Fayette Avery McKenzie

Early years

Fayette Avery McKenzie was born July 31, 1872, in Montrose, Pennsylvania, one of four sons of Edwin and Gertrude McKenzie, a merchant and a homemaker. McKenzie's father lost nearly everything in the financial crash of 1876. In 1890, the family moved to South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where McKenzie completed his senior year in high school. McKenzie attended Lehigh University from 1891 to 1895, where he earned a B.S. and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Upon graduating from Lehigh University in 1895, McKenzie spent the summer studying at the University of Pennsylvania under Franklin Henry Giddings, a prominent sociologist and economist from Bryn Mawr College, and Simon Nelson Patten, Professor of Economics at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. For the next two years, McKenzie tutored families of railroad officials of the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1897, Martin Grove Brumbaugh, a long-time McKenzie family friend and President of Juniata College, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, offered McKenzie a position at the college teaching French, German, English, history, and economics. In 1900, Brumbaugh, who was to become Governor of Pennsylvania from 1915 to 1919, helped McKenzie secure a scholarship to pursue doctoral work in sociology and economics at the University of Pennsylvania. To help pay his living expenses while in school, McKenzie taught modern languages at the Blight School for Boys in Philadelphia, often teaching five hours prior to going to the university for classes and study in the evening.

The Progressive Era and social sciences

McKenzie was one of the first American sociologists to study and live among western Native American peoples and refute the popular view of Indians' biological inferiority. At the time, sociology was a new social science with an emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method, and quickly evolved as an academic response to the challenges of the early 20th century, such as industrialization, urbanization, secularization, immigration and marginalization of Native Americans and African Americans. In the early 20th century, anthropology and sociology were represented by prominent scholars Simon Nelson Patten, Franklin Henry Giddings, George Bird Grinnell, Roland Burrage Dixon and James Mooney.

During the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was an explosion of public interest in American Indian culture and imagery. Newspapers, dime-store novels, Wild West shows, and public exhibitions portrayed Native Americans as a "vanishing race." Their numbers had decreased since the long Indian wars and survivors were struggling with poverty and constraints on government reservations. At this time, many whites still viewed Indians as savages and incapable of any civilizing influence. Debate raged regarding undesirable racial characteristics of non-white peoples, including intelligence, capability and other traits perceived as inferior to whites. Advanced in part to justify slavery in the United States, proponents often used biological data to support claims of inferiority. These arguments invariably extended to Indians with academics and government officials claiming that limited intellectual capacity and often savage traits should preclude citizenship and legal rights.

McKenzie refuted claims of Indian biological inferiority, noting Indians "are capable of acquiring a high degree of skill and culture and of sustaining the highest type of character and possess as varied tastes and aptitudes as the white man." McKenzie was influenced by anthropologist George Bird Grinnell a student of American Indian life who repudiated the popular view of Indians' biological inferiority.

Upon graduating from Lehigh University in 1895, McKenzie had the opportunity during the summer to study at the University of Pennsylvania under Simon Nelson Patten, Professor of Economics at the Wharton School of Business, and Franklin Henry Giddings, a prominent sociologist and economist from nearby Bryn Mawr College. McKenzie's work with Giddings and Patten sparked his interest in sociology and economics, McKenzie calling Patten "the one greatest teacher of my experience." In 1903, "under the special inspiration of Dr. Patten," McKenzie chose the American Indian people as the subject of his doctoral dissertation and decided to live among them "long enough to get a sense of what the Indians problem in the concrete was." McKenzie applied to the Indian Service, and soon after accepted a position as principal teacher at the Wind River Reservation Boarding School at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. Here his observations and friendships helped develop his new approach toward addressing the Indian problem.

Pan-Indianism developed during the period when modern social science came of age, and sociologists and anthropologists helped define the common ground of "race." Reformers of the bully Progressive era were inveterate founders of organizations, translating ideas into organizations and organizations into action. Problems existed to be solved, and the democratic promise existed to be fulfilled.

Wind River Indian Reservation

Fayette Avery McKenzie was the first American sociologist to specialize in Indian affairs. McKenzie chose the American Indian people as the subject of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, and decided to live among them "long enough to get a sense of what the Indians problem in the concrete was." In September 1903, McKenzie, then 32 years old, applied to the Indian Service and accepted a position as principal teacher at the Wind River Indian Reservation Boarding School at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. In his position as Principal Teacher on the Wind River Boarding School, shared by the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, McKenzie oversaw instruction of approximately 170 Indian children and taught the most advanced students reading, writing, and arithmetic. As was often the case at Indian boarding schools, teachers performed several functions outside the classroom, and in addition to his teaching and supervisory responsibilities, McKenzie played the organ and piano at chapel and church services, led a band, occasionally supervised the dining hall and fed the school's chickens. By all accounts, McKenzie was well liked by both students and faculty. McKenzie's observations and experience at Wind River provided important information for his dissertation and a new approach toward addressing the Indian problem. At Wind River Reservation, McKenzie began a lifelong association Rev. Sherman Coolidge, an Arapaho Episcopalian priest and missionary. McKenzie often invited Rev. Coolidge and Dr. Charles Eastman to lecture in his classes at Ohio State University and at public events. They also shared their ideas about forming the first national association run by Indians for Indians.

Ohio State University

In 1905, McKenzie accepted appointment as Assistant Professor of Economics and Sociology at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He also volunteered with community and social service organizations in Columbus, including serving as President of the Godman Guild, a settlement house, and organized a successful effort to consolidate Columbus's recreation and playground recreation programming. In 1911, McKenzie offered position as Secretary of the National Playground Association, now the National Recreation and Park Association, at twice his current salary. But obligation to his aging parents precluded his accepting the position. McKenzie continued to focus on his work with Indians, often bringing prominent Indians to lecture in his classes. McKenzie successfully organized the first event of the Society of American Indians. McKenzie enlisted the support of the City of Columbus, Ohio, Ohio State University and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and planned a symbolic event with national press coverage.

McKenzie's scholarship

McKenzie soon became a national expert on government Indian policy, and his work in scholarly journals and government publications reached an influential audience of academics, government officials, influential Whites interested in Indian affairs, and Indians themselves. In each piece, McKenzie criticized the government's Indian policy and advanced recommendations for solving the Indian problem. This exposure, combined with his work with the Society of American Indians, provided McKenzie a prominent platform to promote his progressive vision for Indian affairs. In 1908, McKenzie was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, with his dissertation, The American Indian in Relation to the White Population of the United States. In 1909, he collaborated with noted anthropologist Roland Burrage Dixon of Harvard University and William Chamberlin Hunt to conduct a study of the Indian population as part of the 1910 census of the U.S. population, "Indian population in the United States and Alaska", United States Bureau of the Census (1910). The report represented the most comprehensive study of Indian populations to date. In 1912, McKenzie published "The American Indian of Today and Tomorrow" in the Journal of Race Development, and "The Indian and Citizenship" in the Journal of the Society of American Indians. In 1914, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, through McKenzie's friend and colleague Thomas Jesse Jones, funded a survey and report on conditions in Indian schools. McKenzie published his conclusions, "The Assimilation of the American Indian", in the American Journal of Sociology. In 1928, McKenzie co-authored the Brookings Institution Meriam Report, marking the ideological shift in American Indian policy to restore of tribal self-government and communal lands.

McKenzie's assessment

In the early 1900s, most considered American Indians a primitive, even savage, people with limited intelligence. Many Indian observers feared the race would become extinct. McKenzie called upon the federal government to release Indians from federal control, abolish the reservation system, close the Bureau of Indian Affairs, grant all Indians full citizenship, open the U.S. Court of Claims to all tribes and bands and create a higher education system to cultivate American Indian leadership. McKenzie criticized federal policy granting Indians living on reservations rations and creating dependency; tribal controls that inhibited individuals from assimilation; and the "wrong kinds of whites", including Congressman, merchants, saloon-keepers and land swindlers who created mistrust toward all white people. With the government in control of Indian affairs, and control of government a matter of the consent of majorities, McKenzie asserted, "It is obvious that the administrative interests must be secured privately by the people of intelligence and conscience in the white race." "The Indian that does not have the numbers which will enable him to force his rights through the ballot box. His strength and his power will come through his intelligence." McKenzie called upon American Indians to form the first national pan-tribal organization run by and for Indians, and not a "friends of Indians" organization such as the progressive Indian Rights Association.

In the early 1900s, the government's unwillingness to grant immediate citizenship to all Indians reflected prevailing views among many politicians and the American public that Indians were not worthy of citizenship and should therefore not be entrusted with the responsibilities accorded citizens. Reformers chose wardship as the problem and fought for US citizenship for full participation in American life. Arthur C. Parker, a founding member of the Society of American Indians, characterized the anti-Indian tenor among politicians noting, "one senator wrote me that there was a great deal of prejudice in considering Indian matters and reluctance to take them on." In 1906, Congress passed the Burke Act, an amendment to the Dawes Act, which gave the U.S. Secretary of the Interior the ability to grant fee-simple titles to any land allottee "competent and capable of managing his or her affairs." The intent of the Act was to accelerate Indian assimilation and citizenship, and stipulated that every Indian who received a fee-simple title immediately became a citizen of the United States. However, the Act delayed citizenship for most Indians until the end of a 25-year trust period, citing as the primary reason Indians' unpreparedness for citizenship. McKenzie criticized the legislation for postponing citizenship of the majority of Indians for another generation, and argued that citizenship for the Indian meant opening the door of hope and self-responsibility.

McKenzie saw higher education as necessary to develop Indian race leadership and influence within white power structures, and declared, "I am thoroughly convinced that in the long run the hope for the Indian as a race does not depend upon and cannot come from land or money or political rights, but that it will proceed from and through the broader and higher leadership which will come from a broader and higher education." Indian leaders could "appeal to their people without danger of misinterpretation and bring a spirit of advancement and uplift." McKenzie asserted the chief reason for the Indian problem was because the public generally did not believe the Indian people capable of education and entering white culture. McKenzie believed access to higher education on a broad scale was important to Indian advancement, and devoted much of his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania analyzing the current state of Indian education and proposing American Indian leadership based on race rather than on tribe.

McKenzie understood the importance of developing a strong and influential base of White members. McKenzie's academic career and faculty position at Ohio State University, coupled with personal and professional connections he developed while living and studying in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., granted him credibility among academics and in the political establishment. He skillfully navigated between the two groups, articulating arguments, managing expectations and advancing ideas for Indian uplift. McKenzie viewed himself as an important link to the white community and aware that meaningful Indian advancement required white support.

The Society of American Indians

Arthur C. Parker, Secretary of the Society of American Indians from 1911 to 1915, regarded McKenzie as the "father of the movement." McKenzie respected the Society's mantra of "for Indians and by Indians" and understood Indians' distrust of Whites. McKenzie downplayed his role as "Local Representative" for the Society and worked behind the scenes. He wrote to Parker, "Whatever I may say is subject to two suspicions: First that my race prevents me understanding the situation. Second, that I may have some ulterior motive." "I am always embarrassed by doubt in my mind as to whether I shall act and speak, or whether I shall contribute most by silence. Everyone who says anything to me tells me to proceed and that the Indians have confidence in me and I am glad and believe that is so, even though doubtful as to what extent that confidence involves action." While Parker was determined that the Society should be run by Indians, it did not diminish his desire for McKenzie's counsel and assistance in managing the organization. In short time, Parker was overwhelmed with the volume of Society work and contemplated resigning. McKenzie exhorted him to stay with the Society, noting "it is not impossible that you are the only man who can save the situation and that you may have to do it by constant correspondence, keeping all in touch one with the other, and keeping all satisfied that equal justice is being arranged for." Parker teamed with McKenzie to manage the Society and navigate politics. Responsibilities included publications, planning conferences, drafting and lobbying legislation and membership services. McKenzie's organizational principles were to ensure harmony and unity within the Society, work cooperatively with the white establishment and uphold standards of quality and achievement for Indians. He wrote, "No issue, no bill, no policy is comparable in importance with a demonstration that Indians can maintain unity and cordial feelings even at times of difference upon specific points." McKenzie was well connected to the political establishment in Washington, D.C., and by 1914, he solicited over 400 Non-native associate memberships from influential academicians, politicians and Progressive organizations. Parker noted, "I am sure that we all wish you to secure for us as many members as you can and win for us the right kind of friends." Parker was deeply grateful for McKenzie's support and assistance through the Society's most productive years, and in 1913 nominated McKenzie for Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Franklin K. Lane, then U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Writing without McKenzie's knowledge, Parker cited "his friend's broad experience, special knowledge of the Indian, rare understanding of the legal and social status of our native wards. I know of no fitter person for the difficult task that falls upon the Office of the Indian Commissioner." McKenzie and Parker collaborated until 1915, when McKenzie departed Ohio State University and his friends in Columbus to assume the Presidency of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Parker and McKenzie remained lifelong friends and colleagues.

Transition

In 1914, McKenzie suffered from health issues and temporarily lost his eyesight after his parents died in August 1913 and February 1914. In May 1914, McKenzie was granted a sabbatical and sought to recuperate by traveling to France in In July and August, 1914. During that summer, McKenzie studied with Professor Comte, who took disadvantaged Paris youth to the country to spend summers. McKenzie was in France on July 28, 1914, at outbreak of World War I. Shortly after he returned to Ohio State, his attention increasingly diverted to his candidacy at Fisk University. During 1914 and 1915, McKenzie continued his interest in Indian affairs and studied Indian education from Kansas to Arizona. On April 26, 1915, McKenzie married Nettie Evalyn Tressel, daughter of a Lutheran minister, at the Mission Inn in Riverside, California.

McKenzie at Fisk University

Fayette Avery McKenzie's was President of Fisk University from 1915 to 1925. McKenzie's tenure was during a period of social, racial and political turbulence in American history. McKenzie put himself in the line of fire during the tumultuous period before and after World War I, and demonstrated at a time when many people thought Blacks were inferior, that Blacks could attain high levels of academic achievement and compete with Whites in the nation's best colleges and universities. In spite of the pressures and social upheaval during his ten-year tenure, McKenzie developed Fisk as the premier all Black university in the United States, secured Fisk's academic recognition as a standard college by the Carnegie Foundation, Columbia University and the University of Chicago, raised a $1 million endowment fund to ensure quality faculty and laid a foundation for Fisk's accreditation and future success.

Northern Philanthropy at Fisk University

From its founding in 1866 through the end of the nineteenth century, Fisk University was primarily funded by the American Missionary Association. The American Missionary Association, like many of the religious societies working in Black education in South in the late 1800s, eschewed vocational education, and favored a liberal arts curricula necessary for professional occupations. Booker T. Washington, Principal of Tuskegee Institute, was the most prominent spokesman for Black education in the South. Washington believed Black education should focus on practical skills and knowledge in vocational trades, and that Black uplift depended on finding jobs and ensuring economic self-sufficiency. Washington's successful industrial curriculum at Tuskegee and other institutions throughout the South helped address the immediate needs for employment. Washington impressed the nation's corporate and political elite, including Andrew Carnegie, Julius Rosenwald, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and several U.S. Presidents visited Tuskegee to learn more about vocational education and see first-hand its operation.

In the early 1900s, financial assistance from the American Missionary Association at liberal arts colleges continued to decline and found it nearly impossible to obtain money from Northern foundations unless they first obtained Booker T. Washington's blessing. In 1909, Fisk's third president, George A. Gates (1909–1912), opened the door to Northern foundations by inviting Washington to join the Board of Trustees and using his influence to solicit funds. Fisk needed to immediately install steam heat, lighting and a laundry plant. Raising $300,000 represented a significant challenge for Fisk, both for the amount and the willingness of Northern philanthropy to fund Black liberal arts higher education. By 1910, Gates commented that Washington had "cornered" New York funders for Black education in the South and initiated a capital campaign to raise $300,000. In June 1911, the General Education Board pledged $60,000 if Fisk could raise the remaining $240,000 by October 1912, and in June 1913, the trustees eventually secured commitments from Andrew Carnegie, Julius Rosenwald, J.P. Morgan, and Charles Hull. In February 1912, on his way to meet with Fisk trustees in New York City, Gates suffered a severe concussion in a train accident near Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Ordered to rest and recuperate in North Carolina, he briefly returned to Fisk to participate in commencement, but soon after his health deteriorated. During the summer, his wife submitted, without her husband's consent or knowledge, his resignation, and later that fall Gates died.

Searching for a President

When President Gates resigned in 1912, Fisk trustees began a national search to select his replacement. Although some Fisk alumni and the Nashville Banner, the city's Black newspaper, argued that a Black man should replace Gates, Booker T. Washington, a Fisk trustee and perhaps the most important voice in the presidential search process, counseled the timing was not right for a Black Fisk president. Instead, the trustees, in consultation with Dr. Wallace Buttrick, Executive Officer of the General Education Board, turned to Thomas Jesse Jones. Jones was a logical choice for Fisk President. Jones, who for seven years worked as a professor of sociology at Hampton Institute, and after a brief stint as a statistician at the Bureau of the Census, joined the newly created Phelps-Stokes Fund in 1912 as its educational director, a position he would hold for over three decades. Despite his unique qualifications for the position, Jones quickly turned down the opportunity, feeling he could do more for Black education in his role with the Phelps-Stokes Fund than he could at a single institution. With Jones no longer interested, responsibility for finding a suitable candidate fell largely to Booker T. Washington, and for good reason. Any serious candidate for the position required the blessing of Washington, Fisk's Board of Trustees and the General Education Board. In March 1914, after a long search, John Cutler Shedd, a professor of physics at Olivet College in Michigan, emerged as the leading candidate for the position. Shedd travelled to New York City to meet with a variety of Fisk stakeholders, including the Carnegie Foundation, officers of the American Missionary Association, academics from Cornell University (all of whom were friends with Booker T. Washington), and Wallace Buttrick. Shortly thereafter, Shedd and his wife visited Fisk's campus, and then proceeded to Tuskegee to meet with Washington. Washington believed Shedd was "the best man we can get for the presidency of Fisk University," but warned of opposition by Fisk alumni and the Nashville Black community who wanted a Black president. He also predicted and a stormy period of two or three years for Shedd and his family to acclimate to the unique conditions of the South. Washington observed most Northerners "make the mistake of expressing opinions before they have had time to get into the local atmosphere of the community, or of the South." Shedd "ought to be cautioned not to be too ready with opinions concerning either Fisk or Southern conditions."

In November 1914, after the visits to Nashville and Tuskegee, Shedd asked that his name be removed his name from consideration for the position, and sent a ten-page report to Wallace Buttrick at the General Education Board. Shedd's report was a windfall for the Board of Trustees and the General Education Board and provided a professional educator's candid assessment of the challenges awaiting the next President of Fisk. Shedd observed, "The work of Fisk University was begun and has been carried on in an atmosphere of social ostracism and isolation, and while the white man in Tennessee is as liberal toward his black fellow-citizens as any where in the South, still this liberal spirit has yet amounted to very little. In fact, I am inclined to believe that the colored members of this faculty have a far more normal life than do their white colleagues. While I cannot say the sense of social isolation, which has compelled all the children of the faculty to be sent north for an education, and in some cases has compelled the wives of the professors to live in the North for the sake of the children has affected the efficiency of the work of the faculty, still this condition must be recorded and deeply regretted." Shedd also met with Tennessee Governor Ben W. Hooper while visiting Fisk. The meeting raised further questions in Shedd's mind, as the Governor expressed doubt "as to whether Fisk could really do for the colored man what Vanderbilt was and is doing for the white" and "doubt as to whether for some time to come financial support could be gained in the South for the institution." While at Tuskegee, Shedd met and spoke with Robert E. Park, a prominent sociologist who was advisor to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee. Shedd reported Park's critique of Fisk. Park believed the "fundamental basis for race discrimination, which is part of the Fisk problem, lies in the acceptance by it and for it of lower standards," or, in other words, that "the white, and from him, the colored man has accepted lower standards for the colored man than for the white man." For Park, the remedy was to raise the scholastic standard to the level of the best collegiate institutions of the country. Shedd also reported that Nashville was ready to cooperate with the North in development of Fisk University as a first rate institution, and that fund raising was essential to place Fisk "beyond the necessity of anxiety." Shedd did not disclose specific reasons for removing his name from consideration, but his lengthy report suggests he was "rather staggered with its difficulties and responsibilities" of the President of Fisk.

"In the line of fire"

McKenzie was recommended for the Fisk presidency by his friend and colleague Thomas Jesse Jones, now director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund and a Fisk trustee. McKenzie's background impressed the Fisk trustees and the General Education Board. He was the most prominent sociologist in the nation specializing in Native American affairs, a founder of the Society of American Indians, and had experience in community development and forging relationships with White constituencies to promote minority advancement. McKenzie's strong Christian character and commitment to student discipline fit nicely with Fisk's history and mission, as well as the strongly Christian orientation of Nashville and the South. In mid-February 1915, McKenzie and several Fisk trustees traveled to Tuskegee to visit with Booker T. Washington and obtain his approval for McKenzie's candidacy. After receiving Washington's blessing, McKenzie accepted the position the fourth President of Fisk University, and immediately began his work. McKenzie knew that past Fisk Presidents were constantly "in the line of fire" and worked under a microscope in Nashville. Only two months prior, John Cutler Shedd withdrew his name from consideration for the Presidency after assessing the demands of the position. McKenzie also knew that would expose himself and his administration to severe criticism, especially from Blacks. Black Nashvillians demanded a Black President at Fisk, students chaffed with the strict code of conduct, and Fisk alumnus W.E.B. Du Bois was an outspoken critic of the administration. McKenzie was challenged "to breast the criticism of the critical Negro, the critical Southern white, and the critical Northern white, looking to the day when the wisdom as well as success will justify this course."

Fisk Board of Trustees

At the time of McKenzie's appointment, the Fisk Board of Trustees consisted of 11 men, three of them Black. As the American Missionary Association representation on Fisk's board diminished, leadership passed to Northern trustees Paul D. Cravath, L. Hollingsworth Wood and Thomas Jesse Jones. Paul D. Cravath, (1861–1940), Chairman of the Board, was a prominent New York attorney, who spent most of his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee, where his father Erastus Milo Cravath was a co-founder and the first President of Fisk University from 1875 to 1900. Cravath served as a member of the Fisk Board of Trustee's for over thirty years and until his death in 1940. L. Hollingsworth Wood (1873–1956), another prominent New York attorney, was elected to the Board of Trustees of Fisk University In 1917 and was vice chairman of the Board at the time of his death in 1956. Wood was a founding member of the American Friends Service Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Urban League. He served as a member of the Board of Managers of Haverford College for over forty years. For much of his life, L. Hollingsworth Wood worked actively in the areas of peace, civil rights, black and Quaker education. Thomas Jesse Jones (1873–1950) was the most prominent sociologist in the nation specializing in Black American affairs. As specialist with the Bureau of Education, Jones conducted an acclaimed study and report titled, Negro Education: A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States, and published in 1917. The study was the first project funded by the Phelps Stokes Fund, and in 1911 Jones became director of the fund. Jones also served on the boards of the Hampton Institute and Howard University. Fisk Board of Trustees meetings were generally held in New York City. Cravath, Wood and Jones managed college affairs from New York City, and where Abraham Flexner and Wallace Buttrick of the General Educational Board also maintained offices. The Board of Trustees rarely traveled to Nashville, and McKenzie, as did prior Presidents, attended Board meetings in New York.

General Education Board

The General Education Board was created in 1902 with a $180 million grant from John D. Rockefeller. The General Education Board primarily supported higher education, medical schools and Black education in the South. In 1912, Julius Rosenwald a part owner of Sears, Roebuck and Company, was introduced to Booker T. Washington and asked to serve on the Board of Directors of the Tuskegee Institute, a position he held for the remainder of his life. Washington encouraged Rosenwald to address the poor state of Black education in the United States, which suffered from inadequate faculty, buildings and books. In response, Rosenwald established the Rosenwald Fund to support the education of Black children in the rural South and other causes. Rosenwald was especially interested in Fisk, and in 1915 attended McKenzie's inauguration as President in Nashville.

After Booker T. Washington's death in 1915, the General Education Board targeted Fisk University as an experiment for funding and promoting Black liberal arts higher education in the United States. The project was collaborative effort of the General Education Board, the Fisk Board of Trustees and sociologists Thomas Jesse Jones and Fayette Avery McKenzie. The goals were to position Fisk University as the premier Black liberal arts college in the United States, to demonstrate Blacks could attain high levels of academic achievement and compete with Whites in the nation's best colleges and universities, and to develop a Black professional and intellectual class to promote uplift. The greatest challenge for the project was how to promote Black education and uplift without alienating white Southerners, many of whom vehemently opposed any form of Black advancement. The strategy was to maintain Booker T. Washington's model of student conduct and to engage the Nashville White community. The General Education Board and the Fisk Board of Trustees believed that incremental actions would over time naturally lead to Black uplift and advancement, and they approached the problem with a distinct long-term orientation. In 1919, the Fisk experiment was energized when Rosenwald donated $50 Million to the General Education Board for management. Between 1925 and 1935, the General Education Board appropriated over $5 million to Black liberal arts colleges and universities.

Black education in the United States

In 1910, educator Abraham Flexner, funded by the newly established Carnegie Foundation, conducted a study visiting every medical school in the United States and published his findings. With the success of the Flexner Report, educational leaders and philanthropists called for a similar study of Black institutions. In 1912, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools announced twelve criteria for accreditation, and the following year published the first annual list of fully accredited colleges and universities. In 1913, Thomas Jesse Jones, a specialist in the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, supported by the Phelps-Stokes Fund, directed a two-year study of Black colleges in the United States. Using the Flexner Report as a model, researchers visited "every institution of any importance," including primary schools through colleges, and larger schools "were studied by three or four persons." The scope of analysis included several dimensions, including mission, ownership and control, enrollment, faculty and staff, organization and curriculum, financial management, and physical plant. As part of the study, representatives visited Fisk on three separate occasions, the last shortly after McKenzie's inauguration as President in November 1915. In 1917, Jones, through the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, published a two volume study titled Negro Education: A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States. The findings noted a "striking unanimity" among educators that Fisk and Howard were the two Black colleges most qualified for further development as universities. The Jones Report cited Fisk's facilities, Christian ideals, location within a one-day journey of four million Blacks, progressive management and cordial relationship with the White Nashville community as the necessary foundation for further development. Jones recommended that Fisk "be adequately financed so that it may strengthen its work as a central institution for college training and social service." The report's release after McKenzie's arrival in Nashville provided a foundation to fund and increase Fisk's academic standards.

McKenzie's First Report 1915

In February 1915, shortly after accepting the position, McKenzie traveled to Fisk to conduct an initial assessment. McKenzie then traveled to New York City to present a comprehensive report to the Board of Trustees. McKenzie found the University lacking in nearly every respect.

Sanitary conditions were alarming and toilets and bathing facilities were in need of immediate attention. McKenzie requested that new sanitary facilities be in place by September 1915.

McKenzie recommended enhancing the size and quality of Fisk's faculty, through salary increases, promotions, and terminations of service. "To do the work that will put Fisk in the real leadership of Negro education, it will be necessary to strengthen the teaching staff, especially by the addition of highly trained, highly capable men to the Faculty. This will mean better salaries than are now paid." Hiring a Professor of Economics topped McKenzie's wish list, someone who could develop business curriculum that would aid in "the development of Negro banks." McKenzie envisioned Fisk as a laboratory for finance and accounting practice, suggesting students could "keep our own books," and through education in insurance, could "disseminate the knowledge needed to bring an end to the widespread exploitation of colored folk by insurance fakirs, conscious or otherwise."

McKenzie recommended the Board of Trustees be enlarged. Recruiting Southern White trustees was difficult. Many candidates were too busy with work and other commitments, while others feared the social consequences of affiliating themselves with a Black institution. The lack of trustee presence caught the attention of philanthropist Julius Rosenwald as he reflected upon his visit to attend McKenzie's inauguration: "One thing which made a very unfavorable impression upon me was the lack of interest of the Trustees. The president of the board had not been at the school in fifteen years and even on so important an occasion as the installation of Dr. McKenzie there were very few of the trustees present." Thereafter, the trustees asked Abraham Flexner, Secretary of the General Education Board, to help with recruitment efforts. In April 1917, Flexner sent a letter to several prominent northern businessmen soliciting their interest in becoming a Fisk trustee.

McKenzie envisioned several opportunities for Fisk to engage with Nashville's Black community and the broader South. McKenzie recommended exploring the opportunity of merging with Meharry Medical College, a Black institution in Nashville that at the time was in severe financial trouble. McKenzie remarked that it would strengthen Fisk's work in physical sciences, and provide the University "a valuable prestige in the field of Negro education." McKenzie sought to leverage Fisk's impressive music department and suggested developing a weekly musical program for all residents of Nashville that would bring visitors to campus and be "our permanent way of reaching the local public." McKenzie recommended reviving the Jubilee Singers, both as a way to create awareness for Fisk and generate much needed revenue for the University. McKenzie was especially interested in the social service and wide-spreading extension activities being coordinated by Professor George Edmund Haynes.

Fisk enjoyed the best reputation among all Black colleges for its teacher training programs. McKenzie saw an opportunity for Fisk to provide continuing education for Black teachers from throughout the South during the summer months, and requested permission to begin a summer session in 1916. McKenzie envisioned Fisk as a center for teacher training. "We should not only set standards for advanced training for teachers in this state, but we would meet the needs of those capable of meeting our standards throughout a large number of the Southern states." In early 1917, The General Education Board expressed interest in funding the program. However, with the outbreak of World War I and increasing economic uncertainty throughout the country, the foundation reconsidered and "deemed it wise to postpone the consideration of a summer school on account of the war." It was not until 1920-21, five years after McKenzie first proposed the idea, that Fisk established a summer school program for teachers.

Nashville Black community

Nashville Blacks, indeed, Blacks throughout the United States, looked to Fisk as both a tangible and symbolic example of Black opportunity, and they observed with great interest the affairs of the University. The Nashville Black community, while proud of Fisk College, was critical of presidents Merrill and Gates who also courted White Nashvillians. Nashville's outspoken Black newspaper, The Globe, criticized Gates throughout his administration, accusing him of transgressions that included rude behavior to Black campus visitors, sanctioning segregated seating for invited White guests at a Fisk commencement, and unwarranted firing of Black faculty and staff and replacing them with White employees. Angry and frustrated with Gates' behavior, and believing the time appropriate for a Black leader, The Globe vigorously campaigned to hire a Black President as Gates' replacement.

McKenzie proposed outreach programs for the Nashville Black community. In early 1919, McKenzie wrote L. Hollingsworth Wood regarding his desire for Fisk to more aggressively engage with the Black community. McKenzie proposed a small fund to establishing a night school for local Blacks, provide extension work in Nashville, offer free weekly musical concerts, and offer continuing education programs for Black teachers and clergy in the South. McKenzie viewed summer school for Black church leaders, and student engagement in Black churches during Sunday services, as important tools for community engagement. "If we had the funds we might gather a group of preachers for two weeks, or four weeks, or longer, and do them some good. As we develop our courses along religious and recreational lines we probably shall be able to develop the equivalent of a Y.M.C.A. training course, and we may be able to utilize our more advanced students to real advantage in the churches and Sunday schools of the city." However, lack of funding precluded most of McKenzie's ideas from being implemented. Funding issues also hampered those efforts he did implement, including Bethlehem House, a settlement house where social service students trained. These efforts continued with McKenzie's successor, Thomas Elsa Jones, who in 1946 Fisk partnered with Tennessee State University to establish an extension program for "functionally illiterate" Blacks in Nashville, an idea first envisioned by McKenzie in 1915.

Fisk students, faculty and alumni

Fisk's students and many progressive alumni resented the school's outreach to White Nashvillians and strict code of conduct. While Fisk's strict code of conduct and discipline and role as loco parentis was mirrored by most Black colleges and White universities, including nearby Vanderbilt, the approach collided with the New Negro spirit of Black determination. Dissatisfaction also extended to prohibition of Greek societies on campus, although student interest in social organizations predated McKenzie's arrival. McKenzie recognized that some faculty supported Du Bois's point of view, some long before his arrival. Although many Fisk faculty and staff supported McKenzie, some resented what they considered autocratic policies. In some instances, McKenzie released faculty and staff he considered disloyal.

McKenzie in Nashville

On November 9, 1915, McKenzie was formally inaugurated as Fisk's fourth president. McKenzie saw his inauguration as an opportunity "to attract the attention of the whole country." Five Black and five White men shared the stage and spoke about the promise of Fisk, leading one observer to remark that the festivities left every person feeling unfaithful to his duty if he were not striving to help improve the conditions of Blacks. Other inaugural events were likewise integrated, causing several attendees to remark to Mrs. McKenzie that they had never before seen Blacks and Whites engage socially in such a friendly manner. In his inauguration speech, McKenzie asserted Fisk ideals have been paid for in the "sweat and blood" of alumni, faculty, staff and trustees, and that the spirit of sacrifice permeated Fisk that "no one can honestly teach or study here who does not feel that he is the recipient of tremendous gifts." Less than one week after his inauguration on November 9, 1915, Fayette McKenzie boarded an all-Black train headed to Tuskegee, Alabama, to attend the funeral of Booker T. Washington. Washington's death left Fisk without its most effective fund raiser and America without its most influential spokesperson for Black education. In the first several months of his administration, McKenzie aggressively advocated for Black rights. When Nashville officials erected a sign reading "This drinking fountain for whites only" in a local park, McKenzie vigorously protested and asked the city to open the park to Fisk students and other Black residents. Observing the segregated seating arrangements in Nashville auditoriums, he lobbied to end the practice. Serving on the State Council of Social Agencies, McKenzie observed that special arrangements were made for mentally incompetent and delinquent White youths, but not for Black youth. He charged the practice was unfair, worked to obtain appropriate facilities for Black youths, and requested the state create a vocational school of wayward Black girls. On March 21, 1916, a large fire swept through the east side of the city. Abated by unusually strong winds and wooden-shingle roofs, the fire destroyed in just over four hours nearly every structure in a two block wide, two mile long stretch of the city. Over 600 homes and businesses were consumed in the blaze, thousands were left homeless, and nearly half the affected residents were Black. Demonstrating that "human sympathy and helpfulness stops not for racial barriers," Fisk students and staff threw themselves into the aid effort. Under the leadership of Dr. George E. Haynes, who directed Fisk's Department of Social Science, Fiskites applied a systematic approach to investigating needs, tallying records and distributing relief. The entire senior class aided in the effort, and along with Haynes "succeeded in winning the confidence of workers of both races."

Student conduct and discipline

When McKenzie arrived at Fisk in 1915, nearly half the student body was enrolled in pre-college courses, and while that population decreased throughout his tenure, Fisk still taught high school classes well into the 1920s. Fisk University's student body represented a cross-section of Black America. Children of sharecropping parents who grew up in shacks with dirt floors interacted with young men and women from privileged Black families. Blacks from racially progressive cities in the North lived with counterparts from staunchly racist communities in the South, where racial violence was a constant threat. Despite their varied backgrounds, the students who attended Fisk represented the DuBoisian concept of the "Talented Tenth" and many saw themselves as future leaders within Black America. Students arriving at Fisk were "sifted" based on their scholastic aptitude, and placed in classes commensurate with their ability. At the end of each quarter they were reclassified based on their performance. By minimizing the bi-modal distribution of academic ability within classes, course instructors could more effectively target the learning needs of students and help ensure that Fisk graduates could "compete on an even basis in the most rigid colleges of the land."

McKenzie believed that students' daily activities needed strict structure and supervision. "It is not merely enough to open the doors of the classroom and let the students succeed or fail as their own caprice, or even their own judgment shall determine." "If guidance and control can save the student from present mistaken inclination and provides for his future and permanent good, the University has a solemn duty to perform." Indeed, close oversight of students' daily regimen offered opportunities for early intervention in matters of academics and conduct, especially among weaker students. Hours were set for daily activities such as meals, sleep, recitations, and study periods, and attendance at weekly chapel and religious services required. Interactions between the sexes were carefully regulated and supervised, and girls were "carefully chaperoned." Strict routines protected students "from themselves" and helped direct conservation of "every physical and moral strength" so students can "survive the scholastic tests which are put upon them." In addition to promoting academic focus, daily routines taught the lessons of "regularity, promptness, reliability, continuity, and thoroughness," which are fundamental attributes of "good citizenship and moral and religious character."

McKenzie's aversion to non-academic extra curricular activities reflected his philosophy of collegiate education. College was a time to study, not to engage in frivolous activities, and organizations and activities that promoted elitism among students did not belong on Fisk's campus. In 1915, Fisk officials debated the issue and agreed to ban "fraternities and other secret or oath-bound societies" because the trustees believed such organizations did not reflect the democratic ideals taught at the University and could lead to inappropriate student conduct. However, student organizations such as debating, literary and other academic societies were encouraged. McKenzie viewed religion as an important component of a Fisk education, and firmly rooted in the educational intent of its founders and the history of the school. Fisk's faculty and staff required that students conduct themselves according to Christian principles of character at all times. McKenzie linked the concepts of Christianity and sacrifice, suggesting that "sacrifice is not an action nor a deprivation. It is a spiritual attitude." In 1921, McKenzie published a small leaflet simply titled, the Fisk Creed. The leaflet, published partly as a response to persistent disciplinary problems, articulated Fisk's approach to education and student conduct. McKenzie hoped that Fisk students will "prove that the Negro student can accept the grinding process of rigid training, and emerge to stand in even competition in the intellectual world." McKenzie suggested that students not interested in abiding by Fisk's rules of conduct should look elsewhere. "Those not content to live the simple and plain life owe it to other Fisk students to go elsewhere where larger expenditures are morally justifiable."

Black troops on campus

In June 1918, McKenzie sought approval from the trustees to raise revenue by using Fisk's campus as a receiving station for Black troops in the Student Army Training Corps (SATC), a precursor to the present-day Reserve Officers' Training Corp (ROTC) program. The Student Army Training Corp allowed students to attend school while they participated in military training exercises during World War I. McKenzie noted that accommodating the troops, "will cramp us very considerably, but the compensation will keep us from any additional indebtedness and probably turn our lodging and boarding department into a self-supporting institution, and enable us to make a number of necessary changes or improvements without cutting into our normal funds. I am glad, too, to be of very direct service to the nation in its persecution of the War." In August 1918, the first of over 600 Black SATC cadets arrived in Nashville. "The boys will live a highly educational military life, centered about Bennett Hall. The girls will live an equally efficient, busy school life, centered about Jubilee Hall," he stated. However the presence of military cadets on Fisk's campus, all of whom were young men, added to the University's disciplinary problems. While McKenzie appreciated the disciplinary focus of the military's proscribed daily routine, he harshly criticized the military's refusal to acknowledge and abide by Fisk's rules and regulations. At the opening of the 1918 academic year, McKenzie set the tone for a new approach to student conduct by invoking the military's presence and influence on the campus, "We are a military institution. Not that we have been absorbed by the military, but that the essential principles of efficiency exemplified in the military have been absorbed into the university. These principles include concentration of effort, unremitting toil, elimination of all unnecessary activities and motions, regular and insistent schedule of life, promptness, accuracy, reliability thoroughness, instant and complete obedience. With military leaders unwilling to enforce "satisfactory moral standards," their cadets ran rampant, smoking, cursing, and fraternizing with Fisk co-eds. In one significant infraction, a soldier helped a female Fisk student to "escape supervision" of the University and was found with her in a private room. Although the man was arrested, the military administered no punishment. In addition to the poor behavior of cadets, McKenzie strongly criticized the federal government for failing to provide Black soldiers adequate compensation for their service to the nation. "When the immediate aim of efficient fighters was no longer its aim, the Government sought to free itself from its financial obligations and forgot what havoc it would work in the lives of many, many young men," McKenzie lamented in the Fisk News. While the mobilization effort only lasted a few months and World War I ended in November 1918, the military presence had lasting effects on Fisk's campus school discipline. McKenzie continued to experiment the military's model of conduct, but the continued military discipline for student conduct policies after the military's departure from campus angered Fisk students. Viewing the new policies as infringing on their rights, several Fisk students rebelled. McKenzie reported, "The other day the college boys served notice on me that until I was inclined to treat them like men they would refuse to attend the study hall. It did not take very many hours to secure written pledges from all but five of them that they would attend. Since then, one or more of them have attempted to spoil the lights in the study hall, and they have torn down the picture of President Cravath and written an ugly message on the chapel wall where the picture was. McKenzie noted the required study hall also angered certain Fisk alumni, remarking "Only last night I was sent almost direct word to the effect that the alumni would protest against the study hall, and a reminder of the fact that practically no white man is trusted by any Negro."

Sports at Fisk

In the 1910s, college sports began to capture broad American interest, and Fisk students started agitating for greater opportunities to participate in intercollegiate athletics. Because of the additional responsibility related to hosting on campus hundreds of military troops, difficulties in raising money, and the lack of an instructor in physical education, McKenzie eliminated most Fisk intercollegiate athletic teams in 1918, but reinstated them in 1919. Despite generally strong athletic teams, Fisk's football team was self-proclaimed the "champions of the South" in 1919, Fisk officials remained apprehensive about intercollegiate athletics, and Fisk students complained about the lack of an athletic conference affiliation. Although never a strong supporter of intercollegiate athletics, McKenzie enthusiastically supported physical education and intramural athletics as part of the curriculum, with every student in high school grades through the second year of college engaging in physical exercise at least once per day.

McKenzie was concerned about widespread reports involving college athletics and gambling, use of professional players and cheating. President J.L. Peacock of Shaw University informed McKenzie that Howard University provided tuition scholarships for its athletes and "hired" them from other universities, and that gambling at the annual Howard-Lincoln football game was notorious. McKenzie viewed excess in intercollegiate athletics as another example of an activity incompatible with the academics he wished to create at Fisk. Fearful that Black colleges would endure "the whole disgraceful career of White athletics, McKenzie resisted student and alumni demands to expand Fisk's intercollegiate programs during his administration. In recounting a Fisk football game, McKenzie took greater pleasure in how Fisk's players conducted themselves after the contest than their performance on the field. "We lost the game with Morehouse College on Thanksgiving Day with a score of six to nothing on a very watery field, but our students proved true sportsmen and were exceedingly courteous of the team after the game and permitted them to light the bonfire which was prepared for celebration that night."

Events in late 1921 provided a stark example of the corrupting influences associated with intercollegiate sports, and galvanized Fisk faculty support of ending Fisk's intercollegiate athletic programs. After Fisk's football team claimed victory over Wilberforce College, the defeated team's players issued a statement picked up by the Chicago Defender claiming the officiating was unfair, and Wilberforce deserved to win the game. The players further accused Fisk of being "inhospitable and discourteous" during their time on campus. On their return train to Louisville, Fisk team members created a disturbance that resulted in several players' arrests and fines of $150 to cover damages. McKenzie later learned Wilberforce contacted a Fisk player not allowed to play in the game, offered him a free education if he attended Wilberforce, and the student subsequently transferred. Shortly after the Wilberforce incident, Professor John W. Work, who oversaw Fisk's Jubilee Singers, told McKenzie he thought "students were too crazy over football," and he "would openly advocate the taking away entirely of intercollegiate athletics." Another Fisk faculty member suggested that "intramural athletics were the only kind to encourage," and immediately called a meeting of the athletic committee to discuss whether Fisk should continue offering intercollegiate athletics. Although several faculty wanted to eliminate Fisk's sports programs, McKenzie never pursued such action. Still, concerned about the unsavory influence of intercollegiate athletics at Fisk, McKenzie mandated that athletes receive no special treatment, and he prohibited athletic scholarships. McKenzie also urged the board of trustees to require all athletes complete one year of study and maintain sufficient academic progress prior to their participation in intercollegiate athletics, an idea that in later decades was adopted by most White and Black colleges.

One Million Dollar Campaign

In late 1919, the Fisk experiment was energized when Rosenwald donated $50 Million to the General Education Board for management. Between 1925 and 1935, the General Education Board appropriated over $5 million to Black liberal arts colleges and universities. Immediately after the announcement of Rosenwald's gift, McKenzie wrote the General Education Board requesting Fisk's inclusion among the recipients of the fund. McKenzie request noted that "colored citizens of the United States constitute not only a tenth of the population, but are the most needy and least provided for large group in that population." He also highlighted Fisk's unique contribution within Black education, noting that as the nation's largest private Black university, Fisk "hopes that the quality of its work and the correctness of its ideals will also justify you in providing an adequate endowment for its teacher salaries." After suggesting that a $1,000 annual increase for fifty of Fisk's faculty would help secure and retain "the best possible teachers," McKenzie requested that Fisk be granted "at least a million dollars for teachers' salaries," and declaring "we believe that this institution that has meant so much to the nation should be placed in the front ranks of those to be endowed by Mr. Rockefeller." In May 1920, the General Education Board granted Fisk $500,000 towards a campaign of $1 million "to be set aside and maintained inviolate by Fisk University as endowment, the income to be used in providing permanently or increases in teachers' salaries. Fisk was to raise matching funds of $500,000 including a condition that Fisk raise $50,000 in Nashville. As a result, McKenzie engaged with White community groups more fully than any previous Fisk president, becoming a member of the Kiwanis Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the director of the Community Chest. He attended luncheons, hosted groups on Fisk's campus and frequently spoke at organizational gatherings. A calculated strategy, his outreach led to "white friendship for the school that was stronger than during any preceding administration." Despite the challenges, McKenzie eventually succeeded, with the significant help of Kate Trawick, a Fisk trustee and leader in Nashville's YWCA movement, in securing the $50,000 from Nashville required as part of the campaign, including $2,500 from the Community Chest of Nashville.

World War I and 1919 race riots

The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 reduced European immigration to the United States to a trickle, and the low wage labor supply that filled Northern factories contracted sharply. With U.S. entry into the War on April 16, 1917, the military draft depleted the labor pool even further. Lured by manufacturing jobs and the promise of a better life in the North, Blacks began a massive migration to Northern industrial centers, and by 1920 over 300,000 had relocated to Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and Cleveland. The sudden exodus of their labor pool, and therefore their economic security, sent alarm throughout White communities in the South. Whites in the North reacted with similar consternation over the influx of Blacks into their cities. Southern White anger over increasing race assertiveness of Blacks, and Northern White concerns about Black migration, led to more virulent racism and frequent outbreaks of racial violence. After the War ended on November 11, 1918, the tense atmosphere exploded during the summer of 1919. On April 2, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany, ushering a period of social, racial, and political turbulence. The presence of 600 Black ROTC cadets on Fisk's campus during fall 1918 contributed to an increase in student misconduct. Unease over the waves of immigrants coming to the United States, growing labor unrest in America's industrial centers, U.S. entrance into World War I, and strong anti-communist sentiment fueled by the Russian Revolution heightened Americans' anxiety and discouraged dissent. On May 10, 1919, race riots erupted in Charleston, South Carolina, and Sylvester, Georgia, and over the next five months over 30 race riots occurred across the United States, with nearly one third afflicting Southern cities. One of the most violent took place in Knoxville, Tennessee, just 184 miles from Fisk. The one-day riot claimed the lives of seven people (six Black), injured hundreds, caused widespread property damage, and led to a permanent exodus of nearly 1,500 Black Knoxville residents. A report on the riots authored by Dr. George E. Haynes, Director of Negro Economics at the U.S. Department of Labor, suggested over 50 Blacks were lynched, including eight burned at the stake. The alarming level of violence between May and October 1919 led James Weldon Johnson, a field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to term the period "Red Summer." Although Nashville was quiet and possessed a progressive reputation for a less virulent strain of racism than communities in the deep South, the city strictly adhered to Jim Crow laws.

Academic standards and accreditation

Despite Thomas Jesse Jones' favorable review of Fisk in the 1917 report, Negro Education: A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States, regional accrediting organizations resisted acknowledging Black institutions as equal in educational quality as White universities. With the path toward regional accreditation effectively blocked, McKenzie pursued other options to demonstrate Fisk's academic quality was consistent with White colleges and universities. McKenzie sought to create academic programs at Fisk that rivaled those at any White college in the United States. During McKenzie's in first three years at Fisk, he added several new academic departments, including journalism, Spanish, and applied economics, which consisted of courses in accounting, banking, business law, and insurance. He also enlarged and strengthened several existing departments, including English, political science, religion and instituted a system of majors. The study of Black education provided a respected, third-party endorsement of Fisk's operations. which was instrumental in directing resources toward the University. Attracting quality faculty to Fisk was difficult, and teaching salaries were embarrassingly low. McKenzie's efforts to increase faculty salaries and secure a pension plan for retirees dramatically improved Fisk's faculty. In April 1921, McKenzie's formal application for associate status with the Carnegie Foundation was granted by Chairman Henry S. Pritchett noting "great pleasure to welcome to the list of institutions associated with the Foundation a university for Negroes whose standards of work entitled the institution to this recognition." The Carnegie recognition provided Fisk widespread visibility as a standard college, and the foundation granted $25,000 to Fisk to produce an annual income of $2,500 "to be set aside as an endowment to be used by the University in the provision of old age annuities for its teachers," provided Fisk set aside $50,000 that, when added to the Carnegie Funds, would be used for the same purpose. In 1922, the University of Chicago recognized Fisk as a standard college, and a year later Columbia University awarded Fisk the same status. The recognition was important to Fisk's growing reputation, and meant Fisk graduates no longer needed to complete additional coursework prior to acceptance to the graduate schools at Chicago and Columbia. In 1924-25, Fisk budgeted $92,643 for faculty salaries, a 92 percent increase over six years, increasing from $12,930 in 1919-20 to $18,950 in 1924-25. In addition, the percentage of Black faculty increased from just three percent in the 1890s to 37 percent in 1925.

The New Negro Movement

In the 1920s, the New Negro Movement represented a "race-conscious, assertive, race-proud" generation of Black Americans who rejected White paternalism and White run Black colleges. The growing prominence of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, and the Niagara Movement helped foment Black discontent with prevailing social conditions. Black soldiers, after fighting for democracy in World War I, returned home and resented the lack of democratic processes afforded them. Increased Black geographic mobility, especially to the North, and better economic opportunities furthered feelings of Black empowerment. Social changes in broader U.S. society also contributed to growing Black self-determination. Throughout the 1920s, the United States experienced what one historian characterized as a, "revolution in morals and manners," especially among both White and Black youth. The religious piety that had long served as a basis for personal and social customs gave way to motivations for pleasure, wealth, and the nouveau. Emerging technologies such as the automobile, motion pictures, and musical recordings combined with bold new expressions in women's fashion and behavior that seeded growing antagonism toward outdated and overly conservative aspects of life. Improvements in dissemination of news and culture provided many Blacks views of the world outside the South. The rise of Harlem, New York, as the capital of Black America and the flowering of Negro arts, including music and literature, attracted considerable attention among Blacks and Whites. Black advancement on so many different fronts encouraged Black youth to throw off the shackles of compromise and accommodation and boldly assert the rights and privileges promised them as citizens of the United States. There was a White backlash to New Negro movement. Influenced by the proponents of scientific racism and eugenics, many Americans considered Blacks intellectually inferior and resented their growing self-determination and empowerment. The new Black consciousness alarmed the White South, and increasingly restrictive Jim Crow laws signaled outright hostility to the concept of civic equality for Blacks. New technologies, including motion pictures, offered powerful vehicles to communicate racist messages. Growing Black self-determination, in part a result of Blacks' experience in World War I, and White fears of growing Black economic power led to a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s.

Du Bois and McKenzie

Du Bois, a graduate of Fisk in 1888, and McKenzie had a long association. As early as 1904, McKenzie sought Du Bois's counsel on the establishment of a national American Indian organization, receiving a positive response. In 1909, after the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), McKenzie sensed the time to establish a similar organization for Indians. In July 1911, Du Bois, shared the stage with Charles Eastman at the Universal Races Congress in London, England, only two months before the first meeting of the Society of American Indians in October 1911. Du Bois supported McKenzie's work with the Society, was listed as an associate member in the Society's first annual report, and for several years was the Society's only Black member. McKenzie held Du Bois in high regard. In 1915, during his first address to Fisk's student body, McKenzie spoke about of the influence of three men in his life. Two of them were Booker T. Washington and Du Bois. Calling Du Bois the "American who made the greatest impression at the First Universal Races Congress in London in 1911," McKenzie related how his attendance at a Du Bois speech in Washington, D.C., influenced his thinking on education.

Du Bois's commencement speech

In 1923, there were student and alumni protests at Florida A&M College. Frustrated at the dismissal of former President Nathan B. Young, the students forwarded a petition to college trustees protesting the appointment of President Howard. The board chose to ignore the students' petition and, anticipating further student protest, instructed Howard's secretary to inform him "to permit no insubordination or ‘striking' among the student body even if he had to expel the entire student body." The students immediately boycotted classes, and continued their call for Howard's dismissal. Angered at continuing student protests, Howard dismissed eleven students "for the part they played in calling a strike." His action drove student dissatisfaction underground, and in the next five months fire destroyed the women's dormitory and the mechanical arts building, each under mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, at Fisk, student unrest continued to simmer.

On June 2, 1924, Du Bois visited Fisk on the occasion of his daughter Yolanda's graduation, and gave a speech to Fisk students, alumni and guests in connection with the University's commencement exercises. Du Bois was an outspoken critic of Fisk Presidents. In spring 1908, Du Bois visited Fisk to give the university's commencement address, and used the opportunity to criticize President Merrill's addition of industrial coursework at Fisk. While Merrill had no intent to industrialize the Fisk curriculum, the fallout from Du Bois's speech and continued problems fund raising led him to drop the proposal and submit his resignation three months later. Fisk had recently announced the one million dollar fund fully subscribed and irrevocable, and Du Bois sensed the timing to challenge the administration. In front of a packed Fisk Memorial Chapel, and with McKenzie and his wife sitting in the front row, Du Bois declared, "I have come to address you and, I say frankly, I have come to criticize." Asserting that "I have never known an institution whose alumni on the whole are more bitter and disgusted with the present situation in this university than the alumni of Fisk University today." Du Bois endeavored to inform the administration "openly and before your face what so many of your graduates are saying secretly behind your back." Du Bois attacked the Fisk administration as sinister. "For a long time a powerful section of the white South has offered to give its consent and countenance to the higher training of Negroes only on condition that the white South control and guide that education." Du Bois protested that Fisk sold out to Northern foundations and Southern White interests in pursuit of fiscal security. Du Bois remarked, "Of all the essentials that make an institution of learning, money is the least." "And it is possible that for a million dollars the authorities of Fisk University have been asked either openly or by implication to sell to the white South the control of this institution." Du Bois challenged the Fisk code of student conduct and discipline. "I do not for a moment doubt that the object which Fisk today wishes to gain by her discipline are in themselves perfectly good objects," "but the trouble is that she is trying to accomplish her ends by methods which are medieval, and long since discredited." Du Bois suggested students learned discipline through freedom, and lamented, "self-expression and manhood are choked at Fisk in the very day when we need expression to develop manhood in the colored race." Du Bois accused Fisk administrators allowing segregated ticket windows and seating at a Jubilee Singers concert, and of McKenzie leading female members of the Fisk Glee Club through the servants' entrance to sing for Southern White men. Du Bois called on alumni to reclaim Fisk's spirit, and proclaimed, "the alumni of Fisk University are and of right ought to be, the ultimate source of authority in the policy and government" of the University. He argued that alumni had no voice in the policies of Fisk, and complained alumni serving as board members were selected by McKenzie and other trustees and "may not represent the opinion of the alumni." Du Bois encouraged alumni to make public, "what is happening at Fisk University," to organize in order to save Fisk, and to demand elective representation on the board of trustees. Du Bois argued that until conditions at Fisk changed for the better, students should boycott the University.

Damage control

After the Du Bois speech, McKenzie immediately went into damage control and sought to mobilize trustees, faculty, alumni and community support. McKenzie's wife Nettie asserted only two outcomes. Either her husband would be maintained as President with the full support of the trustees, or he "should be given leave of absence for a year, the President to resign at the end of the period of leave." McKenzie recorded the experience was "about as damnable an event as could come into one's life, but it is not too late to save the institution if there be a desire to save it." "It is probably a matter of little concern whether I resign or not so far as I am affected."

Upon hearing news of the speech, Paul Cravath, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, asked McKenzie for a report. On June 8, 1925, McKenzie forwarded Cravath a six-page letter addressing the matter. McKenzie recognized the ramifications of Du Bois's address. "The whole situation is one that is very serious indeed", and reported after the speech, "the audience was tumultuous in its applause and so carried away that it seemed to almost trample over Mrs. McKenzie and me after the address." McKenzie acknowledged that "the dominant view of the colored people today is more or less sympathetic with Dr. Du Bois on the race issue," and conceded that today "nothing is so popular with colored audiences as denunciation of the whites, and nothing so unpopular as its absence." But McKenzie refuted Du Bois' accusations that were "not more than partially true." He learned that at the first of the two concerts "the manager of the Auditorium helped in the sale of tickets and not very tactfully turned the colored people to one window, her object being to get two streams of people in accordance with their destination. This matter was brought to my attention that night by one of our alumni and the situation was changed the next morning." He further noted that "we recently widened the amount of space allowed the colored people, so much so that at the last concert, in May, hundreds of white people overflowed into the colored section, mingling indiscriminately with the colored people." Shortly after Du Bois's speech, Fisk trustees drafted a formal letter vigorously supporting the policies McKenzie pursued at Fisk." However, Fisk trustee William DeBerry, the Black leader of St. John's Congregational Church in Springfield, Massachusetts, one of the largest Black Congregational churches in the United States, refused to sign the letter. DeBerry told Wood, "I must confess that I share to some extent with many others of the Fisk alumni in a grave anxiety and fear as to the ultimate outcome of what they consider an ultra conciliatory attitude on the part of Dr. McKenzie toward southern sentiment as regards the Negro problem." "I do not agree with Dr. Du Bois in all he is reported to have said in his recent address at Fisk, nor do I approve of the maneuver in which attack on Dr. McKenzie was made."

Although Du Bois's speech was well received by most students and alumni in attendance, it angered many alumni, parents of current students and leading Nashville Blacks who disagreed with his assertions. One alumnus, the mother of a graduating senior, took the podium almost immediately after Du Bois, and, "without mentioning him Du Bois or his talk, expressed herself in exactly the opposite point of view." A 1924 Fisk alumnus declared that he was "heartily opposed to Dr. Du Bois" and considered "his attack upon Dr. McKenzie as a cunning and hellish attempt at self-aggrandizement spurred on by his inherent bent for the precipitation of a crisis." Mrs. Booker T. Washington, a graduate of Fisk who closely followed the school's developments, strongly criticized Du Bois's remarks, calling him a "radical" and asserting he "is not always careful of what he says, and when he says it." To demonstrate continued Black support, McKenzie published a pamphlet "Letters and Telegrams from Parents of Fisk Students, Alumni, Students and Friends-at-Large Together with Certain Statements Relative to the Recent Disturbances at Fisk University February 4, 1925" containing over 75 reprinted letters from primarily parents and alumni critical of Du Bois and supporting his administration. The pamphlet indicated that all the letters were from Blacks.

Du Bois's campaign

After his call for a boycott on June 2, 1925, Du Bois pursued his challenge to Fisk and McKenzie through his editorials in The Crisis, the official magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and in Black newspapers across the country. In the fall of 1924, Du Bois embarked upon a lecture tour speaking to Fisk alumni clubs throughout the nation. He also contacted Fisk students, faculty, and alumni as part of an effort to collect evidence and examples of a paternalistic and authoritarian Fisk administration in sympathy with White Southern interests. Soon Du Bois targeted McKenzie. In late 1924, Du Bois wrote of McKenzie's appointment as President in The Crisis: "I knew him. I called him friend. I saw in him a new type of young, scientific philanthropist come to help and re-establish training among Negroes." In early 1925, Du Bois resurrected the Fisk Herald, the former Fisk student newspaper. As a former editor of the Herald in the 1880s, Du Bois had a special affection for the newspaper. For many Fisk alumni, the Fisk Herald was an important symbol of literary freedom. Du Bois published the paper out of his office in New York City, and proclaimed in the inaugural issue, "Unless McKenzie is removed from Fisk, I intend to publish every word of evidence I hold to prove he is unfit and a detriment to the cause of higher education for our race." When the McKenzie arrived on campus in 1915, he was informed that the Fisk Herald was so deeply in debt that it could not proceed. McKenzie outlined his plan for the merger in the Fisk News and declared the News would assume the existing debt of the Herald if two hundred undergraduates subscribed to the News at an annual cost of 50 cents. The combined publication would feature a regular "Student Department" under editorial management of the old Herald board. McKenzie also asked alumni if they wished the publication sent to them "entirely without charge, or do they prefer to subscribe to it?" In a strategy to raise funds, if not sympathy over the cost of publishing and mailing the News, McKenzie suggested if the "Alumni would like to create a Living Endowment Fund by subscribing two dollars or more per year to such a fund," they would receive the Herald "free of extra charge." Unable to raise money endowment from students or alumni, he decided to suspend the Herald, and merge it with Fisk's alumni publication, the Fisk University News. Du Bois and some contemporary scholars cite McKenzie's decision as an example of his desire to suppress student criticism.

Student protests and boycott

On October 22, 1924, a group of Fisk students provided the Board of Trustees a list of grievances against McKenzie, culminating with the call "for the severing of Fayette McKenzie from the presidency of Fisk and for a system of alumni representation on the board of trustees." The students charged McKenzie with deception and "making every effort to increase the power and influences of the White South at Fisk and catering to southern white prejudices." They also charged McKenzie of "unjust and unreasonable" discipline and suppression of student initiative and opinion On November 11, 1924, Fisk students caused minor disturbances on campus, disrupting chapel by dropping their books on the floor, and shouting "Du Bois!" throughout the campus. That evening the disturbance grew in intensity as students littered dormitory hallways with trash, destroyed property, and created sufficient noise that it was heard several blocks from campus. After two hours of student protest, Professor Talley, a Black faculty member, appealed for calm, and the students soon went to bed. The following day, rumors swirled about students' "intention of systematic destruction." When informed of the rumors, Dr. Jefferson, another Black faculty member, visited the boys dormitory, and "by his mere presence brought instant and continuous order and quiet." At a meeting of faculty and administrators to discuss the situation, some felt that stronger authority was needed to deal with the issue. The campus calm was short lived. When the Board of Trustees arrived in Nashville in late November 1924 for its regular meeting, the trustees witnessed a demonstration of nearly one hundred students beating tin pans and chanting "Away with the czar!" and "Down with the tyrant!" As part of the board meeting, McKenzie invited the senior class and a committee of students to present their grievances. George W. Streator, leader of the student committee, presented the trustees with a statement containing eleven points, a more comprehensive document than the list of grievances the students submitted to the board the previous month. The revised version included several new requests, including implementing an athletic association, Greek letter societies, and a student newspaper. Although the trustees met with the students and promised to evaluate their concerns, they not surprisingly dismissed most student demands, although McKenzie did loosen the dress code slightly. To address the unrest, the trustees formed The Greater Fisk Committee to help provide leadership in mobilizing alumni support for the University. In addition to several Fisk alumni, the Committee consisted of McKenzie and three trustees: Kate Trawick, J.C. Napier (a Fisk alumnus) and L. Hollingsworth Wood.

In December 1924, there were minor student disturbances including students beating on garbage cans and cheering Du Bois, the situation took a turn for the worse. On February 4, 1925, after returning from meeting with the trustees in New York regarding student demands, McKenzie addressed the student body in morning chapel and appealed for their cooperation in adhering to University policies. At the end of his speech, McKenzie stated that "no changes so far had been made in the regulations affecting our code of conduct on the campus," and he asked that students abide by rules "to which every honest person subscribes, not only in writing, but also in his heart when he accepts the privileges of the institution." Finally, "from the heart," he appealed for cooperation in regard to the conduct of the campus." McKenzie's chapel address failed to calm the restless student body. That evening, more than 100 male students ignored the 10 p.m. curfew to protest, yell, and sing. Windows were smashed, furniture destroyed, and the students warned faculty and administrators not to quell the disturbance. According to Dora Scribner, Dean of Women, "the disorderly students overturned chapel seats, broke windows, all while chanting "Du Bois!" and other slogans. Alarmed at the protest, and mindful of the students' warning about faculty and staff intervention, McKenzie called in the Nashville police to quell the disturbance. When the police arrived, McKenzie furnished them with names of several students who he believed organized the protest. The accused students were arrested and charged with inciting to riot. On February 5, 1925, students walked out of classes. Cheered by Du Bois, and aided by members of Nashville's Black community and several Fisk alumni, the boycott lasted for ten weeks. Over 100 college students and a handful of Fisk's secondary students left campus, with many of them returning home or applying for transfer to other institutions.

There were differing accounts of the events of February 4. McKenzie claims that when the police arrived the boys were approaching Jubilee Hall in an attempt to involve the girls into the matter, and five boys were arrested. Du Bois asserted the boys had disbanded and were sleeping when the police arrived and that six boys were arrested. Black leaders and the national Black press castigated McKenzie for bringing in White officers, suggesting it was a "stupid move," and satirically declaring, "Mac, you went crazy!" A few days after the disturbance, more than 2,000 people attended a mass meeting organized by the Nashville Negro Board of Trade to discuss the matter. A committee appointed by the group submitted to Fisk's trustees a resolution containing five recommendations. In the aftermath of the disturbance McKenzie was questioned about his possible affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan. He stated that he was not a member of the KKK and was opposed to the organization. He also declared that he "refused the assistance of the Klan in the present disturbance."

Greater Fisk Committee

On February 16 and 17, 1925, in conjunction with Fisk's board of trustees meeting, the Greater Fisk Committee convened to further examine details of the uprising. After calling the meeting to order, McKenzie offered a few brief remarks and then withdrew to allow the Committee freedom in its discussion. The Committee first established a sub-committee to explore alumni representation on the board, and the remainder of the meeting focused on student and alumni dissatisfaction over the previous nine months, with a focus on the recent student disturbance. The Committee listened to statements from McKenzie, Fisk faculty, students, and alumni, White and Black citizens of Nashville, and representatives from Fisk alumni associations throughout the country, and also acknowledged receipt of several letters from Fisk constituencies across the country, many of which supported McKenzie. The Committee found "a considerable divergence of opinion" regarding the facts and conclusions about the student uprising, but agreed that "for a considerable period there had been unrest at Fisk." Not surprisingly, White Nashvillians felt that McKenzie "handled the situation wisely and commanded their respect and admiration." Several witnesses suggested that McKenzie had lost the confidence of Blacks in Nashville and throughout the country. Even those who approved of McKenzie's policies and his actions on February 4 admitted that it would be difficult "to restore the confidence of considerable groups in Dr. McKenzie and his administration."

The task of formally investigating student and alumni complaints fell to L. Hollingsworth Wood, Vice-Chair of Fisk's board of trustees, and chief spokesman for the trustees. Du Bois criticized Wood in articles in The Crisis, accusing him of ignoring evidence of McKenzie's "incompetency" and suggesting that Wood advised the Greater Fisk Committee "to keep silent." Wood reported, "Our colored friends do not quite realize what they demand of a person in McKenzie's position and of his wife and children." "I am sure if I took the presidency of Fisk and played golf or hunted or danced or dined with the cultured whites of Nashville that but few of my many Negro friends would keep unshaken faith in me, and many would attribute sinister motives to perfectly innocent actions on my part." Wood sympathized with some of the students' demands, noting their irritation over "some rather antiquated regulations as to dress and discipline," and conceding that "President's McKenzie's Scotch nature is a bit unbending." Wood responded to accusations that Fisk was at the mercy of Southern interests, declaring, "that there has been anything even distantly resembling ‘Selling out to the South' is utterly preposterous. Wood praised McKenzie in gaining the good will of the citizens of Nashville, Vanderbilt and Peabody Colleges, but this ‘keeping-the-Negro-in-his-place" cry is utterly unfounded."

During summer 1924, Wood frequently corresponded and met with Du Bois and others critical of McKenzie's administration to address their grievances with Fisk and explore amicable solutions. In late 1924, McKenzie sensed board support waning for his administration and privately acknowledged his ability to govern Fisk was permanently impaired. The student boycott had sapped energy from the campus not to mention tuition revenue from striking students, and all indications suggested it would continue until McKenzie resigned. According to figures provided by the Dean James Graham, who opposed many of McKenzie's policies, 217 of Fisk's 387 students withdrew as part of the boycott.

After reviewing the evidence, the Committee, prepared a report concluding, "there is no race issue involved in the present difficulties at Fisk University." The report recommended that "some method of alumni representation on the Board of the Trustees be developed and greater efforts be made to enlist interest and support of the alumni of Fisk"," and "the policies of the University in accordance with student life and activities be brought to conform to a more generous appreciation of this tendency in our modern life." The report noted, "The strain upon the health and nervous force of President McKenzie had been very great; that he had been forced to act in positions of great difficulty and delicacy and that, whether or not his actions had been at all times wise, they had always been sincerely taken and in conformity with devotion to educational ideals as he saw them." Finally, the report recommended a change in administration for the 1925 academic year. On April 16, 1925, McKenzie forwarded his resignation as President of Fisk University to Paul Cravath, noting, "I have given perhaps the best ten years of my life to Fisk during one of the most difficult decades in the history of the world," and "I shall always have a deep interest in the success of the institution which I have so long served." On April 25, 1925, the Committee's report was presented to Fisk's Board of Trustees.

Aftermath

The protests and boycott at Fisk had repercussions on other Black campuses. Shortly after McKenzie departed Fisk in 1925, students at Howard University went on strike to protest, among other things, compulsory chapel attendance. The protest led to the resignation of Howard's White president, J. Stanley Durkee, amidst accusations of such things as "arbitrary and dictatorial policy and manner supported by a system of espionage and intimidation," "violently mishandling of faculty," and "an open affront and insult to race-pride and respect." On June 26, 1926, just one year after McKenzie departed Fisk, Dr. Mordecai Wyatt Johnson was named Howard University's first Black president.

The Fisk Board of Trustees was slow to pick the school's next president and discussed finding a replacement of sufficient administrative ability who could effectively balance White and Black interests. Thomas Jesse Jones favored a Black faculty from President on down," and proposed that W.T.B. Williams, a Dean at Tuskegee, be named as Fisk's new President. Williams was a graduate of the Hampton Institute and Harvard University, and a former field agent for the Jeanes and Slater Funds, foundations who funded black schools in the South. At the time of Jones's letter, Williams was a Dean at Tuskegee. On February 18, 1926, the Fisk board announced the selection of Thomas Elsa Jones, a sociologist and President of Earlham College, the university's fifth president, and who thereafter served for twenty years from 1926 to 1946. However, controversy over his appointment ensued immediately in the press. Just one day following the announcement, trustee Paul D. Cravath, in a letter to the editor of the New York Times, attempted to dispel claims "indicating there was a preference by the students and alumni for a negro president." Maintaining that, "no race issue was involved" in the student protest of previous years, Cravath asserted, "students and alumni shall agree that Fisk shall continue its tradition of a white president and a mixed negro and white faculty." Dubbed "The Last Missionary", Jones set out to meet some student and alumni demands. In June 1926, the Board of Trustees' decided to permanently reserve three of its seats for Fisk alumni. At Jones' urging, the ban on the establishment of Black fraternities and sororities was also removed. Student activists who were expelled for their defiance were readmitted. In 1927, the student government was reinstated and the Fisk News established as an alumni publication.

In 1931, Fisk became first Black college to receive accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Despite student dissatisfaction and protest over campus regulations in the early to-mid 1920s, policies and discipline on Black campuses changed little over the next 10 years. In 1932, seven years after McKenzie's departure from Fisk, Langston Hughes spent nine months visiting more than fifty Black schools and colleges across the United States and came away alarmed at the lack of personal freedom on most campuses. Hughes lamented, "To set foot on dozens of Negro campuses is like going back to mid-Victorian England, or Massachusetts in the days of the witch-burning Puritans."

Northern foundations continued to support Fisk, and between 1923 and 1937, grants almost quadrupled. In 1932, Du Bois was selected by the General Education Board, the Phelps-Stokes Fund and the Carnegie Corporation to be the managing editor for a proposed Encyclopedia of the Negro, a work Du Bois had been contemplating for 30 years. However, in 1938, after six years of planning and organizing, the philanthropies cancelled the project concluding that Du Bois was too biased to produce an objective encyclopedia.

The Meriam Report of 1928

In 1923, in the wake of intense political pressure to reverse the policy of the Dawes Act, Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work invited an eminent group of Americans to form the "Advisory Council on Indian Affairs", which became known as the select "Committee of One Hundred", to review and advise on Indian policy. McKenzie was appointed to the Committee along with Bernard M. Baruch, Nicholas Murray Butler, William Jennings Bryan, David Starr Jordan, Gen. John J. Pershing, Mark Sullivan, Roy Lyman Wilbur, William Allen White and Oswald Garrison Villard. Also included were John Collier of the American Indian Defense Association, M.K. Sniffen of the Indian Rights Association.

On June 2, 1926, upon recommendations by the Committee, the Phelps-Stokes Fund, through McKenzie's longtime friend and colleague Thomas Jesse Jones, granted $5,000 the Institute for Government Research (now the Brookings Institution) to conduct a two-year study of the overall condition of Indians in the United States. John Rockefeller, Jr. provided primary financial underwriting for that program. As technical director of the project, Lewis Meriam gathered a team of nine specialists from a variety of disciplines, with Fayette Avery McKenzie, professor of sociology and dean of men at Juniata College, as specialist in existing material related to Indians; Henry Roe Cloud president of the American Indian Institute in Wichita, Kansas, as the Indian adviser. Also included were Edward Everett Dale, head of the history department, University of Oklahoma; Emma Duke, specialist in health, Washington, D.C.; Herbert R. Edwards, medical field secretary of the National Tuberculosis Association; W. Carson Ryan, Jr., professor of education, Swarthmore College; Mary Louise Mark, professor of sociology, Ohio State University; Ray A. Brown, assistant professor of law, University of Wisconsin; and William J. Spellman, agricultural economist, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Study committees included legal issues, general economic conditions, health, conditions of Indian migrants to urban communities, family life and activities of women, education, and agriculture. While the Institute made it a rule not to select employees or former employees of the Indian Service, they made an exception in McKenzie's case, concluding that his early work on the Wind River Indian Reservation "was not regarded as a barrier." During 1926 and 1927, McKenzie was sent by the Brookings Institution with an Indian staff to study the problems on various reservations.

On February 21, 1928, The Problem of Indian Administration, an 872-page document known as the Meriam Report, for Lewis Meriam, its technical director, was published by Johns Hopkins Press. The report received wide acclaim as the most comprehensive survey of American Indians ever conducted. McKenzie's influence as Specialist in Existing Material Related to Indians was significant, and along with Henry Roe Cloud as Indian Advisor, and Technical Director Lewis Meriam, served on all the committees and co-authored the final report. The Meriam Report revealed the failures of federal Indian policies and how they had contributed to severe problems with Indian education, health, and poverty. The Report marked an ideological shift in American Indian policy, calling for a restoration of self-government and communal land to tribes and a reversal of long-standing U.S. government laws to eliminate Indian reservations. Acting upon the emergency recommendations of the Meriam Report, President Herbert Hoover directed Commissioner Charles J. Rhoads of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to prepare a reform package for improved medical facilities, adequate food and clothing and the closure of unpopular reservation boarding schools. On June 18, 1934, within five years of the Meriam Report, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Indian Reorganization Act, restoring self-government and communal land to tribes and reversing long-standing U.S. government laws to eliminate Indian reservations. Popularly known as the Indian New Deal, the initiative was administered by progressive John Collier, Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1933 to 1945.

Return to Juniata College

After McKenzie's resignation as President of Fisk on April 10, 1925, he rejoined the faculty of Juniata College as Professor of Sociology. Former Pennsylvania Governor Martin Grove Brumbaugh and friend assumed the Presidency of Juniata in 1924. Brumbaugh was also an educator who undertook challenging posts to uplift marginalized minorities, He implemented an American-style educational system in Puerto Rico, and held lecturer positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. In 1906, Brumbaugh became superintendent of the Philadelphia Public Schools and gained statewide recognition for his performance in this role. Upon McKenzie's return with his family to Juniata, Brumbaugh immediately granted McKenzie a six-month leave of absence, and Fayette traveled in France with his wife and two daughters. In Spring 1926, McKenzie returned to teach, and thereafter served in various capacities as Dean of Men and Director of Extension Services at the Altoona Center, in Altoona, Pennsylvania, which later became part of the Extension System of Pennsylvania State University In 1931, McKenzie was named Director of the Community Center of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. After retiring from Juniata College in 1941, McKenzie continued his advocacy for marginalized groups. During World War II, McKenzie wrote Pennsylvania Senator James J. Davis that the U.S. Congress "could well afford to set up a commission to deal solely with the task of bringing aid to the Jews of Europe," and that "restrictions on immigration of Jews to the United States should be lifted." A few years later he wrote Pennsylvania Governor Edward Martin seeking commutation of woman on death row who had the mentality of an eight-year-old child. McKenzie wrote that "executing her would be contrary to ethical and legal principles." In June 1954, Professor emeritus McKenzie was awarded a certificate for "distinguished service to adult education in Pennsylvania", the first presentation of such an award in the state. On September 1, 1957, Fayette Avery McKenzie died at the age of 85 in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. McKenzie was survived his two daughters Mrs. William H. (Mary) Ross and Mrs. Harry E. (Margaret) Houser, and his wife Nettie Evelyn Tressel McKenzie, who died in 1969. In 1960, McKenzie's papers were donated to the Tennessee State Library and Archives

New Left scholarship

McKenzie is a controversial figure among some historians. Although McKenzie's personal attitudes on student conduct and discipline transcended race, his beliefs provided an easy target for critics who perceived his policies with racist motivations. During the 1960s, both White and Black historians characterized Northern philanthropy in Black higher education as motivated primarily by benevolence in supporting Black uplift and stimulating awareness of Black educational needs among state and local governments in the South. However, near the end of the 1960s a new explanation began to emerge. New Left scholars, mirroring Du Bois's commencement speech of June 2, 1925, saw in Northern philanthropy more sinister interests, including a desire to restrain Black uplift, exploit Black labor for economic gain and perpetuate the prevailing racial hierarchy and mechanisms in the South. Scholars exploring McKenzie's tenure at Fisk observed his administration almost exclusively through the lens of the 1924-25 student protests and strike, and characterized McKenzie running Fisk "like a plantation" with a desire to keep Blacks "in their place." However, far from the sinister motives attributed to them, McKenzie, the Board of Trustees and Northern foundations believed that incremental actions would over time naturally lead to Black uplift and advancement, and they approached the problem with a distinct long-term orientation. Insufficiently militant to satisfy progressive Blacks, and far too progressive for conservative Southern Whites, McKenzie focused his attention on those groups with whom he could effectively engage, liberal leaning Whites in the North and South, and Blacks who sought racial cooperation through cooperation and conciliation. With a growing sense of urgency fueled by increasing self-determination, Blacks sought more immediate solutions for perceived acts of oppression, and they resented McKenzie's methodical approach. Fisk historian Joe Richardson chronicled that McKenzie was "sincere and courageous" in his approach to race relations, but was "not sufficiently militant" to satisfy Fisk students and alumni.

Legacy

McKenzie was one of the most prominent educators of the American Progressive Era, the 1890s through the 1920s, and devoted his professional life to the uplift American Indians and Blacks in the United States. McKenzie was the first American sociologist to specialize in Indian affairs and an influential expert on government Indian policy. McKenzie was a founder of the Society of American Indians (1911), the nation's first Pan-Indian organization run by Indians for Indians; a member of President Calvin Coolidge's Advisory Council on Indian Affairs "Committee of One Hundred" (1923), and an author of the Brookings Institution Meriam Report (1928), marking the ideological shift in American Indian policy to restore of tribal self-government and communal lands. McKenzie's tenure as President of Fisk University from 1915 to 1925, before and after World War I, was during a period of social, racial and political turbulence in American history. In spite of many challenges, McKenzie developed Fisk as the premier all Black university in the United States, secured Fisk's academic recognition as a standard college by the Carnegie Foundation, Columbia University and the University of Chicago, raised a $1 million endowment fund to ensure quality faculty and laid a foundation for Fisk's accreditation and future success. In 1949, 25 years after departing Fisk, McKenzie lamented the slow pace of Black advancement in a letter to Charles S. Johnson, Fisk's first Black President. After praising Johnson for a statement he made on "contemporary gains in race relations," McKenzie wrote "much remains to be done on both sides to increase mutual appreciation. Human evolution is a slow process."

Society of American Indians 100th Year Symposium at Ohio State University

In 2011, the American Indian Studies Program (AIS) of the Ohio State University celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society of American Indians. Scholars from around the country attended Columbus Day weekend. Keynote addresses were delivered prominent American Indian scholars Philip J. Deloria (University of Michigan), K. Tsianina Lomawaima (University of Arizona) and Robert Warrior (University of Illinois) In keeping with the tradition of the Society's first national meeting, the symposium included a trip to the Newark Earthworks in Newark and Heath, Ohio. Built by the indigenous people of the Americas, the Newark Earthworks is 2,000 years old and served as a place of ceremony, astronomical observation, social gathering, trade and worship.