Robert T. Kerlin

Robert Thomas Kerlin (March 22, 1866 – February 21, 1950) was an American educator, minister, and civil rights activist. He authored several books and edited the 1920 anthology The Voice of the Negro and the 1923 poetry anthology Negro Poets and Their Poems. Kerlin taught English at several schools, and was fired from three in a row for his activism.

Early and personal life Robert Thomas Kerlin was born on March 22, 1866, to John Lindsay Kerlin and Nancy Jeffries Kerlin in Newcastle, Missouri. Kerlin first received higher education at Central College in Missouri. He then attended Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University He was a Quaker. Kerlin married Adeline Koster Kerlin. They had three daughters. an anthology of writings from African-American newspapers centering around the Red Summer. When World War I ended Kerlin taught at the American Expeditionary Forces University.

After he was fired from Virginia, Kerlin found employment as a lecturer He was hired to teach at Potomac State College in West Virginia. He was eventually forced to retire, Contemporary Poetry of the Negro (1921, editor) Negro Poets and Their Poems'' (1923, editor)