Two quick quotes from the brief biographical articles below about Brailsford R. Brazeal, an African American economics Ph.D. (Columbia, 1942), as amuse-bouche for this post.
“Dr. Brazeal conducted some of the research for his dissertation [on the Pullman sleeping car porters] by working as an assistant cook in the trains’ kitchens on the New York City line that traveled south.”
“It was Dr. Brazeal, who first recommended the young minister [Martin Luther King!] for acceptance at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. Dr. Brazeal wrote that King would mix well with the white race.” [The letter of recommendation]
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BRAILSFORD REESE BRAZEAL
b. Mar 8, 1903; d. Apr 22 1981
Ph.D., Columbia University, 1942.
TITLE OF DISSERTATION: “The Origin and Development of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.” (published: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946.
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BRAILSFORD BRAZEAL
A Man of Morehouse
Posted by Scott B. Thompsons, Sr.
When you think of Morehouse College, you think of tradition — a tradition of higher learning for African-American college students. When you go back seventy-five years, you think of a day unlike today when a mere few, the lucky few, had the opportunity to attend an institution of higher learning, much less one with the honorable tradition as Morehouse. For nearly four decades, one Laurens County native helped the school rise to the prominence it still retains today.
Brailsford Reese Brazeal was born in Dublin, Georgia on March 8, 1903. The son of the Rev. George Reese Brazeal and Walton Troup Brazeal, young Brailsford attended Georgia State College and Ballard Normal School in Macon. Late in his life Dr. Brazeal recalled that it was his Baptist preacher father’s guidance and teachings that kindled his imagination as to what was beyond his neighborhood. Brazeal recalled that his mother and his oldest aunt, Flora L. Troup pushed him to leave Dublin because he wouldn’t be able to obtain anything but an elementary education in Dublin. His uncle and namesake Brailsford Troup gave him a job during summers as a carpenter’s helper. Brazeal realized that the life of a laborer is not what he wanted and promised himself that he would do all that he could to break the barriers of race and segregation.
He completed his studies at Morehouse Academy, a high school, in 1923. While at Morehouse College, Brazeal came to know Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, who served as his debate coach in college and would later serve as President of Morehouse. After graduating from Morehouse in 1927, Brazeal continued his studies and obtained a master’s degree in Economics from the ultimately prestigious Columbia University in 1928.
Brazeal was immediately hired as a Professor of Economics by Dr. John Hope, his alma mater’s first black president. By 1934, Brazeal was chosen to chair the Department of Economics and Business. He was also selected to serve as the Dean of Men, a post which he held until 1936.
In his early years at Morehouse, Brailsford met and married Ernestine Erskine of Jackson, Mississippi. Mrs. Brazeal was a graduate of Spellman College in Atlanta. An educator in her own right, Mrs. Brazeal held a Master’s Degree in American History from the University of Chicago. She taught at Spelman and served for many years as the Alumni Secretary. To those who knew and loved her, Mrs. Brazeal was known to the be the superlative historian of Spelman History, though she never published the culmination of her vast knowledge.
The Brazeals were the parents of two daughters. Aurelia Brazeal is a career diplomat and has recently served as the United States Ambassador to Ethopia, Kenya and Micronesia. Ernestine Brazeal has long been an advocate for the Headstart Program.
The Brazeal home in Atlanta was often a home away from home for Morehouse students. Especially present were the freshmen who inhabited the home on weekends and after supper for the fellowship and guidance from the Brazeals. Among these students were the nation’s greatest civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maynard Jackson, the first black mayor of Atlanta. It was Dr. Brazeal, who first recommended the young minister for acceptance at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. Dr. Brazeal wrote that King would mix well with the white race. The Brazeal’s bought the four square home near Morehouse in 1940. Today, the home at 193 Ashby Street (now Joseph Lowery Boulevard) was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
Through scholarships, Brailsford Brazeal was named a Julius Rosenwald Fellow and in 1942, obtained his Ph. D. from Columbia University in economics. As a part of his doctoral dissertation, Dr. Brazeal wrote about the formation of the of one of the first labor unions for black workers. In 1946, Brazeal published his signature work The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. For decades, labor researchers often cited Brazeal’s writings in his landmark work and other papers and journal articles.
During the 1950s, Brazeal worked in voter registration movements. He wrote extensively about racial discrimination in voting, especially in his native state. He detailed many of the activities in his home county of Laurens. In his Studies of Negro Voting in Eight Rural Counties in Georgia and One in South Carolina, Brazeal examined and wrote of the efforts of H.H. Dudley and C.H. Harris to promote more black participation in voting in Laurens County. He chronicled the wars between the well entrenched county sheriff Carlus Gay and State Representative Herschel Lovett and their desire and competition for the black vote. He wrote of fair employment practices, desegregation of higher education, voter disfranchisement of black voters, voter registration, and many other civil rights matters.
The members of the National Association of College Deans elected Dr. Brazeal as their president in 1947. Brazeal a member of the Executive Committee of the American Conference of Academic Deans and as a vice-president of the American Baptist Educational Institutions.
During his career Dr. Brazeal was a member of the American Economic Association, the Academy of Political Science, the Southern Sociological Society, the Advisory Council of Academic Freedom Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, the N.A.A.C.P., the Twenty Seven Club, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Sigma Pi Phil, Delta Sigma Rho and the Friendship Baptist Church.
In 1967, Dr. Brazeal was inducted into the prestigious national honor society, Phi Beta Kappa as an alumni member of Delta Chapter of Columbia University. He organized a chapter at Morehouse, known to many as one of the “Ivy League” schools for African Americans.
Dr. Brazeal retired in 1972 after a career of more than forty years, many of which he served as Dean of the College. At the age of seventy eight he died in Atlanta on April 22, 1981. His body lies next to that of his wife, who died in 2002, in Southview Cemetery in Atlanta.
Source: Laurens County African American History (blog). Monday, February 3, 2014
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HE WAS A MOREHOUSE MAN:
THE LEGACY OF BRAILSFORD REESE BRAZEAL
Jeanne Cyriaque, African American Programs Coordinator
Historic Preservation Division
Brailsford Reese Brazeal was an African American economist and Dean of Academics at Morehouse College. From the late 1920s until he retired from Morehouse College in 1972, Dr. Brazeal’s leadership in research, publications, and academic standards helped Morehouse College achieve national significance as an institution of higher learning. Brazeal was a native of Dublin (Laurens County). He attended Macon’s Ballard Normal School until his family moved to Atlanta, where Brazeal completed high school at Morehouse Academy in 1923. Brazeal received his bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College in 1927, and completed his master’s degree in economics at Columbia University in 1928.
Dr. John Hope, who was Morehouse College’s first African American president, hired Brazeal as an economics instructor in 1928. By 1934, Brazeal was a professor of economics, head of the Department of Economics and Business Administration, and Dean of Men. Brailsford Brazeal was the recipient of two fellowships from the Julius Rosenwald Fund to pursue advanced studies in economics. While the history of the Rosenwald Fund community school building program is widely known, the fund also provided fellowships to many African American scholars. With this assistance and aid from Morehouse College, Brazeal received his Ph.D. in economics and political science from Columbia University in 1942.
Brailsford Brazeal published The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1946. This book was based upon his dissertation research on the Pullman train-car porters and their successful efforts to form America’s first African American labor union. This book remains a standard reference in labor history, American economic history and race relations. Brazeal subsequently wrote an unpublished biography about the Brotherhood’s union leader, A. Philip Randolph.
When George Pullman first arrived in Chicago in 1859, he had learned the art of moving buildings from his father, Lewis Pullman, who had patented a device to roll huge edifices away from the banks of the Erie Canal. After successfully applying this skill in a number of public works projects in Chicago, George Pullman envisioned a hotel on wheels with his luxurious, “palace” sleeping cars. To provide overnight accommodations and dining to the emerging middle class traveler, Pullman needed a workforce to provide personal services. This workforce who provided the necessary work of bellhop, cook, dining car attendant, maid and janitor were called Pullman porters, and they were African American men. Dr. Brazeal conducted some of the research for his dissertation by working as an assistant cook in the trains’ kitchens on the New York City line that traveled south.
Pullman porters worked longer hours and made considerably lower wages than whites, as they monopolized other positions such as conductors on the Pullman sleeping cars. Yet, a porter job provided unique employment opportunities that encouraged the Great Migration of thousands of African Americans from the segregated south. The Pullman porters relied on tips from their expert personal services, and were discouraged from forming unions.
By 1925, the Pullman Company was the nation’s largest private employer of African Americans, and the company used intimidation tactics, company spies, and harassment to deny the porters’ pensions and company benefits. Dr. Brazeal’s book discussed how A. Philip Randolph and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized an eleven-year effort to eventually be presented an international charter by the American Federation of Labor in 1936.
In 1962, Cornelius V. Troup published Distinguished Negro Georgians. Brailsford Brazeal wrote the introduction to this book while he was Academic Dean at Morehouse College. “Although I am a native Georgian and have lived and worked in Georgia virtually all of my life, I have learned for the first time that many distinguished persons whom I know or have read about are also natives of this state. Many of them were born in remote places in the state and had to obtain their education in vicarious ways which were enough to baffle and discourage persons of even extra-ordinary ability.” Brazeal’s comments on African American education in Georgia pointed out the fact that “without private, church-supported schools many of the persons mentioned in this book would never have attained an education which proved to be the key to their achievements.”
In 1933, Brailsford Reese Brazeal married Ernestine Erskine of Jackson, Mississippi. Ernestine Brazeal was a graduate of Spelman College. She received her master’s degree in American history at the University of Chicago. Mrs. Brazeal taught at Spelman and served as the college’s alumnae secretary. In 2003, the Spelman College Messenger featured an article about Mrs. Ernestine Erksine Brazeal that was written by one of her former students, Taronda Spencer. She is the Spelman College archivist and historian. “I learned how to be a Spelman woman from her example. Because of Mrs. Brazeal’s foresight, scholars and researchers are documenting the importance of Spelman’s place in the history of women’s education nationally and internationally. Her legacy and her spirit will forever be an integral part of the essence of Spelman.”
In 1940, Brailsford Reese Brazeal purchased an American Foursquare-type house that is located just west of Morehouse College. Brazeal made few changes to this house during his lifetime. In 1962, a rear addition was added that reflected mid-20th- century ranch house influences, such as built-in bookcases and a stone fireplace.
The home, now on Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard (formerly 193 Ashby Street), was constructed in 1927 by the Adair Construction Company. It was occupied by members of the Adair family until 1939. Charles Hubert, acting president of Morehouse College, leased the home prior to the Brazeal purchase (1940). The home was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 8, 2005.
Soon, the Brazeals had two daughters: Ernestine and Aurelia. Though the Brazeals lived in a segregated south, Ernestine Brazeal did not want her children to be born in segregated hospitals, and traveled to Chicago to have both of her daughters. Ernestine and Aurelia Brazeal attended a private girls’ school in Massachusetts, and both are Spelman alumnae.
Aurelia Brazeal is a diplomat in residence at Howard University. She is a former Ambassador to Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Federated States of Micronesia. She promotes job opportunities for the Department of State to students who are pursuing Foreign Service careers. Ernestine Brazeal recently retired from her advocacy career at Head Start in the greater Atlanta area. She lives in the Brazeal home. Ernestine Brazeal supports the work and ideas of the Spelman College Women’s Research and Resource Center. The center ensures a feminist environment for scholarship, activism, leadership and change.
The Brazeal House was always a place where students could gather for mentoring sessions with Dr. Brazeal in a family atmosphere. One Morehouse tradition that Dr. Brazeal particularly liked was to invite freshmen students to his home during their first week at Morehouse College. The students would have a chance to socialize with distinguished faculty and alumni. Maynard Jackson,Martin Luther King, Jr. and Warner Meadows were guests at these sessions in the Brazeal House during their college careers at Morehouse.
The Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elected Brailsford Brazeal for alumnus membership at Columbia University. Brazeal envisioned a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at his institution, and by 1967, it was approved for Morehouse College. In 1961, while serving as the advisor for the honors program at Morehouse College, Brazeal achieved additional support from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Under his guidance, Morehouse College was second among Georgia institutions in the number of students receiving Woodrow Wilson fellowships.
Brailsford Reese Brazeal was an active participant in voter education and registration drives throughout Georgia in the 1960s. He retired from the faculty of Morehouse College in 1972, after a career that spanned over 40 years. He died in his home in 1981. Brailsford and Ernestine Brazeal are buried at South View Cemetery, an African American cemetery that was established in 1886 by nine Atlanta black businessmen.
Source: Reflections: Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network. Vol. VI, No. 1 (April, 2006).
