Taken April 2010 from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Louis_king.jpg

Louis Eugene King was born 1898 in Barbados. King attended Storres College in West Virginia for a year, majoring in pedagogy; the study of being a teacher. He became a teacher and taught for only a year before attending Howard University.  At Howard University, King was the editor for the Howard newspaper and eventually renamed the newspaper to The Hilltop; which is still in rotation. While attending Howard, King became the student body president and also the voice for the faculty. After graduating Howard University, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree, King worked as a laboratory assistant to Ernest E. Just. King was accepted to Howard University Medical School in 1924.  Shortly after, King dropped out of school and became a history teacher at Grafton, West Virginia for only a year.  Following his teaching career King decided to study anthropology at Columbia University in 1925. At Columbia, he worked as a research assistant for Otto Klineberg (who studied on the intelligence scores of black student)and Melville Herskovits (who studied that black culture was not pathological).

Before others started studying blacks, King was the first anthropologist to ever do fieldwork in black communities in the U.S. He did this in assistance to Klineberg and Herskovits’ studies from 1927-1931. For his dissertation, “Negro Life in a Rural Community”, he challenged the intelligence tests validity and he also documented blacks day in and day out while focusing on their relationships, food, and religion etc. He completed his dissertation in 1932, but couldn’t get it published, nor could he get a job anywhere he wanted without his PH.D. In 1932, black education was being suppressed and its teachers were being restricted too. Even Ernest Just had lost his job. King decided to go to Gettysburg and in 1934 was the first black historian hired at its National Military Park. But during World War II he was fired. Then, he got a job in 1942 at the Naval Supply Depot in Pennsylvania. Right before he was about to resign from the job, the commanding officer created a different position for him and made him stay. This officer helped King get his dissertation published with a call to Columbia University in 1965. King sent two daughters to Howard. But became very bitter towards Howard and the whole situation. King retired after 32 years from his federal job and worked at Gettysburg College (1969-1970) “teaching introductory anthropology and courses on black life and culture.” He died August 13, 1981 from asthma and emphysema. Seven black students were granted the Louis E. King Achievement Awards in February 13, 1986 from Gettysburg College in memory of King.

(Tamieka Smith And Mackenzie Jones)

References : 

• Ira E. Harrison. Louis Eugene King, the Anthropologist Who Never Was. African-American Pioneers in Anthropology, Ira E. Harrison and Faye V. Harrison (editors), Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1999, p 70-82.  

• Gershenhorn, Jerry, Melville J. Herskovits and the racial politics of knowledge, University Of Nebreska Press ,2004.Print2 

• Lambert, Bruce, Otto Klineberg, Who Helped Win ‘54 Desegregation Case, Dies at 92, New York Times, March 10, 1992.Print

IMAGE CITATION:

• Official United States Navy Photograph. Taken from:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Louis_king.jpg