Alonzo G. Morón

Alonzo Graseano Morón (née Alonzo Graseano Brown; 1909–1971), was a Danish Virgin Islands-born American educator, university president, sociologist, and civil servant. He was the first Black president of the Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) a HBCU in Virginia, from 1949 to 1959; a former Commissioner of Education and of Welfare in the Virgin Islands; and a former deputy regional director of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Early life and education Alonzo Graseano Brown was born April 12, 1909, in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Danish Virgin Islands (now United States Virgin Islands). He and his sibling were primarily raised by their single mother, Caroline Louisa Brown.

He continued his studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he graduated with a B.A. degree (1932) in sociology and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While attending college, he changed his surname to his father's surname of Morón. In 1950, Wilberforce University awarded him an honorary law degree (L.L.D.).

Career The National Urban League provided Morón with a scholarship to study at the University of Pittsburgh, where he received a master's degree (1933) in social work. After graduation he worked as a case worker at the Baltimore's Emergency Relief Commission briefly, where he was the first Black employee. In 1936, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia to serve as the assistant administrator of the acting president Florence Read of Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University). they had rejected Morón's proposals for university fundraising, and the board had violated proper channels of administrative rule over grievances with faculty and students,

Death and legacy Morón died on October 31, 1971, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

He was the subject of the book, Civil Rights and Politics at Hampton Institute: The Legacy of Alonzo G. Moron (University of Illinois Press, 2007) by Hoda M. Zaki.