Channing Heggie Tobias

Channing Heggie Tobias (February 1, 1882 in Augusta, Georgia – November 5, 1961 in Manhattan, NY) was a civil rights activist and 1948 Spingarn Medalist.

Tobias was orphaned young, brought up by a widowed friend of his mother's. From 1911 to 1946 he was active in the YMCA and race-related issues involving it. While chairman of the committee on race relations for the 1937 YMCA World Conference in India he met Mahatma Gandhi.

In 1945, Tobias participated in the development of the New York State Fair Employment Law, and the following year he became director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund. He was the first African-American awarded an honorary degree from New York University, and received honorary degrees from the Theological Institute (Georgia), Morehouse College, the Jewish Institute of Religion, and the New School for Social Research.

Literature Autobiographical essay in Finkelstein, L. (ed.) Thirteen Americans: Their Spiritual Autobiographies, Institute for Religious and Social Science, 1953, pp. 177–200 BlackPast.org entry

Web sources