A Candle in the Darkness: The Race Relations Institutes of Fisk University, 1944-1969
Keith W. Berry
Hillsborough Community College
In 1942, the Race Relations Division of the American Missionary Association established a Race Relations Department at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee. Fearing that the end of World War II (WW II) would be followed by even greater racial strife than occurred in the aftermath of World War I, the Race Relations Department held an Institute of Race Relations at Fisk University annually beginning in 1944. Over the years, Fisk became a center for research and field investigation in the entire area of race relations. The institute lasted until 1969, with Fisk University providing the stage for addressing America’s most pressing dilemma.[1]
Charles S. Johnson, the first director of the Race Relations Department at Fisk, doubted that frontal attacks on prejudice would be successful. He believed getting the facts and breaking down the problem into manageable parts was the method by which meaningful race relations would improve. Therefore, Johnson’s approach toward the institute was to provide a framework and establish substantive dialogue with leading experts in various fields. This seemingly conservative approach toward race relations was patient, methodical, and characteristically vintage Johnson. Experienced persons in various fields, such as educators, social and religious workers, labor and civic leaders, journalists and advanced students, were among the various invitees to the conferences. The issues examined by the institute within the global context of the aftermath of WW II created great urgency and optimism among program participants. A white woman named Marguerite Lane of Albany, NY, wrote Fred Brownlee, of the American Missionary Association, regarding her experience at the second Institute: “Personally it gave me some satisfaction to have this Institute lend support to my belief that better interracial relations are essential to good international relations.” Lane “complimented” the AMA conference for the sheer number of competent and thoughtful black and white participants. More importantly, Lane thought she benefited from the social and intellectual contact with blacks that the conference afforded which was nearly impossible in the larger society outside the amiable confines of Fisk.[2]
Merely providing a forum for racial interaction initially may have been just as important as conference conclusions. A white businessman from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Paul Clanton, who attended the 1946 institute stated:
I must admit I feel a bit lost … I realize that most of it was my own fault, because I’m just an average businessman, and most of the others were educators. I was looking for something tangible that I might come home with and begin to put in use. I’ve learned to smile and understand when I am called a nigger lover. I’ve learned that most Negro friends who are some of Arkansas leaders, do have faith and confidence in my sincerity; but I really haven’t made much headway with my own friends and associates.[3]
Josie Sellers Horne coordinated the institute in the early years, and resident faculty and consultants guided the numerous seminars. Presenters as diverse as poet Countee Cullen, and Willard Townsend, President of the United Transport Service Employees of America (CIO), were involved in the proceedings. In fact, during the first few years the institutes averaged 90 lectures by leading scholars and specialists, with later programs averaging about 40 lectures. These interracial forums held at Fisk were considered groundbreaking events, since they represented the first race relations institutes ever held in the South. The Nashville Tennessean admitted that the “institute represents one of the most constructive efforts the South has known for an intensive study of the problems in human relationships arising from racial differences.” [4]
The first Institute of Race Relations, held 3-21 July, 1944, was attended by 137 persons: 81 whites, 55 blacks and 1 Japanese American. Of these, 97 were from the South, 36 from the North and East and 4 from the West. The charge of this institute was to offer practical intensive study of problems associated with race while suggesting methods for dealing objectively with such issues.[5]
The second Race Relations Institute, held in 1945, was devoted to general lectures on race relations, followed by seminars in the field of community relations and programs. Johnson observed that “last year’s Institute emphasized prejudice and how it might be dissolved, while this year’s effort concentrated on removing discrimination and segregation because it interferes with our common national interest and development.” Later institutes, led by Johnson and Herman H. Long, continued discussions concerning racial issues but also directly addressed ways to implement program conclusions.[6]
Although Fisk had carved out an educational niche for itself in the local community, not everyone was pleased with the Race Relations Institute. Some local press accounts denounced the enterprise as a diabolical plot organized by outside agitators to undermine Western Civilization and white culture. According to historian Richard Robbins, at the end of the second institute, James Stahlman, editor of the Nashville Banner, angered by the interracial nature of the Institute, pressured President Thomas E. Jones, of Fisk, to end the yearly gatherings.[7] In fact, the Banner editor tried to link program participants with Communist activists. In an extensive article in the Banner, Stahlman used the fact that a speaker at the second institute had positive sentiments concerning the Reconstruction period immediately following the American Civil War as evidence of the institute’s subversiveness. Johnson’s aide Bonita Valien, observed, “this was one of the few times Johnson lost his cool.” Johnson made it clear that he would invite whomever he wanted or he would not remain at Fisk. Stahlman’s efforts failed, and the institutes continued. In fact, “Johnson’s tact and growing international reputation made him a difficult target for white detractors,” according to historian Robert Spinney, and future institutes caused little concern for local whites.[8]
During the 1946 Annual Institute of Race Relations, Edwin Embree, of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, presented what Robert Spinney described as a “shrill denunciation of white bigotry.” Dr. Eric Williams addressed interconnected problems concerning race and the Caribbean while other lectures discussed the social and economic conditions fostering racial prejudices in America.[9] Housing was a major focus. In 1946, Johnson became president of Fisk and the next year he turned over administration of the Race Relations Institute to Herman Long. Specific figures on the extent and effects of restrictive covenants were offered by Long in addition to other issues. For example, the institute addressed labor issues, veterans, military planning, and the role of the black press, education, and community planning efforts of other race relation organizations. Voting rights for blacks in the South were emphasized while preparation of the black workforce for future integration was highlighted as well.[10]
The 1947 institute followed the same format as previous conferences. The general theoretical and historical framework was established with anthropological data and interpretations presented by Ina Brown and Gene Weltfish. Additionally, the hypothesis of various psychologists attending the institute suggested that prejudice was a treatable social illness. Attorney Charles Houston and other legal scholars provided information regarding civil and political rights, while Reverend Peyton Williams stressed the role of the church as the guardian of the Judaeo-Christian ethic and democracy. Additionally, economics, organized labor, and issues concerning Asian American and Mexican workers were all highlighted.[11]
By 1948 it was evident that Fisk became one of the country’s centers of race relation studies. For example, the Civil Rights Committee chairman for the New Jersey State Council, Arthur Chapin, declared that “we are well aware of the tremendous job that the Race Relations Department has successfully been doing over the years.” Additionally there were many inquiries concerning job opportunities at Fisk from aspiring social scientists and educators regardless of race.[12]
During the 1948 presidential primary season, Harry Truman, the eventual Democratic nominee, became the first candidate in modern times to campaign in Harlem. Hubert H. Humphrey and the Democrats courted the expanding northern black vote. By that time, Humphrey was already on the Race Relations Advisory Committee. The issue of black voting power was a much discussed topic at numerous race relation institutes and Humphrey, buoyed by political urgency, gave a forthright speech at the convention regarding the civil rights of blacks.[13] Helen Kenyon, Moderator of the General Council of the Congregational Christian Church, wrote Charles Johnson regarding Humphrey’s speech. She proudly observed, “My dear Charles, as I listened to Mayor Humphrey of Minneapolis give his fine Civil Rights speech and resolution, my thoughts went immediately to my colleagues at Fisk. Oh this young man thought I, I know where you got some of your good training . . . ”[14] Indeed, the Race Relations Department had helped frame Humphrey’s attempts toward national racial reconciliation. Humphrey won a United States Senate seat in 1948 and became a source of support for the efforts of the Race Relation Department.
Johnson, as president of Fisk, continued to deliver the opening address for each Institute, placing the struggle for black equality into the context of human rights and broadening his approach to include minorities on the world scene. The 1949 conference entitled “Implementing Civil Rights,” was one of the more controversial institutes due to the participation of a southern white politician, Nashville Vice Mayor Ben West. His speech, entitled “Progressive Government in a Southern City,” added an air of legitimacy to the institute. West’s opening statement chastised the white South for not treating all citizens democratically. He defined a southern city as, “any city where certain types of attitudes and practices, undemocratic and un-American, are found to exist within the framework of municipal government itself.” West later explained, “We find the lot of the Negro one of long neglect” and suggested that Nashville find funds to address the situation. He participated in changing municipal elections to allow representatives from single member districts. The change resulted in the election of Z. Alexander Looby and Robert Lillard to the city council in 1951, the first blacks elected to the council since 1911.[15]
The institutes were able to stay current regarding legal issues for years, as NAACP legal counsel Charles Hamilton Houston was a frequent participant. After his death in April, 1950, his protégé, Thurgood Marshall, carried on the tradition as an institute participant for the next ten years. Marshall was a dynamic, informative speaker who developed a close working relationship with Herman Long.[16]
The Race Relations Institute of 1952 stressed the universality of racial oppression with the theme “Human Relations in World Crisis.” Upon their arrival, participants were given an Institute Blue Book that, among other information regarding the local area, listed cabs that took both colored and white passengers, thus avoiding local laws segregating bus transportation. An attempt to lessen the demeaning racial reality was provided by a whimsically written note that a bus ride was a “sociologist’s field trip.” The institute scheduled daily morning sessions for its members and five evening sessions for the general public. The first public presentation was given by historian Henry Steele Commager, professor of history at Columbia University, whose address was entitled “The Responsibility of Freedom.” Full participation in the Institute provided added value for students because they were allowed to garner three semester hours of credit.[17]
The 1953 Annual Institute highlighted notable academicians to set the stage for discussions. Clyde Kluckhohn, a well-known anthropologist from Harvard University and winner of the $10,000 Whittlesey award for his book Mirror of Man, provided textual background for numerous discussions and presentations.[18] In addition to the usual seminars and lectures, the Institute provided participants with a large number of written resources. A twenty-page handout entitled “Selected Pamphlets and Periodicals” was prepared for the institute and included various articles on a variety of issues from housing to legal questions concerning employment. Additionally, a twenty-one page bibliography was distributed on topics that included anthropology, civil rights, intercultural education, religion, Jews, and other minorities. As a result, participants left with a tangible accumulation of reputable information that could be utilized in local communities.[19]
Forty-two days after the US Supreme Court’s monumental 1954 Brown decision that outlawed segregation in public education, the Eleventh Annual Institute of Race Relations was held, and Johnson gave the opening speech entitled “The Future is Here.” Thirty-one school superintendents and administrators from many Southern states attended half-day sessions at Fisk. Given the national and international impact of the Brown decision, both Long and Johnson framed American discussions of race in broader terms than school integration.[20]
At the 1955 Annual Institute, fully two-thirds of the participants were from the South, and several organizations, such as the American Association of University Women and the Black Teachers Association, were in attendance. A frustrated Johnson delivered the introductory address entitled, “Equity and Eventualism,” in which he intoned that the “southern states [displayed] a dismaying schizophrenia of inaction.”[21] Characteristically, however, Johnson continued by sketching a detailed view of geopolitical change and economic issues with a scholarly detachment. J. R. Larkins, consultant on Negro Work for the North Carolina Department of Public Welfare, was so impressed that he requested two copies of Johnson’s “scholarly and statesman like presentation on the current status of race relations in the United States and the world” from institute director Herman Long. Community organizers, such as Joseph Morales Jr., of Puerto Rico also wrote Long to praise him for creating a meaningful experience.[22]
However, not all were enamored with Long’s efforts. Long received an angry letter suggesting that the Brown decision was not based on law and that the ruling was a Communist plot:
I have a copy of the constitution of the United States and no where does it imply that White and Negro must attend schools together. It is a dirty communist trick. This movement was sponsored in Russia for the specific purpose to destroy America… All the pink pimps, pin head pimps, Egg Heads, Bubble Heads, Stary Eyed do gooder and Desegregation Buzzard[s] are goin to learn that they cannot push Negroes down we White Americans throats and we won’t have any integration regardless of what Russia Asia or Africa thinks.[23]
Obviously, institute leaders felt a need to continue the discussions in order to counter the constant barrage of negative sentiments concerning the role of blacks in America. Despite the popularity of the institutes, Johnson and Long were criticized for the paucity of discussions concerning minority groups besides blacks. For example, Historian Benjamin Quarles supported the institutes but believed that the institute should be subtitled “Institute on Race Relations with special attention to Negro-white relations in the United States.” Johnson was also criticized for not discussing the plight of poor whites.[24]
In reality, Johnson tried, with varying degrees of success, to address the problems of many groups facing oppression through the Race Relations Department at Fisk. The Monthly Summary edited by Johnson contained information concerning a variety of ethnic groups. Johnson paid special attention to Jews, Mexican-Americans, Japanese-Americans and Native Americans. Additionally, he developed programs to study Africa and the Caribbean. Johnson biographer Patrick Gilpin claimed that Johnson had a special interest in Indians and Spanish-speaking Americans. Moreover, the 1956 institute devoted a considerable amount of time to the status of Native Americans. However, the Race Relations Department had been created to deal with the problems of black Americans, and that was Johnson’s major concern.[25]
A young Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke during the final week of Johnson’s last institute in 1956 regarding the Montgomery Bus Boycott, then entering its ninth month. According to historian David Garrow, as King arrived to board his train in Montgomery for the trip northward to Nashville for the annual institute, the police barred him from entering the main waiting room that was designated for whites only. After debating the issue for upwards of five minutes, King and his party were allowed to pass through the waiting room without pausing, with an ominous warning not to try this again.[26]
In the wake of Johnson’s death in 1956, Long became more visible as a speaker and advisor. Vivian Henderson, who worked with Long at Fisk, wrote Long about his impact upon race relations. “In spite of the fact that you are stubborn as hell, you have been a tower of strength in this land. Your participation in race relations was crucial in some of the most difficult times this nation faced.”[27] In July, 1963, Long enthusiastically accepted the presidency of his Alma Mater, Talladega College. Eventually, Long’s hectic work schedule took its toll on the popular president and in August, 1976, he died.[28]
In 1966, Clifton Johnson, a white man who assumed the position of director of the Institute had been active in the field of race relations. In 1961, as a faculty member at LeMoyne College, in Memphis, Tennessee, Johnson had been granted a leave of absence to arrange and catalogue the American Missionary Association Archives at Fisk. After twenty-one months the effort was complete and the archives were opened to research scholars as the Amistad Research Center.
While the institutes continued throughout the 1960s, it was difficult to keep pace with the Civil Rights Movement. The Nashville Tennessean observed that major civil rights leaders were noticeably absent from the twenty-third annual institute in 1966, although Herman Long returned to give the keynote address. Realistically, the institute could afford to pay only $75 plus expenses, and civil rights speakers were now beginning to command much larger sums.[29]
However, there remained a role for the institute to play. As high schools, colleges and universities around the country began to implement black studies courses, the Race Relations Department tried to provide direction.[30] The unexpected growth of the archives, coupled with continuing financial need for the center, became the impetus for closing the Race Relations Department in 1969. The American Missionary Association allowed the incorporation of the institute so government funds could be raised without the conflict of supporting a church institution. The institute no longer held summer seminars on race relations. Instead it concentrated on being a repository for archives of the African-American experience. These archives were made available to scholars as the Amistad Research Center.
What impact did the Race Relations Institutes have? A few historians have interpreted the institutes as ephemeral exercises. Historian Katrina Marie Sanders suggested that there is no “evidence that shows the Institute’s philosophy and actions contributed to larger changes in social policy.” Although the direct impact upon Nashville seems negligible, the effect of the institutes on the national scene was evident in many ways.[31]
Discussions at various institutes provided the groundwork for actual litigation regarding restrictive covenants and segregated transportation. Attorneys Charles H. Houston and Thurgood Marshall of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People broadened their thinking by returning to the institutes every year as a means of providing information and discussing ways of achieving their goals. Staff members of various local and state organizations participated at institute discussions as part of in-service training, including staffs from the Chicago Mayor’s Committee, the Detroit Mayor’s Committee, the Connecticut Interracial Commission and the New Jersey State Commission Against the Discrimination among others. Given the paucity of information concerning the African-American community in local press coverage across America, the dissemination of reliable information regarding blacks must have been helpful. Additionally, Johnson felt that bringing people together to discuss race relations and exchange ideas was valuable.[32]
Both Fisk University and Charles S. Johnson contributed to the long struggle for black civil rights and desegregation. Fisk was interracial from the beginning and taught white students until prohibited by segregation laws. The role of Johnson in helping to bring the Civil Rights Movement to fruition should not be underestimated. In nearly every policy decision where blacks were involved Johnson was consulted. Johnson often met stiff resistance to his ultimate goal of racial inclusion in the democratic system, yet he methodically established a plan to achieve his objectives.[33]
Beginning in the 1940s, the Race Relations Institutes led by Johnson, created a forum to address interracial concerns at a time when no other educational institution of higher learning in the south dared such a venture. The Race Relations Institutes were just one part of a multifaceted approach designed to make democracy real for all Americans. Although it is difficult to measure the success that racial interaction has upon people, positive change did take place in America and education and dialogue were necessary first steps toward democratic inclusion.
Longtime Fisk faculty member and resident historian Leslie Collins suggested that the Race Relations Institute was in short, “Charles S. Johnson’s candle in the seeming darkness of the long night of racial strife…” Although the Race Relations Department closed, the vast treasure trove of archival documents continues to illuminate the path of brotherhood.[34]
[1]“Race Relations Department Index,” The Archives of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, 1942-1976, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana [ARC]; Fisk University was founded in 1866 to educate former slaves. See: Joe Richardson, A History of Fisk University 1865-1946 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1980); Ibid, 141. The Union Missionary Society, the Committee for West Indian Missions, and the Western Evangelical Missionary Society united to form the American Missionary Association as a protest against slavery in 1846. After the Civil War, the association established schools and churches throughout the South. See also: Augustus Beard, A Crusade of Brotherhood: A History of the American Missionary Association (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1909); Fred Brownlee, New Day Ascending (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1946); Clifton Johnson, “The American Missionary Association, 1846-1861: A Study of Christian Abolitionism” (Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1958); Joe Richardson, Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861-1890 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1986).
[2]Marguerite H. Lane to Fred L. Brownlee, 16 August, 1945 in American Missionary Association Archives Addendum Series A, Box 167 Folder 6, ARC.
[3]Paul M. Clanton to Herman H. Long, 14 March 1949, Box 239, Race Relations Department, ARC.
[4]Katrina Marie Sanders, “Building Racial Tolerance Through Education: The Fisk University Race Relations Institute, 1944-1969” (Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997), 102; Monthly Summary 1 (April, 1944), 30; “Race and Race Relations,” 24 August, 1943, Rockefeller Archives, General Education Board Records, Reel 6, ARC; General Secretary Correspondence, AMA addendum Box 326, ARC. Nashville Tennessean, 6 July, 1944.
[5]Monthly Summary 2 (August-September, 1944), 57; Crisis Magazine 7, (July, 1944), 214.
[6]“Race and Race Relations,” 24 August, 1943, Rockefeller Archives, General Education Board Records, Reel 6, ARC.
7Richard Robbins, Sidelines Activist: Charles S. Johnson and the Struggle for Civil Rights (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1996), 124.
8Robert Spinney, “World War II and Nashville, Tennessee, 1938-1951: Social Change and Public Sector Expansion” (Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1995), 231. Nashville Banner, 30 July, 1945; Patrick J. Gilpin and Marybeth Gasman, Charles S. Johnson: Leadership Beyond the Veil in the Age of Jim Crow (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2003), 188;
[12]Arthur Chapin to Charles S. Johnson, 22 April, 1948, Box 8 Folder 2, Race Relations Department; Marguerite H. Lane to Fred L. Brownlee, 16 August, 1945, American Missionary Association Archives Addendum Series A, Box 167 Folder 6, ARC.
[13]Kenneth O’Reilly, Nixon’s Piano: Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton (NY: Free Press, 1995), 161; Paula Wilson, ed., The Civil Rights Rhetoric of Hubert Humphrey: 1948-1964 (Lanham: University Press of America, 1996), 5.
[14]Ibid., 7; Helen Kenyon to Charles S. Johnson, Charles S. Johnson Papers, Box 144 Folder 2, ARC; Herman H. Long to Fred L. Brownlee, 4 January, 1950, Box 240, Race Relations Department, AMA Addendum.
[15]Charles S. Johnson, “Implementing Civil Rights, Summary Report,” Race Relations Department, Box 42 Folder 28; Robert Spinney, “Municipal Government in Nashville, Tennessee, 1938-1951: World War II and the Growth of the Public Sector,” Journal of Southern History 61 (1995), 106.
[16]New York Times, 6 September, 1965; Herman Long to Thurgood Marshall, 16 December, 1958, Box 23 Folder 14, Race Relations Department.
[17]Nashville Banner, 30 June, 1952; “Focus Upon Human Relations in World Crisis,” Box 48 Folder 16, Race Relations Department; “Human Relations in World Crisis,” Box 48 Folder 25, Race Relations Department; “Institute Blue Book: A Guide to the Campus and Environs,” Race Relations Department, Box 48 folder 6.
[18]“Presidents Report to the Trustees,” 24 April, 1953, American Missionary Papers Addendum, Box 169 Folder 12, ARC.
[19]“Selected Bibliography," Nelson and Marian D. Fuson Papers, Box 1 Folder 12, Vanderbilt Special Collections, Vanderbilt University, Nashville Tennessee; “Selected Pamphlets and Periodicals,” Nelson and Marian D. Fuson Papers, Box 1 Folder 13, Vanderbilt Special Collections, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee.
[20]Charles S. Johnson, “The Future is Here,” Nelson and Marian D. Fuson Papers, Box 1 folder 14, Vanderbilt Special Collections; Herman H. Long to Philip Widenhouse 28 July, 1954, Box 241, Race Relations Department; Herman H. Long to Philip M. Widenhouse 26 May, 1954, Box 241, Race Relations Department.
[21]Charles S. Johnson, “Equity and Eventualism,” Herman Long Papers Box 1 Folder 10, ARC.
[22]Herman H. Long to Philip Widenhouse, 14 June, 1955, Box 241, Race Relations Department; American Missionary Association Division Committee Minutes, 27 September, 1955, Box 363, ARC. J. R. Larkins to Herman H. Long, 18 July, 1955, Herman Long Papers, Box 1 Folder 10, ARC; Joseph Morales Jr. to Herman H. Long, 20 July, 1955, ARC.
[23]M. L. Nelson to Herman H. Long, 11 March, 1956, Box 2 Folder 11, Race Relations Department.
[24]Sanders, “Building Racial Tolerance Through Education,” 201; Patrick Gilpin, “Charles S. Johnson: An Intellectual Biography” (Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1973), 567.
[25]Gilpin, “Charles S. Johnson,” 135, 548; Monthly Summary 2 (December, 1944), 120; Charles S. Johnson, “American Minorities and Civil Rights in 1950,” Journal of Negro Education 20 (Summer, 1951), 485.
79David Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (NY: Quill, 1986), 79; Robbins, Sidelines Activist, 123.
Maxine D. Jones and Joe M. Richardson, Talladega College: The First Century (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1990), 188, Ibid, 209.
[28]Clifton Johnson interview by Keith W. Berry, 18 December, 1997.
[29]Ibid.; Nashville Tennessean, 27 June, 1966.
[30]Matt S. Meier to Clifton H. Johnson, 18 October, 1968, Box 78 Folder 12, Race Relations Department; Frances Whitledge to Clifton H. Johnson, 8 November, 1968, Box 78 Folder 12, Race Relations Department; Sister Ann Edward to Clifton H. Johnson 27 July, 1968, Box 78 Folder 12, Race Relations Department.
[32]Herman H. Long, “Ten Year Perspective on our Work in Race Relations,” Herman H. Long Papers Box 1 Folder 5; Gilpin and Gasman, Charles S. Johnson, 189; “President’s Reports to Trustees: 1900-1948,” American Missionary Association Archives Addendum Series A, Box 169 Folder 10, ARC.
[33]John Egerton, Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South (NY: Knopf, 1994); Gilpin and Gasman, Charles S. Johnson; Robbins, Sidelines Activist; Gilpin, “Charles S. Johnson;” Keith W. Berry, “Charles S. Johnson, Fisk University, and the Struggle for Civil Rights, 1945-1970,” (Dissertation, Florida State University, 2005).
[34]Leslie M. Collins, One Hundred Years of Fisk University Presidents: 1875-1975 (Nashville: Hemphill’s Creative Printing, 1989), 129. Clifton H. Johnson, “A Report to the Division of Higher Education and The American Missionary Association,” General Secretary Correspondence, AMA Addendum, Box 364, ARC;