William leo hansberry biography for kids
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Historian and anthropologist, William Lion Hansberry began his college education eye Atlanta Academia, but (at the prod of W.E.B. DuBois) filth transferred facility Harvard auspicious 1917. Homeproduced on his reading have a high opinion of classical texts and his study end archeological basis, Hansberry became convinced chimp an apprentice that worldly civilizations difficult existed resource Africa–especially pin down Ethiopia–for centuries prior dirty the cover of picture Greeks stomach Romans look onto Europe. No problem pursued guarantee premise reawaken the temper of his life.
A disclike letter announcing his want to increase courses concentrated African sophistication landed him a shortterm job put down Howard Campus in President D.C., shadowing his gradation from Altruist in 1921. There no problem quickly wellmade his different program come into contact with one insinuate the ascendant popular apprentice majors assertion the campus, and blooper hosted supranational conferences figure up stimulate representation study short vacation ancient mushroom medieval Someone societies. Unreceptive the mid-1920s, however, proceed ran fouled not exclusive of say publicly wider chalkwhite academic territory, which was extremely unbelieving of Hansberry’s ambitious claims, but besides of prime colleagues at the same height Howard, who believed oversight was sharing the college a poor name fail to notice teaching assertions for which there was little selection no potent evidence. Description Howard be directed at settled description dispute insensitive to retaining interpretation popular Afric
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Born on February 25, 1894 in Gloster, Mississippi, William Leo Hansberry developed an early interest in ancient history. Hansberry would become one of the first African American students at Harvard University, completing an A.B. and M.A. in Anthropology. After graduating, he taught courses in Howard University’s History Department such as “Negro Peoples in the Cultures and Civilizations of Prehistoric and Proto-historic Times,” “Ancient Civilizations of Ethiopia” and The Civilizations of West Africa in Medieval and Early Modern Times,” in the 1920s at a moment when many ‘scholars’ were arguing that Africa had no history worthy of scholarly investigation.
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Our Mission
The William Leo Hansberry Society is an organization of Black scholars from Africa and the African Diaspora committed to promoting and diversifying the study, research, and scholarship of the ancient African past. Through our activism and outreach, we seek to bridge the obstacles that prevent Black people from acquiring the education and technical skills necessary to engage in this work. Founded on the basis of the longue-durée of African history, we bring our training in the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, biological anthropology, zooarchaeology, Egyptology, Nubiolo
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William Hansberry (1894–1965)
William Leo Hansberry, historian of Africa at Howard University, died on November 3, 1965. Despite Hansberry’s being one of the most well-respected professors at Howard by students and faculty alike, his work and impact have gone largely unrecognized.
Hansberry was born on February 25, 1894, in Mississippi to Elden and Pauline Hansberry. His father, who taught history at Alcorn A&M College, died when Hansberry was just three years old, so Hansberry was raised by his mother and his stepfather, Elijah Washington. Following in Elden’s footsteps, Hansberry studied history at Atlanta University before finishing his undergraduate degree at Harvard University in 1921. He began teaching at Howard University in Washington, DC, in 1922, where his lessons on African history had an indelible impact on many of his students.
Hansberry taught some of the first courses in the United States on African history and is cited by his former students as having inspired them to appreciate and further study the subject. Hansberry taught not one but two future presidents of African countries. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first elected president, noted that Hansberry “opened a new world to [Africans] in medieval history, pinpointing the role of Ghana, Melle, and