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Robert Fikes Discovers the Lives of SDSU's True Aztec Warriors It's hard to read or watch the news these days without hearing mention of Robert Fikes. Some of that acclaim is due to Fikes himself; he is well known nationally for his research and publications regarding African-American history and culture, and he is a 2007 recipient of the Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Faculty Contributions (the Monty Award). But a long-time project of Fikes' also has garnered its share of attention: his endeavor to document the stories of all SDSU Aztecs lost in our nation's wars. Aware of Fikes' love for history, fellow SDSU librarian Bill Payne informed him of a collection of letters housed in Special Collections and University Archives that were written to Lauren Post by former students serving in World War II. Post, an SDSU geography professor, published a monthly newsletter that featured information on those serving in the war. "Several years later, I browsed through the letters, and as I did it dawned on me that, given the large number of letters, there was a strong likelihood that some were written by young men who did not return home, and this both frightened and haunted me," Fikes said. Several years after SDSU's War Memorial was erected near Aztec Center, Fikes wrote an essay on the wartime activities of the university's military alumni. Originally, he intended to highlight only a few names of those killed in battle. "I found the first few so intriguing and compelling I could not stop till I found as much as I could about how each one had lived, died, what they had said, and how family and acquaintances had remembered them. They could no longer remain strange names on a cold granite monument because each name represents an appreciated human being and, regardless of rank or hero status, each has an interesting and unique story to tell to anyone who is interested," Fikes said. The War Memorial contains 221 names of SDSU service members from World War II to the Vietnam War. Although the memorial doesn't contain the names of those lost in more current conflicts, Fikes has included those individuals in his book Supreme Sacrifice, Extraordinary Service: Profiles of SDSU Military Alumni, which can be viewed via the Alumni Association's Web site. In October 2006, Fikes was recognized for his research during SDSU's annual War Memorial ceremony, and he was interviewed by the Daily Aztec, 360 Magazine, Aztec ENews, KPBS Radio's These Days and KNSD-TV's About San Diego with Ken Kramer.  Around the library, Fikes is known as a dedicated and avid researcher and writer. His work has been published in many journals, and he recently completed 16 biographical sketches for Oxford University Press's forthcoming African American National Biography. Currently he is finishing a history of the San Diego NAACP and is composing a manuscript on images of African American professors in American fiction since the late 1800s. |
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