George Edmund Haynes

George Edmund Haynes (1881-1959/1960) was a sociology scholar and federal civil servant, a co-founder and first executive director of the National Urban League.[1][2] He was the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from Columbia University, where he completed one in sociology. During the Woodrow Wilson administration, Haynes was appointed in 1918 as director of the newly established Division of Negro Economics in the Department of Labor, as part of an effort by the government to mobilize blacks, and was one of the first analysts to write about black labor economics. He founded the Social Sciences Department of Fisk University.[1]

Early life and education

Born in 1881 and raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Haynes attended segregated schools as a child. His mother was a domestic servant and he had a sister. He completed an undergraduate degree at Fisk University, a historically black college. With his mother and sister, he moved to New York City, as part of the Great Migration. More than 1.5 million African Americans moved from the rural South to the North and Midwest in this period and through the 1930s. Haynes was one of the first to write about that movement.

Haynes helped found the National Urban League to assist in the urbanization of African Americans that was taking place. He was living in New York City, working to support his mother and sister while taking sociology classes. For a time he taught at Fisk while completing his doctoral degree. Haynes received a sociology PhD in 1912 from Columbia University, becoming the first African American to earn a PhD from that university. He lived in New York for most of remainder of his life.[1]

Career

During the Great War, the Woodrow Wilson administration worked to build African-American support for the war effort. In the early years of his term, Wilson had lost support for allowing segregation of federal offices, which was strongly protested by individual blacks and whites, as well as leading organizations such as the NAACP and church groups. Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson also led the new War Labor Administration, where he tried to mobilize black workers in the national effort. In 1918 the National Urban League held a conference urging appointment of Negro leaders to the Department of Labor; Haynes was its education secretary.[1]

Wilson appointed George Haynes to direct the newly established Division of Negro Economics, where he served from 1918 to 1921. With Wilson, Haynes developed a three-part program:[1] 1) organizing inter-racial committees of Negro and whites from local bodies to promote mutual understanding and deal with problems of discrimination; 2) mounting a national publicity campaign to promote racial harmony and cooperation with the Department's war effort; and 3) developing a competent staff of Negro professionals to operate the Division.

Haynes operated through state and local organizations, concentrating in the South, Northeast and Midwest, the major areas affected by migration. A total of 11 states had program committees by November 1918. They investigated "conditions of Negro workers, educated Negroes and whites on the need for good race relations, helped in job placements, alleviating discrimination and race friction, and developing recommendations for federal action."[1] Following the Red Summer of 1919, when racial riots of whites against blacks broke out in numerous industrial cities during the tensions of the postwar period and economic strife, the Democrat-dominated Congress suspended funding for Haynes' division. Even with such opposition, Haynes proposed a major government program to help the nation's working Negroes; his vision would not be realized for many years, but he was a trailblazer.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Judson MacLaury, U.S. Department of Labor Historian, "The Federal Government and Negro Workers Under President Woodrow Wilson", Paper Delivered at Annual Meeting, Society for History in the Federal Government, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2000, accessed 10 March 2016
  2. ↑ Sam Roberts, "Discovering a grandfather's link to civil rights", CityRoom blog, 15 December 2010, The New York Times

External links


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