Edward Franklin Frazier (/ˈfreɪʒər/; September 24, 1894 – May 17, 1962), was an

American sociologist and author, publishing as E. Franklin Frazier. His

1932 Ph.D. dissertation was published as a book titled The Negro Family in the United
States (1939); it analyzed the historical forces that influenced the development of
the African-American family from the time of slavery to the mid-1930s. The book was
awarded the 1940 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for the most significant work in the field of
race relations. It was among the first sociological works on blacks researched and written by
a black person.

In 1948 Frazier was elected as the first black president of the American Sociological
Association. He published numerous other books and articles on African-American culture
and race relations. In 1950 Frazier helped draft the UNESCO statement The Race Question.
Frazier wrote a dozen books in his lifetime, including The Black Bourgeosie, a critique of
the black middle class in which he questioned the effectiveness of African-American
businesses to produce racial equality.
Frazier was born in Baltimore in 1894 as one of five children of James H. Frazier, a bank
messenger, and Mary (Clark) Frazier, a homemaker. He attended the Baltimore public
schools, which were legally segregated in those decades. He also got a scholarship to Howard
university. Following graduation from Howard, Frazier attended Clark
University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he earned a master's degree in 1920.

Frazier taught sociology at Morehouse College, a historically black institution in Atlanta,

where he established what is known in the 21st century as the Atlanta University School of
Social Work. In 1927 Frazier published his article titled "The Pathology of Race Prejudice"
in Forum. Using Freudian terms, he wrote that prejudice was "abnormal behavior,"
characteristic of "insanity," including dissociation, delusional thinking, rationalization,
projection, and paranoia.

In his research and writing, Frazier adopted an approach that examined economic, political
and attitudinal factors that shape the systems of social relationships. He continually pressed to
find the "social reality" in any context he investigated. His stature was recognized by his
election in 1948 as the first black president of the American Sociological Association.
Howard University named its E. Franklin Frazier Center for Social Work Research after him.
Born in 1894 in Baltimore, Maryland, African-American sociologist E. Franklin Frazier
studied at Howard University and the New York School of Social Work before teaching
sociology at Morehouse College and Fiske University. His sometimes controversial area of
interest was the effect of racial tension on black life. His writings include Negro Youth at the
Crossways (1940) and The Negro Family in the United States (1939).
E. Franklin Frazier was an activist, researcher and administrator who contributed
significantly to the social work profession. An outspoken and sometimes militant activist for
social justice, Frazier was also the first African American president of the American
Sociological Society. The fact that Frazier, an African American man from a working class
background, completed his graduate studies during this period in history was an unusual
achievement given the racial climate in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. It was
in an atmosphere of segregated schooling, overt racism, and academic stereotyping that
Frazier completed his master’s degree and went on to study social work.

Franklin put a great deal of effort into getting the Atlanta School of Social Work accredited,
and by 1927 it was considered the leading voice for black social work. Frazier was dedicated
to the idea that it took more than just an attitude of service and a desire to help to be a
professional social worker. He therefore established standards for those who would attend
the Atlanta School to ensure the school’s graduates were adequately trained professional
social workers. He also emphasized the social activism aspect of the profession during a
period when social work was moving more toward aligning itself with psychology. Frazier
was angry that opportunities to participate in community, social, political, economic, and
intellectual life had been taken away from African Americans and encouraged social workers
to help create those opportunities by establishing cooperative businesses, youth clubs,
schools, and self-help groups for black Americans.

He opposed U.S. participation in World War I because he felt it was hypocritical given the
racial discrimination in the United States, and he was also arrested for protesting the movie
“Birth of a Nation.” He was outspoken and militant in his denunciation of racism and used
his research and academic writing skill to call attention to the practices of racism in the
United States. He wrote an article published in Forum in 1927 where he characterized racism
as pathology. This bold statement by an African American man was neither appreciated nor
welcome in the south and gained so much publicity that Frazier and his family began
receiving threats and were forced to leave Atlanta.

Black Bourgeoisie (1957) was Frazier’s most celebrated and criticized work. In this book,
Frazier seared contemporary blacks who saw themselves as middle class. This false
consciousness as he called it, led to a cultural elitism and material existence based solely on
acquisitiveness.

E. Franklin Frazier died in Washington, D.C. in 1962.

After spending 1920-1921 as a Russell Sage Foundation fellow at the New York School of
Social Work (later Columbia University School of Social Work) and a year at the University
of Copenhagen as a fellow of the American Scandinavian Foundation, Frazier accepted an
appointment at Atlanta University where he served as the director of the Atlanta School of
Social Work and an instructor of sociology at Morehouse College.
During this time Frazier published a number of articles, including "The Pathology of Race
Prejudice" in 1927. This article, which argued that racial prejudice was analogous to insanity,
stirred such strong reactions among residents in Atlanta that Frazier was removed from his
position.
Frazier moved from Atlanta to Chicago where he received a fellowship from the University
of Chicago's sociology department. His studies at Chicago culminated in his earning a Ph.D.
in 1931.
His Presidential Address "Race Contacts and the Social Structure," was presented at the
organization's annual meeting in Chicago in December 1948.

hroughout his life he remained both scholar and activist, delivering, in his fiery essays and
speaking appearances, sharp criticisms of capitalist society and middle class black America.

Frazier refuted the idea that African cultural traits survived among African Americans—a
position that made him an uncompromising opponent of scholars from Melville Herskovits to
James Weldon Johnson. Upholding socialism, he disdained many black elites and the
members of New Negro movement whom he believed were more concerned with success in
white markets rather than the struggle of the black masses. Through his famous studies of the
black family, race, and religious life, he sought to help formulate values that promoted a
consciousness of cultural self-determinism that could guide blacks in their goal of
assimilation while preserving the desirable elements of the past.

hroughout his life he remained both scholar and activist, delivering, in his fiery essays and
speaking appearances, sharp criticisms of capitalist society and middle class black America.

Frazier refuted the idea that African cultural traits survived among African Americans—a
position that made him an uncompromising opponent of scholars from Melville Herskovits to
James Weldon Johnson. Upholding socialism, he disdained many black elites and the
members of New Negro movement whom he believed were more concerned with success in
white markets rather than the struggle of the black masses. Through his famous studies of the
black family, race, and religious life, he sought to help formulate values that promoted a
consciousness of cultural self-determinism that could guide blacks in their goal of
assimilation while preserving the desirable elements of the past.
Nicknamed “Plato” by fellow students, Frazier’s delved into his liberal arts education at
Howard with Spartan devotion. His studies included courses in mathematics, physical
science, literature, Latin, Greek, German, and social sciences. Howard philosophy professor
Alain Locke described Frazier, as quoted in E. Franklin Frazier Reconsidered, “one of the
most consistently competent and painstaking students I have taught in four years of my
experience at the institution.”

At Howard Frazier’s desire for a classical and well-rounded education coincided with a
developing interest.

time to participate in extracurricular activities involving drama, political science, the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Intercollegiate
Socialist Society. His leadership skills were evidenced in his class presidencies of 1915 and
1916. Between 1951 and 1953, he served with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO),traveling to Paris, Africa and the Middle East. During this
period, he continued his writing, focusing on the struggle of people of Africa and African
descent to achieve equality, and on religion. His last book The Negro Church in America was
published posthumously in 1964