Edward Franklin Frazier (1894-1962), one of America's leading sociologists, specialized in studies of black people in North and South America and in Africa. On September 24, 1894, E. Franklin Frazier was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He earned his bachelor of arts degree cum laude at Howard University in 1916. From 1916 to 1918 Frazier taught in secondary schools in Alabama, Virginia, and Maryland. In 1919 he began graduate studies at Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, receiving a master of arts degree in sociology in 1920. As a research fellow at the New York School of Social Work (1920-1921), Frazier studied longshoremen in New York City. In 1921-1922 he studied folk high schools in Denmark. From 1922 to 1924 Frazier was an instructor in sociology at Morehouse College, serving also as director of the Atlanta School of Social Work (1922-1927). He married Marie E. Brown in 1922.

Frazier's essay "The Pathology of Race Prejudice" in Forum (June 1927) drew an analogy...