George Edmund Haynes

George Edmund Haynes (May 11, 1880 – January 8, 1960) was an American sociology scholar and federal civil servant, a co-founder and first executive director of the National Urban League, serving 1911 to 1918. A graduate of Fisk University, he earned a master's degree at Yale University, and was the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from Columbia University, where he completed one in sociology.

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, he moved with his mother and sister to New York City in the Great Migration, and lived and worked from there for most of his life. During the Woodrow Wilson administration, Haynes was appointed in 1918 as director of the newly established Division of Negro Economics in the Department of Labor, as part of an effort by the Democratic administration to build support from blacks for the war effort. They had been disfranchised by Democratic-dominated state governments across the South around the turn of the 20th century, so millions were without political representation.

Haynes was one of the first analysts to write about black labor economics, and later founded the Social Sciences Department of Fisk University. He was a professor there for much of his career.

Marriage While traveling in the South and studying migration and the colleges during the summers, he met and married Elizabeth Ross. She was conducting similar studies of African-American women.

Career After completing his master's, Haynes served as secretary to the Colored Men's Department of the International Committee of the YMCA. During this period, he visited historically Black colleges, which had primarily been founded in the southern states since the Civil War. He worked to encourage students in academic success and helped the colleges to set high academic standards, in a period in which there was tension in African-American goals for seeking vocational or classical academic education. From his interest in education, Haynes established the Association of Negro Colleges and Secondary Schools, serving as secretary of that organization from 1910 to 1918. With Wilson, Haynes developed a three-part program: The House passed the bill but the Senate, dominated by Solid South Democrats, refused to act on it.

Haynes served as the executive secretary of the Department of Race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches from 1921 to 1947.