Nelson Fuson

Nelson Fuson (4 September 1913 – 5 February 2006) was an American physicist and longtime professor at Fisk University. Along with his wife, Marian Darnell Fuson, the Fusons were Quaker pacifists and active in the efforts of desegregation in the Nashville area during the Civil Rights Movement.

Early life and education Nelson Fuson was born on September 4, 1913, in Guangzhou, China. His parents, Chester and Phoebe Fuson, were American Presbyterian missionaries, and Fuson grew up between Guangzhou and Emporia, Kansas. He attended two years of high school at the Shanghai American School and completed his secondary education in Emporia.

Fuson attended the College of Emporia and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1934. He received his master's degree in physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas in 1935, and went on to complete a doctorate in physics at the University of Michigan. He completed his PhD in 1938, and his thesis was titled "The Far Infrared Absorption Spectrum and the Rotational Structure of the Heavy Water Vapor Molecule." His doctoral advisor was Harrison M. Randall, and he also studied under David M. Dennison.

Career

Civilian public service After receiving his PhD, Fuson worked for three years as an instructor at Rutgers University. When the United States entered World War II, he was drafted to military service, but as a conscientious objector and pacificist, worked in the Civilian Public Service (CPS). Beginning in 1941, Fuson began his service working under the American Friends Service Committee for the National Park Service in Patapsco, Maryland.

He then moved on to Largo, Indiana, in 1942, where he was training with the Church of the Brethren for a China Unit for humanitarian relief in Guangzhou. Later that year, he was sent to Columbia University as part of a joint civilian/military seminar in international administration. From there, in 1943 he joined the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia, living at the Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation, and training a new China humanitarian unit. There, he taught conversational Chinese, having learned the language while growing up in Guangzhou.

Academic career Following his release from the Civilian Public Service, the Fusons moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where Nelson Fuson worked from 1946 to 1948 at Johns Hopkins University, conducting research on infrared detectors. Between 1948 and 1949, Fuson worked as a professor at Howard University, in Washington, D.C.

In 1949, Fuson joined the faculty of Fisk University as an associate professor of physics, after being personally visited by Fisk president Charles S. Johnson. In 1964, they held a Latin American Fisk Infrared Institute in São Paulo, Brazil.

During his tenure at Fisk, Fuson took a sabbatical period between 1956 and 1959 to teach at the University of Bordeaux, France.

After the bombing of attorney Z. Alexander Looby's home by segregationists, the Fuson family helped raise money to help pay for the damages that resulted from the attack. Along with Fisk faculty including the historian August Meier, the Fusons were on the membership committee for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Despite their efforts and support of the faculty, however, Lorch was dismissed from Fisk in 1955.

Fisk graduate students in the infrared laboratory led by Fuson and James R. Lawson also were a major part of the integration of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society. They were also active in the Quaker community as founders of the Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and active in the AFSC International Seminar program and Friends General Conference.