George Edmund Haynes (1880 - 1960)

George Edmond Haynes was a social worker, educator, and cofounder and first executive director of the National Urban League. He was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., where he earned a B.A. In 1904, Haynes received an M.A. from Yale University. Later, while studying at the University of Chicago during the summers of 1906 and 1907, he became interested in social problems affecting Black migrants from the South. This interest led him to the New York School of Philanthropy, from which he graduated in 1910. Two years later he earned a PhD from Columbia University. Columbia University Press published his doctoral dissertation, The Negro at Work in New York City.

Within this period, Haynes also involved himself in the activities of the American Association for the Protection of Colored Women, the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York, and the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. He was instrumental in merging these groups into one organization, named the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes (ULUCAN), now known as the National Urban League, and served as its executive director from 1911 to 1918.

Earlier, while still a graduate student, Haynes had been secretary of the Colored Men's Department of the International Committee of the YMCA; during this time he visited Black colleges, and encouraged students to achieve scholastic excellence and to help Black colleges set high academic standards. He established the Association of Negro Colleges and Secondary Schools, and served as secretary of that organization from 1910 to 1918. Haynes also helped the New York School of Philanthropy and NLUCAN in collaborative planning that led to the establishment of the first social work training center for Black graduate students at Fisk College. He directed that center from 1910 to1918.

Haynes supervised field placements of Urban League fellows at the New York School, and was professor of economics and sociology at Fisk (University or College -- I don't know which it was at the time, but it should be noted here). On leave from Fisk from 1918 to 1921, he served as director of Negro economics for the United States Department of Labor. As special assistant to the secretary of labor, Haynes was involved in matters of racial conflict in employment, housing, and recreation.

He also continued his earlier studies of exclusion of Black workers from certain trade unions, interracial conditions in the workplace, and child labor. These studies resulted in numerous scholarly works, one of the most significant of which was The Negro at Work During the World War and During Reconstruction. This work's widespread and profound impact resulted in Haynes' appointment as a member of the President's Unemployment Conference in 1921.

In 1930, Haynes conducted a survey of the YMCA's work in South Africa ;, in 1947, he conducted a similar study of the organization's activities in other African nations. These efforts resulted in his being chosen as consultant on Africa by the World Committee of YMCAs. His book, Trend of the Races (1922), reflected his belief in the union of all people.

For the last nine years of his life -- before his death, in New York City — Dr. Haynes taught at the City College of New York and served as an officer of the American Committee on Africa.

NASW Press publication
African American Leadership, An Empowerment Tradition in Social Welfare History, Edited by Iris B. Carlton-LaNey