is less than 1% African American is a challenge. We, the authors of this chapter, know this all too well. We are the only married African American couple that are both faculty members at a rurally remote university in the Pacific Northwest. We have experienced first-hand the challenges of bringing our whole selves to our institution. Focusing on the concept of “Spirit,” we will discuss the ways in which we learned to thrive spiritually. For the sake of this study, we have decided to define the notion of spirituality in three distinct ways. The first is professional spirit, how one advances professionally within the academy in the face of marginalization, microaggressions, and anti-Black bias. The second is social spirit, persistence and navigating successfully in local environments outside of campus that are foreign and social mores are different than one is accustomed to. Last, religious spirituality, seeking solace communally with those in your same faith tradition and individually while accessing the divine to provide strength in a nation which is hostile to your existence. The primary questions that guided this chapter were: (1) How do you remain unapologetically Black in a rural predominately white institution? and (2) How does our unique partnership as a married couple support and reinforce our spiritual development as faculty on and off campus?