09-07-2025
Born into Jim Crow, she lived to witness DEI debates
Lexie Webster died in her sleep June 24. The simple recording of that date, in this newspaper and as a matter of public record, is a final testament to a life's journey from marginalization to dignity.
Webster was born June 20, 1929, a time when no White person could be bothered to take notice of a Black baby entering American society.
"Racial discrimination shaped my earliest days," Webster wrote in a 28-page reflection on her life, which she updated just days before her death. "My mother had no doctor or midwife to assist her, and when it came time to obtain my birth certificate, a physician wouldn't issue one until five days after my actual birth."
As Webster grew up, she made people notice. Her five-octave voice range. Her college degree at age 20. Her sip at the "White's Only" drinking fountain. Her home purchase in a White Indianapolis neighborhood. Her decades-long career as an Indianapolis Public Schools teacher. Her marriage — a "tapestry woven with ups and downs," as she put it — to Russell Webster, a notable jazz musician, who died in 2007.
Webster lived a life that was not afforded to Black women born 96 years ago. She did it by bearing the psychological burden of entering places where she was not welcome and refusing to leave.
An irony of Webster's life is that she lived long enough to follow the contemporary debates over diversity, equity and inclusion that treated her existence as a historic artifact.
Webster had first-hand experiences with policies and prejudices limiting where she could attend school, work, dine out and live. Yet, in recent months, conservatives have upended society over wokeness fatigue, a view that racial barriers and discrimination occurred much too long ago to hold relevance.
"She could see the ludicrous hypocrisy and people wanting to blame planes coming down on (DEI)," Kym Webster, Lexie's daughter and one of five children, told me. "It really maddened her, because the only thing standing between a Black person with an education and a determination to be successful are opportunities. If you deny them opportunities to display that excellence, it's kind of like cutting off a plant at its roots before it even has a chance to show you that it's a strong tree."
Webster's excellence emerged in the context of societally imposed limitations. She graduated early from Crispus Attucks High School and went to Knoxville College, a historically Black college, where she sang on the radio with the choir and studied education.
After college, Webster worked for 10 years at an Indianapolis jewelry store where, she said, she was only allowed to handle repairs and engravings in the back, where she couldn't be seen by White customers. Webster began a 36-year teaching career with IPS in 1963, eventually completing a master's degree in elementary education from Indiana University, a "milestone that filled me with quiet pride."
More often, Webster exhibited quiet defiance, pushing back against the constraints society placed on her.
Webster's memoir recounts the constant costs of insisting on her self-worth.
There was the time she rode a Greyhound bus in 1947. A driver told her to sit in the back, but all the rear seats were occupied.
"I refused to stand in the aisle like some second-class citizen," Webster wrote. "His solution? Stop the bus entirely, leaving me to face the glares of impatient passengers. The law was on my side — interstate buses weren't supposed to enforce segregation — but law and justice often travel separate roads."
In a "curious and bold" outing with friends during college, Webster decided to drink from a White fountain "just to see if the water tastes different." Her takeaway? "Tastes like water to me."
Pushing boundaries led her to break down barriers — often only to see new ones erected.
Webster's family became the first Black homeowners on their block in Mapleton-Fall Creek in 1963, but only after two sellers refused to accept their offers.
"The third, a man who supported Martin Luther King Jr.'s march on Washington, welcomed us as buyers," Webster wrote.
Others did not.
"Stockade fences went up on either side of our house, and most (neighbors) kept their distance."
Kym Webster, who was a toddler when they moved into that house, grew up with fear of making a wrong move.
"We were very, very careful not to allow a ball or anything to roll into a neighbor's yard," she told me.
Kym Webster recalls being the only Black family on the block until the 1990s. Eventually, her mother wrote, "we built bridges."
The Websters were a power couple of sorts, with Lexie active in opera circles and Russell being part of the Indiana Avenue jazz legacy. Russell was known as the "Whistling Postman." Lexie discussed her husband's music career in a remarkably sharp and vibrant WFYI interview at age 94.
Lexie was at least equally accomplished. Her brief memoir is steeped in gratitude, yet conveys a determination to live an exceptional life.
"I've always believed in the wisdom of generational wealth — holding on to what's ours so that it can benefit those who come after us," she wrote.
Webster secured that wealth. Not only in terms of personal possessions, but also by breaking down racial barriers in everyday settings and making the path easier for others. She didn't necessarily record any historic firsts, beyond integrating Mapleton-Fall Creek, but she was part of a generation of Black Americans who demanded to be fully American in public, education, culture and the workplace.
While DEI critics argue the U.S. achieved equality long ago, Lexie's life story proves how recently those barriers stood — and how much courage it took to tear them down.
"If you yourself have never victimized anyone in that way, and you don't have a direct knowledge of someone who has, it's like it gives you license to believe it never has existed, or that the claims are very much exaggerated," Kym told me.
The toll of persistence weighs heavily on Webster's writing — hard-earned words that were completed days, not decades, ago. Yet, through each story of struggle, Webster also gives the sense that she lived 96 years of pure delight.
A child of Jim Crow America, whose birth didn't warrant the attention of a doctor, spent her final days in the neighborhood that once tried to shut her out. The scars of segregation remained on her heart. But they didn't define her.
"I'm surrounded," Webster wrote, "by neighbors who care, family who love fiercely and a world that, despite its challenges, still holds so much beauty."
