Yvonne Seon

Yvonne Seon (née Reed, formerly Chappelle; born December 20, 1937) is an American professor, university administrator, and Unitarian Universalist minister. She specializes in African studies, African American studies, and government administration. She was an administrative officer in the government of Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and also worked in the U.S. federal government. She then worked as a university administrator and founded a Black Studies Center at Wright State University, and helped to design one of the first doctoral programs in Black Studies in the United States. In 1981 Seon became the first African American woman to be ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Early life and education Seon was born Yvonne Reed, and graduated from Allegheny College with a bachelor's degree in 1959. She then received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to attend American University, where she studied American government, political science, and French, earning a master's degree. She left this position in 1971 to become the founding director of the Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center at Wright State University. This was one of the earliest Black Studies PhD programs in the United States, and while a student in the program, Seon also helped to establish and design it. This made her the first African American woman to be a Unitarian Universalist minister.

After completing her PhD in African American studies, Seon became a professor in the history department of Prince George's Community College.

Selected awards African Scientific Institute award