In 1917, Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, Roebuck & Company, a noted philanthropist, created the Julius Rosenwald Fund “for the well-being of mankind.” Between then and 1948, when the Fund closed its doors in accordance with Rosenwald’s directions, it was a powerful force for expanding opportunities for African Americans. Prior to 1928, the main emphasis of the Fund was the Rosenwald School Building Program which had been created in partnership with renowned educator Booker T. Washington. Between 1912 and 1932, first Rosenwaldindividually and then the Fund assisted nearly 5,000 African American communities in 15 southern states in building schools that provided the education for their children that had been either non-existent or greatly lacking.
In 1928, seeking professional management, Rosenwald hired Edwin Embree, who had been a Vice President of the Rockefeller Foundation, to lead the Rosenwald Fund. With Rosenwald’s approval, Embree added two new programs to the ongoing school building program—health and medical services, and a program of fellowships.
Investment in People: The Story of the Julius Rosenwald Fund by Edwin R. Embree and Julia Waxman chronicles the history of the Fund from 1928 until 1948. The title was an apt description of the major goal of the Fund—opening the doors of opportunity to African Americans. Just as Rosenwald had invested in hundreds of thousands of African American children by partnering with their communities to provide them with well-equipped schoolhouses, the Fund invested in hundreds of men and women of talent and merit, often in the early stages of their careers, as they pursued excellence in a wide range of fields. Their successes gave abundant proof of the talent, drive, and commitment of African Americans.
This document presents the widely diverse accomplishments of almost one hundred notable Rosenwald Fellows.
Generally providing awards for one, two, or sometimes three years, the fellowships enabled recipients to pursue higher education, devote themselves to artistic work, travel, and undertake valuable projects with uncertain outcomes. Of the nearly 900 Rosenwald fellows, two-thirds were African American. A high percentage of Fellows dedicated their work to America’s ongoing quest for racial equality. The excellence of their achievements was in itself a refutation of the prevalent belief of African American inferiority.
Luminaries who received Rosenwald fellowships included Ralph Bunche, Dr. Charles Drew, Marian Anderson, W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, John Hope Franklin, Kenneth and Mamie Phipps Clark, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison—to name but a few.
Rosenwald fellowships helped 133 men and women, 98 of whom were African American, pursue studies at the University of Chicago; sent 80 to Columbia University, 63 of whom were African American; and enabled 44 individuals, 33 of whom were African American, to attend Harvard. Rosenwald fellows pursued their studies at more than 100 institutions in the US. The fellowship program also helped 77 individuals, 43 of whom were African American, travel to foreign countries to study, such as Marian Anderson, who studied voice in Germany.
Fellowships were awarded for study in 44 disciplines from dance and painting to economics, anthropology, hospital administration, medicine, mathematics, physics, religion, social work and library science. The highest number of fellowships awarded were in sociology (86), followed by language and literature(57), and then medicine (52).
Rosenwald Fellows were proof that, given opportunity and support, African Americans could and did achieve at high levels and made significant and lasting contributions to this nation in practically every field of endeavor. Theirachievements made it possible for African Americans to enter and excel in professions from which they had been previously excluded, thereby enhancing the nation and its democratic values.
The record of accomplishment by men and women who were Rosenwald Fellows is an exceptional one. This investment in people paid—and indeed is still paying—enormous dividends.
Franz Alexander was a psychoanalyst and physician, and is considered one of the founders of psychosomatic medicine and psychoanalytic criminology. In 1930, he was invited to be the Visiting Professor ofPsychoanalysis at the University of Chicago, and worked there at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. He was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research.
Charles Alston was a painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist, teacher, and active member of the Harlem Renaissance. He was the first African-American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration’s FederalArt Project. In 1990, Alston’s bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became the first artwork featuring an African American displayed at the White House.
Marian Anderson was an acclaimed singer who used her Rosenwald Fund Fellowship to study voice in Europe. She is best known for her inspirational performance to an integrated audience at the Lincoln Memorial in DC on Easter Sunday, 1939, after having been turned away from other venues. Later in 1939, she received the NAACP Spingarn Medal and in 1963, she was awarded the first Presidential Medal of Freedom.
William Artis was a sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. He was involved with Works Progress Administration’s artists project and studied at the Art Students League of New York and Syracuse University. He served on the faculties of Nebraska State Teachers College, Chadron State College, and Mankato State College.
William Attaway was a novelist, short story writer, essayist, songwriter, playwright, and screenwriter. His Rosenwald fellowship helped support him while he wrote his 1941 novel, Blood on the Forge, which has been called the finest depiction of the Great Migration era in American literature. The novel was reprinted in 1993 and brought renewed critical and popular attention to his writing. He also wrote over 500 songs, including songs for Harry Belafonte. His Calypso Song Book was published in 1957.
James Baldwin was an acclaimed writer known for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, was published in 1953, and his first collection of essays, Notes of a Native Son, was published in 1955. He was a gifted orator who played a prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement.
Lowell Howard Bennett was an attorney, judge, and civil rights advocate. After graduating from the University of Chicago, he moved to Minneapolis in 1950, where he began practicing law. In 1957, he became the first African American to be appointed judge in Minnesota. In 1963, he joined the Department of Defense, where he became its civil rights director in 1965 and then acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for civil rights from 1968-1970.
Mildred Blount was a noted milliner (hat maker) whose creations were sought after by celebrities and people in high society. Blount’s career took off after her designs were shown at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. She was asked to design hats for the films Gone with the Wind and Easter Parade, and became the first African American member of the Motion Pictures Costumers Union.
Horace Mann Bond was a US historian, college administrator, social science researcher, and father of Civil Rights leader Julian Bond. He used his Rosenwald Fellowships to obtain his doctorate. In 1945, he became the first African American president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, and in 1953, he served under Thurgood Marshall in preparing the second brief for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education.
Margaret Bonds was a composer, pianist, musical arranger, and teacher. She was one of first Black composers to gain recognition in the US, and is best remembered for her arrangements of African American spirituals, and her frequent collaborations with author Langston Hughes.
Arna Bontemps was a poet, novelist, librarian, and member of the Harlem Renaissance. He used his first Rosenwald Fellowship to write his 1939 novel, Drums at Dusk. In 1943, he became the head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he developed key collections and archives of African American literature and culture, such as the Langston Hughes Renaissance Collection.
M.O. Bousfield was a nationally recognized leader in the African American medical community. During his career, he worked to improve the health care and medical training opportunities for African Americans. From 1933-1934, he served as President of the National Medical Association, and from 1934-1942, he served as the Director of the Negro Health Division of the Rosenwald Fund. In 1939, he became the first African American member of the Chicago Board of Education.
Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., was one of the Tuskegee Airmen and received the Distinguished Flying Cross as a result of his service during World War II. After the war, he obtained his PhD from New York University in exercise physiology. Brown served as the President of Bronx Community College and director for the Center for Education Policy at the City University of New York. In 2007, he and the other Tuskegee Airmen were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their service.
Sterling Allen Brown was a professor, folklorist, poet, and literary critic who chiefly studied Southern black culture. He was a professor at Howard University for 40 years and was the first Poet Laureate of the District of Columbia. He also served on the advisory board of the NAACP alongside other notable Harlem Renaissance writers.
Ralph Bunche was a US prominent diplomat, who played a leading role in the mid-20th-century process of decolonizing Africa. He was also a key player in the US Civil Rights Movement. He used his Rosenwald Fellowship to obtain a doctorate in political science at Harvard, the first African American to do so, where his studies centered on the French colonization of Africa. His career at the UN spanned 25 years, and in 1957, he became its Under Secretary General for Political Affairs. In 1949, he was the recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal, and in 1950, he was the first African American to receive a Nobel Peace Prize for his work to negotiate a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians following the establishment of Israel.
Alan Thacker Busby was an animal scientist and educator. He was the first African American to attend the University of Connecticut graduating with honors in 1918. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to attend Cornell University where he earned his Master of Science Degree in 1932.
Robert Lee Carter was a lawyer, civil rights activist, and US District Judge. He used his Rosenwald Fellowship to obtain a Master of Laws at Columbia University. In 1953, he served under Thurgood Marshall in preparing the second brief for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. In 2004, he received the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
Elizabeth Catlett was a sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the African American experience in the 20th century. She used her Rosenwald Fellowships to study art in Mexico. As a result of her fellowships, she created a series of linoleum-block prints entitled The Negro Woman.
Kenneth Clark was a prominent social psychologist, educator, and human rights activist. In 1954, he gave expert testimony in the landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, which drew from the pioneering research conducted by him and his wife Mamie. They were widely credited with influencing the Court’s decision to overturn the segregation of public schools. In 1961, he was the recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
Mamie Phipps Clark and her husband Kenneth were the first African American recipients of doctorates in psychology at Columbia University. They developed the groundbreaking “Dolls Test” study in which young children were presented with dolls and assessed for their attitudes about race. Their Rosenwald Fellowships enabled them to publish three articles on the subject and provided support for Mamie to pursue her doctorate degree. In 1953, she served under Thurgood Marshall in preparing the second brief for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education.
William Schieffelin Claytor was the third African American to obtain a PhD in mathematics, and in 1934, was the first to have his research published in a scholarly journal. After receiving his PhD, he taught at West Virginia State University, where he mentored Katherine Johnson, who would go on to work at NASA, designing a math curriculum especially for her. In 1937, Claytor received a Rosenwald Fellowship to attend the University of Michigan for further postgraduate study. Despite his many accomplishments, he was not allowed to attend research seminars due to prevalent racism. In 1946, he joined the faculty of Howard University.
William Cobb was a board-certified physician and physical anthropologist. He was the first African-American to obtain a PhD in anthropology. He was also the first African-American President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Cobb’s work has been recognized for its significant contribution to the sub-discipline of biocultural anthropology.
Anne Cooke was an influential figure in promoting African American theater. She used her first Rosenwald Fellowship to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Her subsequent Fellowships enabled her to establish Atlanta University’s first Summer Theater program. In 1947, she was appointed the head of Howard University’s newly-formed drama department.
Paul Bertau Cornely was a physician, public health pioneer, and civil rights activist. In 1934, he became the first African American to earn a doctoral degree in public health. Throughout his career, he worked to elevate health care for Black Americans and founded both the National Student Health Association (1939) and the District of Columbia Public Health Association (1962). In 1970, he was the first African American to be elected President of the American Public Health Association.
Adelaide Cromwell was a sociologist and professor emeritus at Boston University, where she co-founded the African Studies Center in 1959, and directed the graduate program in African American studies from 1969 to 1985. She was the first African American instructor at Hunter College and at Smith College. In 1974, she was appointed the first African American Library Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Woody Crumbo was a Native American artist, flute player, and dancer. While studying art in the 1930s, he supported himself as a traditional dancer, touring reservations across the US and collecting Native American dances. In 1939, he was commissioned to paint murals on the walls of the Department of the Interior headquarters in Washington DC. His paintings are held by several major museums, including the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Thomas Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Ethel McGhee Davis was an educator, social worker, and college administrator. Her Rosenwald Fellowship enabled her to attend Columbia University Teachers College, where she earned a Master of Arts in Administration and Personnel in 1931. Following her graduation, Davis served as the Dean of Women at Spellman College in Atlanta, becoming its first African American administrator. She later served as a member of the college’s Board of Trustees.
John Aubrey Davis used his Rosenwald Fellowships to complete his doctorate at Columbia University. He was an educator, a civil rights advocate, and best known for serving as the principal researcher for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. He worked with Thurgood Marshall and over 200 academics to gather legal and historical facts for NAACP’s team of attorneys.
John Preston Davis was a journalist, lawyer and activist, whose efforts were key to the establishment of the Joint Committee on National Recovery, which sought to ensure the fair inclusion of African Americans in government-sponsored programs. In 1935, he co-founded the National Negro Congress, an organization dedicated to the advancement of African Americans during the Great Depression. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to pursue graduate work at Harvard University.
W. Allison Davis used his first Rosenwald Fellowship to study anthropology at the London School of Economics. In 1942, he was appointed to the mostly-white faculty of the University of Chicago with the proviso that his Rosenwald Fellowships subsidized most of his three-year contract. In September 1953, he participated in a conference to critique the draft of the second brief for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. In 1994, the US Postal Service honored him with a postage stamp.
William Henry Dean, Jr., was a noted economist. His Rosenwald Fellowships enabled him to study at Harvard University where he became the second African American to obtain a PhD in economics. From 1942 to 1944, Dean served as chief economist at the Office of Price Administration, which was established to prevent war time inflation in the Virgin Islands and Haiti. After World War II, he joined the United Nations Africa Unit Division of Economic Stability and Development, and became chief of the unit in 1949. In 1949 and 1950, he took part in UN mission trips to Haiti and Somalia to assess their economic situations.
Aaron Douglas was a painter, illustrator and visual arts educator, who played a leading role in the Harlem Renaissance. He is famous for painting murals and creating illustrations that addressed social issues around race and segregation. In 1937 and 1938, he used his Rosenwald Fellowship to travel to universities in the American South and the Caribbean to advance his art career.
Charles Drew was a physician, surgeon, and medical researcher. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to finish medical school at McGill University. He developed improved techniques for storing blood enabling medics to save thousands of lives during World War II. In 1941, he was appointed the first director of the Red Cross Blood Bank, although he resigned a year later in protest to their policy of segregating blood based on the race of the donor. In 1944, he was a recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
W.E.B. DuBois was a historian, author, socialist, and civil rights activist. He has been recognized as one of the most important black protest leaders in the early 20th century. DuBois was the first African American to earn a doctorate, and became a professor of history, sociology, and economics at Atlanta University. A collection of his essays, The Souls of Black Folk, is considered a seminal work in African American literature. He was the one of the founders of the NAACP and served as editor of its journal, The Crisis. In 1920, he was a recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
Katherine Dunham was a modern dancer and anthropologist. Her Rosenwald Fellowships helped launch her career by supporting her field research on dance traditions in the Caribbean. She was a pioneer in the field of dance anthropology and founded a school embodying multi-cultural principles decades before the term was used in field of education.
Sheppard Randolph Edmonds was a nationally recognized playwright and director, considered by many to be the “Dean of Black American Theatre.” He founded the two most important theatre organizations among black institutions: The Negro Intercollegiate Drama Association and the National Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts.
Wade Ellis was a mathematician and educator. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to attend the University of Michigan where he earned his PhD in mathematics in 1944. Following graduation, he conducted classified research on radar antennas at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and taught at universities including Boston University and Oberlin College.
Ralph Waldo Ellison was a noted writer, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel, Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1953. Throughout his career, he wrote collections of essays on the black experience in America. He was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1969.
John Hope Franklin was an acclaimed US historian, educator, and scholar. He used his Rosenwald Fellowships to obtain his doctorate at Harvard. He was best known for his groundbreaking anthology, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, first published in 1947. In 1953, he served under Thurgood Marshall in preparing the second brief for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. Throughout his career, he received numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the NAACP Spingarn Medal, both in 1995.
E. Franklin Frazier was a sociologist and author. His research focused on African-American culture and race relations with a special focus on the factors affecting African American family dynamics. In 1948, he was elected the first black president of the American Sociological Association. Frazier taught at Howard University from 1934 until his death in 1962. The university later named its E. Franklin Frazier Center for Social Work Research in his honor.
Roscoe Giles was a prominent doctor and surgeon. He was the first African American to earn a degree from Cornell University Medical College, and went on to work as a surgeon at Provident Hospital in Chicago, later serving as the Chairman of the hospital’s Division of General Surgery. In 1935, he was elected President of the National Medical Association.
Shirley Graham was a writer, playwright, composer, and activist for African American causes. From 1936-1938, she served as director of the Chicago Negro Unit of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Theater Project writing musical scores and directing productions. In the 1950s, she became an activist for a variety of causes with focuses on African Americans, African peoples, women, and people of color worldwide.
Evelyn Boyd Granville was a mathematician and pioneer in the field of computing. In 1949, she became the second African-American woman to obtain a PhD in mathematics, which she received from Yale University. In 1956, she joined IBM as a computer programmer, and when IBM received a NASA contract, she worked on the Vanguard and Mercury space programs developing computer procedures to calculate orbits and launch trajectories. In 1960, she joined US Space Technology Laboratories, where she worked on various projects for the Apollo space program.
Lorenzo Johnston Greene was a historian, educator, and author, who co-authored Missouri’s Black Heritage, a pioneering work on the African-American experience in Missouri. He co-authored several works and his historical diaries and notes have been used in other historical texts, such as Selling Black History for Carter G. Woodson, known as the “Father of Black History.”
L’Tanya Bernice Griffin was a model and fashion designer. Her Rosenwald Fellowship enabled her to study fashion in Paris. In 1954, she became the first African American to be awarded a contract with a Hollywood film studio. Her designs were worn by Hollywood elite including including Joan Crawford and Dorothy Dandridge.
Woody Guthrie was a famous folk singer whose songs focused on US socialism and anti-fascism. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to travel through the South for inspiration to “...write books, ballads, songs, and novels that will help people to know each other’s work better.” With songs like This Land Is Your Land, his music influenced generations both politically and musically. In 1988, he was inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Robert Gwathmey was a prominent social realist painter. In 1942, he accepted a teaching position at Cooper Union School of Art in Manhattan where he taught for 26 years. He used his Rosenwald Fellowship to live and work with African American tobacco farmers in North Carolina for two summers. He chose rural Southern life, especially the plight of African Americans, as the subject matter of his paintings and social commentary.
Simon Alexander Haley used his Rosenwald Fund Fellowship to study agriculture at Cornell University where he received his Master’s degree. He became a professor of agriculture at a number of institutions including Alabama A&M University. He was the father of acclaimed writer Alex Haley, author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family.
Abram Harris was an economist and social critic on the economic conditions of African American individuals and businesses. His groundbreaking publications included The Black Worker (1931) about African-American labor history and The Negro as Capitalist (1936), which set the precedent for contemporary African American radical thought.
Robert Hayden was a noted poet, essayist, and educator. He taught at several universities, and from 1976-1978, he was the first African American to serve as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a role today known as US Poet Laureate. His most famous poem, Those Winter Sundays, ranks among the most anthologized American poems of the 20th century.
Moses Carl Holman was an author, poet, playwright, and civil rights advocate. In 1960, while a member of the faculty at Clark College in Atlanta, he helped found the black journal The Atlanta Inquirer. In 1962, he joined the staff of the US Commission on Civil Rights, and from 1971-1988, he served as president of the National Urban Coalition, where he promoted the need for a mutual partnership between industry and government to foster inner-city development.
Langston Hughes is best known as a literary leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He was an acclaimed poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist, and one of the earliest innovators of “jazz poetry.” His work was recognized for its insightful portrayals of the joys and hardships of working-class African Americans. In 1960, he was a recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
Henry Hunt was an educator who worked to reach and educate African Americans in rural Georgia. In 1934, he was recruited by President Roosevelt to join his Black Cabinet, an informal group of 45 prominent African Americans who created federal policy on education, jobs, and housing at major cabinet-level agencies in the executive branch. In 1930, he received the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
Zora Neale Hurston was an author, anthropologist, and filmmaker, whose work portrayed racial struggles in the American South in the early-1900s. Her most popular novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published in 1937, and she was recognized for breaking literary norms by focusing her work on the experience of a black woman.
Charles S. Johnson was a sociologist and the first black president of Fisk University. He directed research and publications in the early 1920s for the National Urban League, and was instrumental in advancing the careers of numerous figures of the Harlem Renaissance. He utilized his Rosenwald Fellowship to make Fisk University a significant research center in race relations. Two of his works have become classics: Shadow of the Plantation (1939) and Growing Up in the Black Belt (1940). In 1953, he advised Thurgood Marshall in preparing the second brief for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education.
James Weldon Johnson was a writer and civil rights activist. He began working at the NAACP in 1917 and became one of its leaders. Along with his brother, he co-wrote the song, Lift Every Voice and Sing, which later became known as the Negro National Hymn. In 1925, he was the recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
Percy L. Julian was a research chemist who pioneered the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants. His work laid the foundation for the production of cortisone and birth control pills. His Rosenwald Fellowships helped support his research and the publication of his findings. During his career, he was granted over 130 patents and was the first African American inducted into National Academy of Sciences. In 1947, he was the recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
May Justus was the author of numerous children’s books, most of which were set in Appalachia and reflected its traditional culture. She was interested in rural education and worked at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. Although initially founded to provide labor education, the school’s focus shifted in the 1950s to issues of civil rights and desegregation.
Flemmie Pansy Kittrell was the first African-American woman to earn a PhD in nutrition. Her research focused on topics such as protein requirements in adults, the proper feeding of black infants, and the importance of preschool enrichment experiences for children. In the 1960s, Kittrell was instrumental in creating the Head Start program which provides early childhood education, health, nutrition, and services to low-income children and families.
Charles R. Lawrence was an educator, social activitist, and leader in the Episcopal Church, where he was elected its first African American President of the House of Deputies. In addition to his work with the church, he served as a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York becoming the chairman of its Department of Sociology. Both in the church and academia, he was an activist for social justice and racial equality.
Jacob Lawrence was a famous artist whose work explored the history and struggles of African Americans. His Rosenwald Fellowships helped fund the creation of his The Great Migration series of paintings, which are jointly owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. He was the recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 1970, he was the recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
Margaret Morgan Lawrence was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, whose work centered on the mental health of children and inner-city families. Her Rosenwald Fellowship enabled her to study at Columbia University where she obtained her Masters in Science. She went on to serve as Harlem Hospital’s chief of the Developmental Psychiatry Service for Infants and Children, and as an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
James Raymond Lawson was a physicist and university administrator, who served as the president of Fisk University from 1967-1975. He used his Rosenwald Fellowships to attend the University of Michigan, earning his PhD in physics in 1939. After his time at Fisk University, he worked for the Energy Research and Development Administration and NASA.
Rayford W. Logan was a historian who was best known for his study of post-Reconstruction America. In the late 1940s, he served as a chief advisor to the NAACP on international affairs. In 1953, he participated in a conference critiquing the draft of the second brief for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. He was a professor of history at Howard University from 1938 to 1965. In 1980, he was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal.
James “Jimmy” Ellis LuValle was a scientist and athlete. He won the bronze medal in the 400 metres at the 1936 Summer Olympics, and was an accomplished chemist and founder of the Graduate Students Association at the University of California, Los Angeles. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to attend the California Institute of Technology where he received his PhD in chemistry and physics, the first African American to do so at the university.
Walter McAfee was a scientist and astronomer who participated in Project Diana, the world’s first lunar radar echo experiment, while working for the Electronics Research Command at Fort Monmouth. In 1946, he received a Rosenwald Fund Fellowship which enabled him to study at Cornell University under Nobel prize winner Hans Bethe, receiving a PhD for his work on nuclear collisions. In 1961, McAfee received the first U.S. Army Research and Development Achievement Award.
Ralph McGill was a journalist, editor, and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to travel to Europe in 1938 to cover the Nazi takeover of Austria. In 1960, he became the only editor of a major white southern paper to cover the Greensboro sit-ins. He served as a civil rights advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, as well as a behind-the-scenes envoy to several African nations. In 1959, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.
Claude McKay was a writer, poet, and a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. His 1922 poetry collection, Harlem Shadows, was among the first books published during the Harlem Renaissance and his novel Home To Harlem was a watershed contribution to its fiction. He was regarded as the “foremost left-wing black intellectual of his age,” and his work heavily influenced a generation of black authors.
Winifred Mason was a jeweler whose work was inspired by West Indian cultural traditions. She is believed to be the first commercial African American jeweler in the US. Her Rosenwald Fellowship enabled her to travel to Haiti and gather folk materials and art patterns used by West Indians which she incorporated into her jewelry.
Kelly Miller was a mathematician, sociologist, and author. Miller studied at Howard University and was the first African American to study graduate-level mathematics. He spent his career building up several departments at Howard University and was appointed dean of its College of Arts and Sciences in 1907. Miller was also a prolific writer and published several articles, essays, and books, including Out of the House of Bondage.
William Motley was a self-educated author whose novel Knock on Any Door was made into movie starring Humphrey Bogart. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to complete his second novel and work on his third. He helped found and publish the Hull House Magazine, and also worked for the Works Progress Administration Federal Writers Project. In 2014, he was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
Pauli Murray was a human rights activist, feminist, attorney, and Episcopal priest. Her Rosenwald Fellowship enabled her to study for her Master of Law at the University of California Berkley. She researched each state’s varying segregation laws and wrote the book States’ Laws on Race and Color, which Thurgood Marshall later called the “Bible of Brown v. Board.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg named her as a co-author of the ACLU’s brief in the landmark 1971 Supreme Court case Reed v. Reed.
Samuel Lloyd Myers was an economist, university president, education adviser and civil rights advocate. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to attend Harvard where he obtained his PhD in economics. During his 18-year tenure as the president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity, he helped sustain historically black colleges by providing them access to a billion dollars of federal aid.
Roi Ottley was a journalist and writer, and among the most famous African American correspondents in the US during the mid-20th century. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to work on his award-winning book New World A-Coming: Inside Black America (1943), which described life for African Americans in Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1944, Ottley became the first African American war correspondent to cover World War II for major newspapers.
Marion Palfi was a social documentary photographer who believed that art could and should effect social change. She was born in Germany, but moved to New York in 1940 to escape Nazism. Her Rosenwald Fellowship enabled her to travel and photograph racial discrimination in the US. She photographed several events during the Civil Rights Movement including protests in Greenwood, Mississippi, the March on Washington, and the march in Selma. Her photographs were often used as evidence to support legislative change.
Gordon Parks was a photographer, musician, writer, and film director. He was a prominent figure in American documentary photojournalism during the 1940s-70s. His work centered on issues of civil rights, poverty, and African American photography. He was also a noted fashion photographer. In 1972, he was the recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal, and in 1988, he recieved the National Medal of Arts.
Rose Piper was an artist and painter best known for her semi-abstract, blues-inspired paintings of the 1940s. In 1947, she gave her first solo exhibition at the Roko Gallery in New York, one of a handful of African American women to do so at the time. In the 1950s, she became a textile designer, designing knit fabrics. In the 1980s, she returned to painting and exhibiting her work.
Dorothy Porter was a librarian, distinguished bibliographer, and curator. She was the first African American to receive a library science degree from Columbia University. She used her Rosenwald Fellowship to study Latin American literature. During her career at Howard University, she built the university’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center into one of the world’s best library collections of Black history and culture.
Pearl Primus was a dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist. Her Rosenwald Fellowship enabled her to study dancing, masks, rhythms, and the life of people across Africa. Her work promoted African dance as an art form worthy of study and performance for American audiences. In 1991, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Benjamin Quarles was a historian, administrator, educator, and writer, whose scholarship centered on African American social and political history. His major books include The Negro in the Civil War, The Negro in the American Revolution, Lincoln and the Negro, and Black Abolitionists. He was the first Black historian to have his essays published in a major scholarly historical journal.
Lawrence D. Reddick was a historian and professor who wrote the first biography of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1960, he was fired from Alabama State College by Alabama’s state board of education for his support of student sit-ins on campus—an event that earned him honor for his courage and led to the censure of Alabama State College by the American Association of University Professors.
George Warren Reed, Jr., was a scientist and one of the few African Americans recruited to work on the Manhattan Project. In the 1970s, he was on the team of scientists that analyzed lunar rock from the NASA Apollo missions. In recognition of his work, he was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1977.
Ira De Augustine Reid was a prominent sociologist who wrote extensively on the lives of black immigrants and communities in the US. He was also influential in the field of educational sociology. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to study at Columbia University where he obtained his PhD in Sociology. He served on the faculty of several institutions including Haverford College, where he was the college’s first black professor and became the chair of its Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
Augusta Savage was a sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. In the 1920s, she produced one of her most famous pieces, Gamin, a plaster bust now displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her Rosenwald Fellowships enabled her to study art in Paris, where her art was displayed at the Grand Palais.
Lillian Smith was a writer and social critic of the Southern United States. She was known for her non-fiction and fictional works, including her best-selling novel, Strange Fruit (1944). She openly embraced controversial positions on race and gender equality, and worked towards dismantling the South’s Jim Crow laws.
Mabel Murphy Smythe-Haith was a diplomat who served as the US Ambassador to Cameroon and later Equatorial Guinea. In 1980, she was appointed the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Her Rosenwald Fellowship enabled her to attend the University of Wisconsin where, in 1942, she received her doctorate in labor economics and law. In 1953, she worked as Thurgood Marshall’s Deputy Director for Non-Legal Research on the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education.
Julian D. Steele was a social worker and activist, who held multiple offices at the local, state, and federal levels. During his career, he advocated for issues such as civil rights, affordable housing, and the abolishment of the death penalty. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to study at Harvard University and pursue further graduate studies in social work in New York.
William Grant Still was a composer of nearly 200 works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, and over 30 choral works. Still was the first African American composer to have an opera produced by the New York City Opera, the first to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony performed by a leading orchestra, and the first to have an opera performed on national television.
Charles Henry Thompson was an educational psychologist and the first African-American to earn a doctorate in educational psychology. He became the Dean of Howard University’s graduate school and was the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Negro Education.
William J. Trent, Jr. was an economist and civil rights activist. He was part of President Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet as Adviser on Negro Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior and later as race relations officer in the Federal Works Agency. From 1944 to 1964, he served as the executive director of the United Negro College Fund, where he helped raise $78 million for private historically black colleges and universities.
Samuel Z. Westerfield, Jr, was an economist and foreign services officer, who rose to the role of deputy director of the US Treasury Department. He was considered an authority on the economic plight of Africa, and in 1969, was appointed the American ambassador to Liberia.
Charles White was an artist and teacher known for chronicling African American related subjects in paintings, drawings, lithographs, and murals. His work is within collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Clarence Cameron White was a composer and concert violinist. He ws considered one of the foremost black violinists of his time. He was a founding member of the Nation, receiving critical praise for his performances and touring throughout the US. His Rosenwald Fellowship enabled him to study music in Paris.
J. Ernest Wilkins, Jr., was a nuclear scientist, mechanical engineer, and mathematician. He was a child prodigy, entering the University of Chicago at age 13 and receiving his PhD at age 19. He contributed to research on atomic bomb at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratories, and helped design and develop nuclear reactors for electrical power. He wrote numerous scientific papers, served in several key posts, earned significant awards, and helped recruit minority students into the sciences.
Hale Woodruff was an artist known for his murals, paintings, and prints. His most acclaimed murals were commissioned by Talledega College in Alabama for the lobby of its Savery Library. The murals consisted of three panels commemorating a revolt by Mende slaves aboard the Spanish slave ship La Amistad. In 1942, Woodruff initiated the Atlanta University Art Annuals, providing a key venue for black artists to exhibit their works.
C. Vann Woodward was a historian whose work focused primarily on the American South and race relations. He was part of the team of researchers who helped prepare the second brief for the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. He was the recipient of several prestigious awards including the Pulitzer Prize for History.