William Pickens

William Pickens
Born William Pickens
(1881-01-15)January 15, 1881
Anderson County, South Carolina
Died April 6, 1954(1954-04-06) (aged 73)
Nationality African-American
Occupation orator, educator, journalist, essayist

William Pickens (15 January 1881 – 6 April 1954) was an African-American orator, educator, journalist, and essayist. He wrote two autobiographies, first The Heir of Slaves, in 1911 and second Bursting Bonds in 1923, in which he mentioned race- motivated attacks on African Americans. both in the urban riots of 1919 and by lynching in 1921.[1]

Biography

Pickens, the son of freed slaves was born on January 15, 1881 in South Carolina but mostly raised in Arkansas.[2]

He studied at multiple schools. He received bachelor's degrees from Talladega College (1902) and Yale University (1904), where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and awarded the Henry James Ten Eyek Prize;[2] a master's degree from Fisk University (1908); and a Litt.D from Selma University in 1915.[1] He married the former Minnie Cooper McAlpin(e), and they had three children.[1][2] Pickens was a Methodist.[1] He was buried at sea while vacationing with his wife on the RMS Mauretania.[2]

Career

Educational career

Pickens was fluent in and instructed several languages, including Latin, Greek, German, and Esperanto. He taught at his first alma mater, Talladega College, then at Wiley College. He was also a professor of sociology and a college dean at Morgan State College. He was the most popular black orators in the America between the first and second World Wars. As he was the field secretary and director of branches in NAACP (1920-1940).

NAACP

Pickens was also an active and vocal member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he held the position of Field Secretary.

January 15, 1923, Pickens joined the eight people group and sent the “ Garvey Must Go” letter to the U. S. August, 1927, Pickens wrote a letter to the New Republic called Garvey’s release from prison.

Pickens once said, “Color had been made the mark of enslavement and was taken to be also the mark of inferiority; for prejudice does not reason, or it would not be prejudice… If prejudice could reason, it would dispel itself.”[3]

U.S. Treasury

He also served on the U.S. Treasury's Defense Savings He wrote two autobiographies: The Heir of Slaves (1910/11) and Bursting Bonds (1923). As he was the field secretary and director of branches in NAACP (1920-1940). Pickens had the most direct contact with the Negro masses than any other African American leaders in his time, and that was because he was the director of the interracial section of the Treasury Department’s Saving Bonds Division (1941-1950)[4]

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Dumain, Ralph. William Pickens (1881-1954) at Who’s Who in Colored America
  2. 1 2 3 4 Okocha, Victor. Pickens, William (1881-1954) at blackpast.org,
  3. ↑ "Back to Online Encyclopedia Index". BlackPast.org.
  4. ↑ Avery, Sheldon (1989). William Pickens and the Negro Struggle for Equality. University of Delaware Press. pp. 10–15.

Further reading

External links

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