Rayford Whittingham Logan (January 7, 1897 – November 4, 1982) was an American historian and Pan-African activist. He was best known for his study of post-Reconstruction America, a period he termed "the nadir of American race relations". In the late 1940s he was the chief advisor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on international affairs. He was professor emeritus of history at Howard University.

Life

Rayford Logan was born and raised in Washington, D.C. He won a scholarship to Williams College, graduating in 1917. During the First World War he joined the U.S. Army, and served as a first lieutenant in the all-black 93rd infantry Division, which undertook operations with French troops. in October 1930. The main findings indicated there was little improvement in education due to the choice of Southern white Marines as country administrators – men who had been raised with Jim Crow laws in the American South and had brought their prejudice with them to their new assignment in Haiti, a majority-black republic. The main improvement effort resulted in establishing agricultural schools, which were highly expensive and staffed by non-French speakers, so classes had to be translated. The funding provided to these schools dwarfed the amount given to the majority of academic schools.

In 1930 Logan started graduate studies at Harvard University, earning an MA in 1932 and a Ph.D. in 1936. Logan became a professor at Howard University, where he practiced as a historian from 1938 to 1965.

In 1950–51, Logan became Director of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH).

Memoirs of a Monticello Slave provided source material and context for W. Edward Farrison's 1954 article "The Origins of Brown's Clotel" and Pearl M. Graham's 1961 article titled "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings."

Logan was the 15th General President of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Logan died of a heart ailment at Howard University Hospital, aged 85.

  • His longtime residence in the Brookland section of Washington, DC, is a designated site of the city's African-American Heritage Trail.
  • Haiti and the Dominican Republic (1968; Oxford University Press) online

References

Further reading

  • University of Washington
  • "Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African American Intellectual". University of Massachusetts Press