E. Franklin Frazier

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Edward Franklin Frazier (born September 24, 1894 in Baltimore , Maryland , † May 17, 1962 in Washington, DC ) was an American sociologist and 38th President of the American Sociological Association . He was the first African American scientist to hold this post.

Live and act

Frazier was one of the five children of James H. Frazier, a bank messenger, and his wife, Mary Clark Frazier. The young man, who comes from the narrow African American middle class, was already noticed as a graduate of his Colored High School in Baltimore (June 1912) and received his school's annual scholarship for Howard University in Washington, DC. There he graduated with excellent results in 1916. E. Franklin Frazier devoted himself to a wide range of interests and took subjects as diverse as Latin, ancient Greek, German and mathematics. He was also active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and in the Intercollegiate Socialist Society .

Frazier began his professional career as a teacher of mathematics at the Tuskegee Institute (1916-1917), then taught English and history at the HSt. Paul's Normal and Industrial School in Lawrenceville, Virginia (1917-1918) and French and math at a high school in Baltimore (1918-1919).

In 1920 Frazier obtained a master's degree with a sociological thesis on "New Currents of Thought Among the Colored People of America" as a student at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

After a fellowship at the New York School of Social Work (later Columbia University School of Social Work) and a year at the University of Copenhagen as a fellow of the American Scandinavian Foundation, Frazier took over the management of the Atlanta School of Social Work at Georgia State University . He also taught sociology at Morehouse College .

Frazier's article "The Pathology of Race Prejudice" (1927), in which he compared racial prejudice to mental illness, led to his recall in Atlanta. Frazier subsequently received his doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago . His dissertation The Negro Family in Chicago , later expanded into the book The Negro Family in the United States , is openly devoted to the sometimes problematic family structures of his minority, which hinder their social advancement, but also shows the cultural and historical reasons for these phenomena. The book won the Anisfield Award in 1939 . In the 1930s Frazier taught at Fisk University in Nashville and from 1934 at Howard University in Washington. In 1948 Frazier was the first African American to be elected President of the American Sociological Society.

Frazier's book Black Bourgeoisie , first published in French in 1955, criticized the conservatism of the black middle classes. His left-wing critical and self-critical view of his own minority and his contentious temperament also encouraged multiple academic and political disputes. Charles S. Johnson and Melville J. Herskovits were his main opponents here. Frazier's mentor was WEB Du Bois .

Fonts (selection)

  • The Free Negro Family: a Study of Family Origins Before the Civil War (Nashville: Fisk University Press, 1932)
  • The Negro Family in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932)
  • The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939)
  • Negro Youth at the Crossways: Their Personality Development in the Middle States (Washington, DC: American Council on Education, 1940)
  • The Negro Family in Bahia, Brazil (1942)
  • The Negro in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1949)
  • The Integration of the Negro into American Society (editor) (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1951).
  • Bourgeoisie noire (Paris: Plon, 1955)
  • Black Bourgeoisie (translation of Bourgeoisie noire ) (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1957)
  • Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World (New York: Knopf, 1957)
  • The Negro Church in America (New York: Schocken Books, 1963)
  • On Race Relations: Selected Writings , edited and with an introduction by G. Franklin Edwards (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968)

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personal data
SURNAME Frazier, E. Franklin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frazier, Edward Franklin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sociologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Baltimore , Maryland, USA
DATE OF DEATH 17th May 1962
Place of death Washington, DC