In the January 1939 issue of Opportunity, editor Elmer A. Carter praised poet, dramatist, essayist, and lecturer Leslie Pinckney Hill for having given twenty-five years of "brilliant educational leadership" to the Cheyney Training School for Teachers and for having given "to the Negro of his community and of his country the benefit of a cultured mind, a dauntless spirit, far vision and lofty and unchanging faith in his future in America." This early assessment was even more appropriate in 1951 when Hill retired from an active career in scholarship and educational administration. He loved America and labored unceasingly in encouraging his fellow Americans to live up to the highest principles of freedom and equal justice.

Leslie Pinckney Hill was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, on 14 May 1880 to Samuel H. and Sarah E. Brown Hill. According to the Campbell County census of June 1880, Samuel Hill worked as a stationary engine operator and...