George E. Haynes, Sociologist, Dies Brother George Edmund Haynes Pioneer in Groups Promoting Interracial Relations — Headed Urban League NEW YORK, N. Y.—Dr. George Edmund Haynes, a pioneer in numerous national organizations formed to raise the status of Negroes and to improve interracial relations, died Friday night in Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn, after a short illness. He was 79 years old. As sociologist, lecturer, teacher and organizer in the field of Negro-white relations, Dr. Haynes achieved many "firsts" for men of his race. For twenty-five years, until his retirement in 1947, he was the first executive secretary of the Department of Race Relations of the former Federal Council of the Churches of Christ. During and after World War II, Dr. Haynes developed a program of interracial clinics as a method of dealing BROTHER G E O R G E E D M U N D HAYNES with racial tensions in more than thirty Brother G e o r g e E. Haynes was initiated American cities. at Beta chapter more than f o r t y years He was co-founder in 1910 and ago. A t the time of his death he was an first executive director of the National active member of Eta Zeta Lambda Urban League, an organization conchapter, Westchester County, New York. cerned with the problems of Negroes Tuesday evening, January 12, members who had migrated from the South. of Alpha G a m m a Lambda joined repreIn 1912 Dr. Haynes became the first Negro to receive a Ph. D. from sentatives of Eta Zeta Lambda in a Columbia University. He was a char- memorial service at Grace Congregater member of the National Associa- tional Church led by Brother President tion for the Advancement of Colored Myles Paige. People. Born in Pine Bluff, Ark., Dr. the Four Freedoms, one of which is Haynes spent much of his life in New freedom from want, and then deny York. He graduated from Fisk Uni- them jobs to keep themselves and their versity, Nashville, Tenn., and received families from want?" an M. A. degree from Yale UniverDr. Haynes often emphasized that sity- Then he became the first Negro graduate of the New York School of the world was predominantly colored Philanthropy (now the New York and that Americans could be digging School of Social Work). a pit into which their democracy might Wide Range of Problems fall if they persisted in prejudice His arguments for better conditions against Negroes. for Negroes were characterized by digHigher education should also be mfied, scholarly language. They covavailable for the manual worker who ered the whole range of Negro probhas interest in the fields of liberal lems including discrimination in emknowledge and culture, he said. While ployment, housing and schooling. During World War II, in a letter a member of the Board of Trustees of to a New York newspaper, he wrote: the State University of New York, "How can we enlist these black from 1948 through 1953, he wrote in and brown men to fight and work for a letter to The New York Times:
FEBRUARY, 1960
"We should face the fact that making a life is even more important than making a living. Our present social order is suffering because we have a gieat army of people in industry, agriculture, commerce and government who are making good incomes for living, but their education has not given them the training and the inspiration of liberal learning which would enrich their lives." Taught at City College For the last nine years, until he became ill in November, Dr. Haynes taught at City College. His subjects included Negroes in American History and Culture; Africa in World Affairs, and Principles and Methods of Interracial Adjustment. A half century ago Dr. Haynes was making studies on Negro migration from the South. His doctoral thesis, "The Negro at Work in New York City," was published by Columbia University Press in 1912. In 1918 he was named Director of Negro Economics for the United States Government, serving as special assistant to the Secretary of Labor. He remained with the department for three years, on leave from his teaching duties at Fisk University. He completed a book, "The Trend of the Races," in 1912. While heading the race relations department for the Council of Churches, Dr. Haynes promoted the idea of Race Relations Sunday, the second Sunday of each February. He prodded churches to end segregation practices. In 1910 Dr. Haynes married Elizabeth Ross of Montgomery, Ala. She died in 1953. Surviving are his widow, the former Olyve L. Jeter of Newport, R. I., whom he married in 1955; a son, George Edmund Haynes Jr., and two grandsons. Dr. Haynes resided at 303 Tecumseh Avenue, Mount Vernon, N. Y. —The New York Times
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