Frank Smith Horne

Last updated
Dr.
Frank Smith Horne
BornAugust 18, 1899
New York City, US
DiedSeptember 7, 1974(1974-09-07) (aged 75)
New York City, US
NationalityAmerican
Other namesXavier I
Education
Occupations
Office
Movement
Spouses
  • Frankye Priestly Burn
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1930;died 1939)​
  • Mercedes Rector
    ​
    (m. 1950)​
Relatives Lena Horne (niece)

Frank Smith Horne was an American lyricist, poet, and government official who was an influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He was a member of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Black Cabinet where he served as Assistant Director of the Division of Negro Affairs, National Youth Administration. Later, Horne worked for the Housing and Home Finance Agency and helped to found the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH). [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Frank Smith Horne was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York by Edwin Fletcher Horne and Cora Calhoun Horne. [1] He was raised Catholic and had three brothers, Errol, John Burke, and Edwin Fletcher Jr. [2] Horne's father was a private contractor and builder. [1] His parents were early members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and well-known members of middle class Black New York. [3]

Horne attended the City College of New York, graduating in 1921 with a Bachelor of Science. [1] Horne received an optometry degree from Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology in 1923. [3] In 1932, he graduated from the University of Southern California with a Master's Degree. [1]

Career

From 1922 through 1926, Horne practiced optometry through private practice in Chicago and New York City. [1] In 1927, Horne moved to Georgia, where he was the dean and acting president of Fort Valley Normal and Industrial School in Fort Valley, Georgia, until 1936. [3] In 1938, Mary McLeod Bethune asked Horne to join Roosevelt's Black Cabinet as the Assistant Director of the Division of Negro Affairs, National Youth Administration, and he accepted the position. [3] [4] In 1938, Horne began working as the Assistant Director for the United States Housing Authority. [1] [3]

Horne was designated a member of the Civil Service Committee of Expert Examiners for the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) in 1949 and in May 1950, he conducted research into the economic situation of Negro war workers for the HHFA. Horne was a founder of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing (NCDH). [1]

In October 1953, the Eisenhower Administration made an effort to dismiss Horne, and he was consequently reassigned as the "Assistant to the Administrator" of HHFA, which he considered a demotion. [1] In 1954, Horne's colleague, Edward Rutledge, was accused of being a communist sympathizer, and Horne participated in Rutledge's defense. Horne also conducted a fight to protect Leon Condol, a disabled World War I veteran. Horne and his assistant, Corriene Morrow, [5] were terminated from the HHFA in 1955 because of Republican National Committee's hostility toward Horne's policies. [1] [3] Horne returned to New York City in 1956 and began working in city government. He was appointed as the Executive Director of the New York City Commission on Intergroup Relations by Mayor Robert Wagner. [1]

In 1960, Horne wrote an anthology of poetry titled, "Haverstraw" which was published in 1963. [1] [3] Throughout his career, Horne's poetry appeared in work appeared in Crisis Magazine and Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life . [6]

Horne became a consultant in human relations in the Housing and Redevelopment Board in New York City in 1962, and served the board until to 1973. [1] In October 1964, he helped the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing in writing a Ten Year Plan aimed at ending discrimination in housing. In 1967, he helped to set up the Metropolitan Applied Research Center. That same year, Horne was awarded the plaque of the Housing and Urban Renewal Conference for "dauntless courage... in the battle for open housing." [1] The mayor of New York City, John V. Lindsay, appointed Horne as the Assistant Administrator for Equal Opportunity in the Housing and Development Administration (HDA). [1] Horne later received an award from the Housing and Development Administration for his work in human relations. In April 1969, Horne participated in the establishment of a Joint Research Training Program between the Metropolitan Applied Research Center and the HDA. Horne began the initial research for the history of Racial Relations Service in 1970 and retired from the HDA in 1972. Horne then accepted a consulting job with the NCDH. [1]

Personal life

On August 19, 1930, Horne married his wife, Frankye Priestly Burn in the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City. [1] Burn died in 1939 at the Tuberculosis League Hospital. In 1950, Horne married Mercedes Rector. Horne is the uncle of actress and civil rights activist Lena Horne, and briefly served as her guardian when she began her film career. [3] Lena lived with him from 1927 to 1929. [7] In 1960, Horne suffered a stroke which partially paralyzed the right side of his body. [1] During his time in the hospital, Horne wrote a collection of poetry titled, Haverstraw. Horne died on September 7, 1974, from arteriosclerosis. [1] [3]

Publications

Nonfiction

Poetry

Short stories

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. E. B. Du Bois</span> American sociologist and activist (1868–1963)

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lena Horne</span> African American biracial singer, actress, dancer and activist (1917–2010)

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, dancer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving on to Hollywood and Broadway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Urban League</span> American civil rights organization

The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States. It is the oldest and largest community-based organization of its kind in the nation. Its current President is Marc Morial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert C. Weaver</span> American government official (1907–1997)

Robert Clifton Weaver was an American economist, academic, and political administrator who served as the first United States secretary of housing and urban development (HUD) from 1966 to 1968, when the department was newly established by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Weaver was the first African American to be appointed to a US cabinet-level position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Cabinet</span> African American advisors to President Franklin D. Roosevelt

In his twelve years in office, United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not appoint or nominate a single African American to be either a secretary or undersecretary in his presidential cabinet. Denied such an outlet, African American federal employees in the executive branch began to meet informally in an unofficial Federal Council of Negro Affairs to try to influence federal policy on race issues. By mid-1935, there were 45 African Americans working in federal executive departments and New Deal agencies. Referred to as the Black Cabinet, Roosevelt did not officially recognize it as such, nor make appointments to it. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt encouraged the group. Although many have ascribed the term to Mary McLeod Bethune, African American newspapers had earlier used it to describe key black advisors of Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.

Lorenzo Johnston Greene (1899–1988) was an American educator who taught history at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri from 1933 to 1972. His book, Missouri’s Black Heritage, co-authored by Antonio Holland and Gary Kremer, was a pioneering work on the African-American experience in Missouri. He co-authored several works and his historical diaries and notes have been used in other historical texts, such as Selling Black History for Carter G. Woodson. He worked with Carter Woodson, who was known as the "Father of Black History".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Crosswaith</span>

Frank Rudolph Crosswaith (1892–1965) was a longtime socialist politician and activist and trade union organizer in New York City who founded and chaired the Negro Labor Committee, established on July 20, 1935, by the Negro Labor Conference.

Arthur Huff Fauset was an American civil rights activist, anthropologist, folklorist, and educator. Born in Flemington, New Jersey, he grew up in Philadelphia, where he attended Central High School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marita Bonner</span> American dramatist (1899–1971)

Marita Bonner, also known as Marieta Bonner, was an American writer, essayist, and playwright who is commonly associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Other names she went by were Marita Occomy, Marita Odette Bonner, Marita Odette Bonner Occomy, Marita Bonner Occomy, and Joseph Maree Andrew. On December 29, 1921, along with 15 other women, she chartered the Iota chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John P. Davis</span> American journalist (1905–1973)

John Preston Davis was an American journalist, lawyer and activist intellectual, who became prominent for his work with the Joint Committee on National Recovery (JCNR). In 1935, he co-founded the National Negro Congress, an organization dedicated to the advancement of African Americans during the Great Depression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loren Miller</span> American judge

Loren Miller was an American journalist, civil rights activist, attorney, and judge. Miller was appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court by governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown in 1964 and served until his death in 1967. Miller was a specialist in housing discrimination, whose involvement in the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement earned him a reputation as a tenacious fighter for equal housing opportunities for minorities. Miller argued some of the most historic civil rights cases ever heard before the Supreme Court of the United States. He was chief counsel before the court in the 1948 decision that led to the outlawing of racial restrictive covenants, Shelley v. Kraemer.

The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB), formed in 1974, is a city-wide non-profit housing and tenant advocacy group in New York City.

<i>The Philadelphia Negro</i> 1899 work by W. E. B. Du Bois

The Philadelphia Negro is a sociological and epidemiological study of African Americans in Philadelphia that was written by W. E. B. Du Bois, commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania and published in 1899 with the intent of identifying social problems present in the African American community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry A. Hunt</span> American educator

Henry Alexander Hunt was an American educator who led efforts to reach blacks in rural areas of Georgia. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as the Harmon Prize. In addition, he was recruited in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to join the president's Black Cabinet, an informal group of more than 40 prominent African Americans appointed to positions in the executive agencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ralph Austin Bard</span> American financier and government official (1884–1975)

Ralph Austin Bard was a Chicago financier who served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1941–1944, and as Under Secretary, 1944–1945. He is noted for a memorandum he wrote to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson in 1945 urging that Japan be given a warning before the use of the atomic bomb on a strategic city. He was "the only person known to have formally dissented from the use of the atomic bomb without advance warning."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baldwin–Kennedy meeting</span> An attempt in 1963 to improve race relations in the United States

The Baldwin–Kennedy meeting of May 24, 1963 was an attempt to improve race relations in the United States. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy invited novelist James Baldwin, along with a large group of cultural leaders, to meet Kennedy in an apartment in New York City. The meeting became antagonistic and the group reached no consensus. The black delegation generally felt that Kennedy did not understand the full extent of racism in the United States. Ultimately the meeting demonstrated the urgency of the racial situation and was a positive turning point in Kennedy's attitude towards the Civil Rights Movement.

George Edmund Haynes was an American sociology scholar and federal civil servant, a co-founder and first executive director of the National Urban League, serving 1911 to 1918. A graduate of Fisk University, he earned a master's degree at Yale University, and was the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from Columbia University, where he completed one in sociology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert B. Pitts</span>

Robert Pitts (1909-1982) was the first African-American to serve as a Regional Administrator of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Marc Bendick, Jr. is a United States economist and interdisciplinary social scientist who conducts and applies research concerning public policy issues of employment, discrimination, poverty, and social and economic inequality.

Cora Catherine Calhoun Horne was an American suffragist, civil rights activist, and an Atlanta socialite. She was an African-American woman. She was an early member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a founding member of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). She was the grandmother of entertainer Lena Horne and raised Horne when she was young.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Carter, Nika B. "Horne, Frank S. (1899-1974)". Amistad Research Center. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  2. ↑ "Horne, Frank S. 1899–1974 | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2023-01-31.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Fenison, Jimmy (11 February 2007). "FRANK SMITH HORNE (1899-1974)". Black Past. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  4. ↑ "The Civil Rights History Project: Survey of Collections and Repositories". American Folklife Center. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  5. ↑ "Dismissal of Frank S. Horne and Corienne R. Morrow from the Housing and Home Finance Agency Racial Relations Service". Library of Congress. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  6. ↑ Alic, Margaret. "Frank S. Horne 1899–1974". Encyclopedia. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  7. ↑ Cason, Caroline (November 15, 2013). "Lena Horne". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. Retrieved June 30, 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.