Fayette Avery McKenzie

Fayette Avery McKenzie (July 31, 1872–September 1, 1957) was an American educator and president of Fisk University from 1915 to 1925.

McKenzie enrolled in Lehigh University in 1891. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania during the summer of 1894. He graduated from Lehigh in 1895 with a Bachelors degree; he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. From 1900 to 1903, he attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied economics, history, and sociology. He earned a PhD from University of Pennsylvania in 1908. His dissertation, The American Indian in Relation to the White Population of the United States was published. invited six Native American intellectuals—professionals, activists, clergy, speakers, writers, and entertainers—to a meeting at Ohio State University in April 1911. There were also representatives of the offices of the National Office of Indian Affairs, Ohio governor, Columbus mayor, and the university. At that time, Native Americans were pushed out of tribal territories, having to manage "unrelenting waves of immigration, settlement and urbanizations, [and] technological change," according to Marti Chaatsmith, a Native American sociologist.

For the period between 1911 and 1923, SOI conducted annual conferences; networked with allies, critics, and reformers; lobbied the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA) and Congress; offered legal assistance to Native individuals; and published a journal. He died in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on September 1, 1957.