Vivian Wilson Henderson papers

Vivian Wilson Henderson would be uncomfortable in any assigned category which implied restrictions on his wide-ranging interests regarding human possibility and human need. Whatever seemed to be of critical significance to the development of the human imprimatur seemed a priori to be of critical interest to him. In consequence, in the brief greening of his professional and personal experiences he managed to involve himself in an extraordinary spectrum of significant endeavors ranging from economics, to college teaching, to civil rights, to college administration, to community and national service, to responsible lay commitment to the United Methodist Church, and to inter-group religious understanding. Still he found time to serve as a non-commissioned officer in the armed forces of his country during World War II.

The richness of the Henderson Papers is of course reflected in the extensive reaches of his multi-faceted service. Born in Bristol, Tennessee in 1923, Dr. Henderson received his baccalaureate degree from (what is now) North Carolina Central University, one of the historic black colleges he was later to consider so vital to African American development and uplift. His entire teaching career, save for an occasional visiting professorship, was spent at black colleges, no doubt affording the in-depth accumulation of knowledge and expertise which made him such an effective champion of the right, the reason, and the necessity for their continued existence.

Vivian Henderson taught at Fisk University from 1952 until 1965 and it was there that his developing insights into the brutalizing consequences of the interplay of economics, education and racial identity made it clear that economics was at the center of our racial problems. There was of course a moral dimension and there was a political dimension, but beneath all else were deeply entrenched economic factors which would have to be effectively dealt with before a permanent solution to the problem could be anticipated. Two essays, "The Economic Imbalance" (Journal of Negro Education, Winter, 1961), and "Economic Dimensions in Race Relations" (Race Relations, Problems and Theory. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1961), presaged his lifelong efforts to illustrate the malevolent interplay among racism, economics, and education to the detriment of the black estate and the national interest.

It was also at Fisk that the young economist became one of an informal coterie of individuals whose insights and expertise made them a kind of statesmen for the emergent civil rights movement. Others in the group included Herman Long, Director of the Race Relations Institute, psychologist Kenneth Clark, Thurgood Marshall, NAACP Council, and others whose names now gild the lg of struggle for full African American civil and political freedom. Indeed, Fisk's Race Relations Department first directed by Dr. Herman Long, and then Dr. Henderson (1964-65), after Long became president of Talledega, had already become a sort of civil rights "think tank" before the Civil Rights Movement was formally recognized for what it was. The movement was in fact a grass roots determination among African American men and women to be treated as normative American Citizens, and to that struggle Vivian Henderson gave intensive leadership, research support, personal commitment, council and advice as long as he was alive.

In the meantime, Henderson's reputation as a scholar grew apace. When he went to North Carolina State University as a Visiting Professor (1962-64), such an invitation to a black professor from a southern white university was rare, if not unprecedented. Similarly, his essays which appeared in 1971 and 1974 in Daedalus, the very prestigious journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences came at a time when a total black membership in that organization was still considerably less than a lonely crowd. Professor Henderson's recognition as a scholar was matched only by his reputation as a teacher "who could make numbers talk," or offer a dimension to conventional debate which often ushered in critical perspectives which reshaped the realities of the discourse. It is possible that his reputation for critical and independent insight contributed significantly to his great demand on boards and committees charges with decisions of crucial significance. Dr. Henderson served on dozens of committees, advisory boards, and task forces appointed by the president of the United States, agencies of state and local government, national academic organizations, civil rights and social agencies. He was also a trustee for several major colleges and universities, and his critical reading of economic theory and practice made him a working member of the boards of several corporations ranging from the Benedix Corporation to the Ford Foundation.

Despite his vast commitment to his profession and the awesome demands of his secular human uplift, Vivian Henderson always carried along in tandem his commitment to the church and organized religion. A birthright member of the United Methodist Church, he served that church and others with the same vigor and involvement that he expended on the college campus, in the corporate boardroom, or giving counsel and advice to the many groups of freedom fighters whose cause was his own. He served on the University Senate of the United Methodist Church, and was president of that body at the time of his death in 1976. He was also a consultant to the Division of Higher Education, and a member of the Continuing Commission on Black Colleges of the United Methodist Church. In such posts his characteristic sound council reverberated in the policy-making counsels of the Methodist Church for all of the 106 colleges and universities affiliated with it.

Vivian Henderson became president of Clark College, one of United Methodist's 12 black colleges in 1963, bringing with him his wife Anna Powell, and their four children. He was 40 years old, and his appointment was fortuitous for the church, the institution, and for the increasingly uncertain agenda of black higher education in general. Clark was one of a consortium of 6 historically black colleges in the Atlanta University Center. But the winds of change in higher education were blowing--often at cross purposes with each other throughout America. The meaning of the desegregation of white colleges was in heated debate, and the kind of future, if any, for black colleges was far from clear. But if there were ever any doubts in President Henderson's mind about the educational needs of the American black contingent, and how those needs could best be met, those doubts do not appear in the records of his administration, nor in his public writings on that troublesome issues. African Americans, indeed all Americans had a vital stake in the black institutions which had nurtured and sustained them through the thicket of nothingness that came after slavery. They had helped to develop the cultural logo of African American identity which is a vital aspect of the African American heritage. For Dr. Henderson, black colleges were their own justification, and the proper American response to them was to invest in them and make them better, that they in turn might pay ever higher returns to the creative, cultural and economic wealth of America.

Vivian Wilson Henderson assumed the presidency of Clark with a personal commitment to move that institution steadily into the mainstream of modern education with new and improved facilities to match the new programs and new ideas on his agenda for change. He created new departments, initiated a new building program, and took to the hustings of American industry to find the financial support to pay for them. His dream was not so much to build a better black college as it was to build a better system to facilitate the preparation of African Americans for responsible participation in the rich challenge of American life. His dream was cut short by a heart attack on the 28th of January, 1976. Vivian Henderson was dead at 52.

Imagine trying to imagine what the world would be like if Vivian Henderson's life could have been extended. The mind boggles at such an assignment, but it is calmed by the confidence of the records: whatever attracted his wide ranging interest and commitment would be improved, embellished and in the common interest. Historian John Hope Franklin described Dr. Henderson as "exciting, exuberant, resourceful and indefatigable," The late Dr. Benjamin Mays, president of Morehouse College (one of the six colleges in the Atlanta University Center), when Henderson became president of Clark remembered his younger colleague as a friend of the poor and the underprivileged...and a spokesman who "proved that a man of integrity would speak his mind without offending." Vernon Jordan, Executive Director of the National Urban League said of Dr. Henderson who sat on his board for many years, and who worked with him in the civil rights movement: "He was determined to make things right for black people. He was always looking for ways to make the numbers say what the people and been trying to say with their feet."

So does the world Vivian Henderson challenged and illuminated so decisively in his brief interface with it honor his memory with the recollections of his greatness. But one stands out above all others: his daughter Kim, who was only 12 when he dies, accepts the accolades of his public adoration with the graciousness characteristic of the amn himself. Then she adds with true Henderson candor: "...but only four individuals have the honor of remembering him as a great father--my sister, my brothers, and myself."

There could be no finer tribute, nor one more well deserved. The memorabilia of the life and times of Vivian W. Henderson collected here must attest that factor, ultimately transcending all others. That is the way he would have wanted it to be.