[HBCU Presidents] Horace Mann Bond: 1st Black President of Fort Valley State College & Lincoln University

Posted on 02. Feb, 2010 by Leshell Hatley in Faculty, HBCU Presidents, I'm a Full Professor!, Scholarly Celebrations

Horace Mann Bond (November 8, 1904 – December 21, 1972) was an American historian, college administrator, social science researcher, and the father of civil-rights leader Julian Bond. He was an influential leader at several historically black colleges and was appointed the first president of Fort Valley State University in Georgia in 1939, where he managed its growth in programs and revenue. In 1945 he became the first African American president of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania.

Early Life

Horace was born 8 November 1904 in Nashville, Tennessee, the grandson of slaves. His mother Jane Alice Browne was a schoolteacher, his father James Bond a minister who served at Congregational churches across the South, often associated with historically black colleges. Both had graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio, one of the first colleges that was interracial. They were among the black elite and encouraged their children in academic achievement.

Horace was the sixth of seven children – one brother was prominent educator J. Max Bond, Sr.. At age eight, Bond suffered an attack by the Ku Klux Klan that wounded him more emotionally than physically. He worked all his life to advance his race.

Education

Bond excelled in school, graduating from high school at the age of fourteen. He graduated with honors from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania at age 19 in 1923. He also obtained membership in Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. While taking classes at Pennsylvania State College, Bond earned grades higher than those of his white classmates. Later he returned to Lincoln University as an instructor. Bond then suffered the only setback to his success; he was dismissed from the college for tolerating a gambling ring in a dormitory which he was supervising. Despite his embarrassment at Lincoln, Bond achieved a reputation as a fine scholar and administrator.

A bit About Lincoln University

Bond earned the M.A. and Ph.D degrees from the University of Chicago, where his dissertation on black education in Alabama won the Rosenberger Prize in 1936. It was published in 1939. As was customary in those years, Bond taught at a variety of academic institutions before completing his doctorate, and published his first academic book in 1934. (He earned a master’s and doctorate from University of Chicago, at a time when only a small percentage of any young adults attended any college. )

Career

Bond taught at several universities while completing his doctorate, including Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma; Fisk University and Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

He worked his way up in academic administration, proving his leadership abilities by becoming dean at Dillard University in 1934, and chairman of the education department at Fisk University later in the 1930s. Bond was the first president of Fort Valley State College, in Fort Valley, Georgia, where he was appointed in 1939 and served until 1945. During his tenure he managed the expansion of the college to a four-year institution. More importantly, he gained a doubling in school income and a tripling in the state’s appropriation for the college during lean economic times in the nation, substantial achievements for any college, and especially for a black college during the years of segregation.

Horace Mann Bond

In 1945 Bond was selected as president of Lincoln University, the first African American to be appointed to that position. He served at his alma mater until 1957. During those years, he started years of research for his history of Lincoln University. In 1953, together with historians John Hope Franklin and C. Vann Woodward, Bond did research that helped support the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)’s landmark US Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, anti-integrationists embarked on a program of massive resistance to orders to desegregate the South. In response to the efforts to claim an I.Q. gap between racial groups, Bond issued a number of stinging critiques of the racial claims about the intelligence of blacks. John P. Jackson, Jr. authored the most well known essay on Bond entitled “Racially Stuffed Shirts and Other Enemies of Mankind”: Horace Mann Bond’s parody of Segregationist Psychology in the 1950s.

He authored also Education for Freedom: A History of Lincoln University, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order, and The Education of the Negro in Alabama. Visit the links below to access these and other books.

Books By and About Horace Mann Bond:

More Books by Horace Mann Bond

It is noteworthy that the papers of Horace Mann Bond have been archived at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Much of his research emphasized the social, economic, and geographic factors influencing academic achievement as well as demonstrating that Bond was at the forefront of not only black education but also the movement for civil rights.

He then returned with his family to the South, becoming dean of the School of Education at Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University). Bond later served as director of the Bureau of Educational and Social Research at the university. He retired in 1971.

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Information courtesy of Blackpast.org and wikipedia.

More Related posts:

1. [HBCU Presidents] Dr. Horace A. Judson: Grambling State University
2. [HBCU Presidents] Dr. Ivory V. Nelson: Lincoln University
3. [HBCU Presidents] Dr. Earl G. Yarbrough, Sr. – Savannah State University
4. [HBCU Presidents] Donald Reaves: Chancellor of Winston-Salem State Univ.
5. [HBCU Presidents] Dr. Donna Oliver: Mississippi Valley State University

Tags: 1st African-American woman tenured, 40 honorary doctorate degrees, Albert A. Jones, Alexander Miles, American Association of Higher Education, Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University), Boston University Law School, Brother - J. Max Bond Sr. - Prominent Educator, Brown V. Board of Education, Charlotte Hunt, Dillard University, Dissertation won Rosenberger Prize in 1936, Dorothy I. Height, Father - James Bond - minister, father of Julian Bond - civil rights leader, Fisk University, Fort Valley State College, Fort Valley State University, George Jackson, Head of the UCLA Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program, Horace Mann Bond, HumAnSLab, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc., Langston University, M. C. Higgins The Great, Mother - Jane Alice Browne (school teacher), NAACP, NCAA Sports Wagering Task Force, NIDDK-NIH, Oberlin College, one of the 1st Black Professional Archivists hired by the National Archives in Washington DC, Phi Kappa Phi, Poet Laureate of New Jersey, Shaker Heights High School, Sigma Xi, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, University of Chicago, US Supreme Court