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Teacher

A voice of reason and scholarship, Kelly Miller was one of the major black spokesmen and teachers of the early twentieth century. His thoughtful essays analyzed racial problems in terms of their global development, the potency and promise of the black race and viable solutions. For Miller, who devoted his life to teaching, the surest release from the house of bondage was by the road of education.
Born in Winnsboro, South Carolina, during the Civil War, he worked his way through school, graduating from Howard University in 1886, studying post-graduate mathematics and physics at Johns Hopkins (1887-1889), and eventually earning from Howard his A.M. (1901) and LL.D. (1903) degrees. After a short stint teaching in the public schools of Washington, D. C., he joined Howard's faculty, where he was to remain for most of his academic career, serving variously as professor of mathematics, chairman of the department of sociology, dean of the junior college and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In addition to his collegial responsibilities, he published many important essays, became the first black academician to write a regular column for the black press, and helped W. E. B. DuBois edit the journal Crisis.

In the face of prevailing pessimism about race relations, Miller emphasized the great capacity for progress the black race had shown in the 50 years since emancipation. Literacy had increased enormously, a managerial and professional class was crystallizing, property ownership had swelled, and the masses' need for self-expression and self-government had given birth to the unique socioreligious institution of the black church. Armed with the belief that no people in world history had made such great advances in so brief a span, and convinced of the inherently democratizing effect of American institutions, Miller proclaimed certainty that the black race would eventually assume its rightful position of equality in the United States. Unlike DuBois, who felt that color would always single blacks out for prejudicial treatment, Miller held that the evolution of similar behavior patterns would obviate the import of physical differences.

Miller's major publications were Race Adjustment (1903), Out of the World War and the Important Part Taken by the Negroes (1919), and The Everlasting Stain (1924).