In 1927 E. Franklin Frazier published “The Pathology of Race Prejudice.” The young scholar had completed the article three years earlier, but had trouble finding a home for the piece. The Atlantic Monthly had turned it down as well as had Survey Graphic, where he tried to place the piece as part of Alain Locke’s collection on The New Negro. He then turned his attention to academic journals, and while no one questioned the strength of the article, he again failed to find a willing publisher.
Finally, after years of trying, Frazier found sympathetic editors at the Forum, a popular periodical that addressed social policy, who published the piece in June of 1927.
Frazier’s article, which argued that White people of the South were driven mad by the “Negro-complex” and that the “abnormal behavior,” known as racism, had made “otherwise kind and law-abiding” individuals to “indulge in the most revolting forms of cruelty towards black people” was met with immediate anger. Frazier points out that “just as the lunatic seizes upon every fact to support his delusional system, the white man seizes upon myths and unfound rumors to support his delusion about the Negro.” He believed that southern Whites put “certain questions beyond discussion” and if pressed would “rather fight than argue.” Finally, Frazier believed that the manifestations of race prejudice found throughout the South demonstrated a “pathological nature.”
Within a week of the article’s publication, the conservative Atlanta newspaper, the Constitution, condemned Frazier and declared that he was “more insane by reason of his anti-white complex than any southerner obsessed by his anti-negro repulsions.” With the backlash came frightening phone calls to the house and eventually the threat to lynch Frazier for his words and accusations. Ultimately, the Fraziers, who were leaving Atlanta for Franklin to finish his doctorate at the University of Chicago, left the city a bit faster than expected, and per his wife, Marie Brown Frazier, with a .45 tucked in Franklin’s belt. This move was predicated even more by the fact that Morehouse College’s Board of Trustees decided not to renew Frazier’s contract, as the Baltimore Afro-American explained, his “ideas on race equality went too far.”
FrFrazier would eventually finish his Ph.D. and be hired at Fisk University and then Howard University, but the experience of being attacked for his analysis of America’s racial climate never left him. Moreover, Frazier’s experience of being criticized and threatened for writing honestly about race and or racism in America has been played out many times in the near century since he and his wife left Atlanta under the threat of mob violence.
Indeed, over the course of the past few years, and particularly in the last few months, these types of attacks on scholars who speak out on racism, sexism and other issues has increased. To highlight just a few instances: Tommy J. Curry, an associate professor of philosophy at Texas A&M, faced death threats after being accused of advocating violence during a 2012 podcast interview where he discussed, racial violence and the Tarantino film Django Unchained.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an assistant professor of African-American studies, cancelled speaking engagements after receiving death threats for her criticism of President Donald Trump during a commencement address. Johnny Eric Williams, an associate professor of sociology at Trinity College, also received death threats after individuals concluded that his use of a hashtag was advocating racial violence.
