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St. Clair Drake (1911-90)

St. Clair Drake, Pioneer in Study Of Black Americans, Dies at 79

By Peter B. Flint, New York Times, June 21, 1990

St. Clair Drake, a pioneer in black studies who was the first permanent director of Stanford University's African and Afro-American studies, died Friday at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. His death, at age 79, resulted from a heart attack, a family spokesman said.

Dr. Drake, a professor emeritus of sociology and anthropology at Stanford, was an early researcher on black Americans. His works included Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, an acclaimed 1945 work written with Horace R. Cayton. The book studied segregation, poverty and discrimination in Chicago's South Side ghetto of Bronzeville.

The 830-page book, published by Harcourt, Brace, chronicled thousands of incidents, attitudes and anecdotes in interviews with hundreds of Bronzeville residents. The volume was hailed by reviewers as a landmark of objective research and one of the best urban studies produced by American scholarship.

A Model Study Program

In 1969, Dr. Drake went to Stanford to lead one of the most successful and imitated black-studies programs in the country at a time of campus protests over creation of such centers.

Fred M. Hechinger, a former education editor of The New York Times, wrote in the Times Magazine of April 13, 1980, that Stanford's success was largely the result of its refusal to allow radical politics to gain the upper hand over academic integrity.

In a nearly 60-year career, Dr. Drake also taught at Dillard University in New Orleans, Roosevelt University in Chicago and in universities in Liberia and Ghana. He developed training programs for Peace Corps volunteers assigned to African countries.

Adviser to African Leaders

Dr. Drake had been a close adviser to the leaders of several newly independent African countries, including Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. But when civilian governments began to be toppled by military dictators, the professor decided to leave Africa because, he said in 1988, he would not ''work under generals.''

John Gibbs St. Clair Drake was born on Jan. 2, 1911, in Suffolk, Va., to a Baptist minister from Barbados and a Virginia schoolteacher. He grew up in Pittsburgh and in Staunton, Va.

He graduated with honors in biology from Hampton Institute. His reading included works by black militants and he joined Quaker activists traveling around the country in a campaign for world peace.

'Just Missed the Lynching Rope'

His efforts prompted racist insults by whites. Several times he ''just missed the lynching rope,'' he recalled, and he became dedicated to racial justice. He aided black tenant farmers and, on a fellowship, earned a doctoral degree in anthropology at the University of Chicago. In World War II, he served in the Merchant Marine instead of the regular armed forces to avoid segregation.

Dr. Drake was a founder of the American Society for African Culture and of the American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa, the author of many books and articles and the recipient of many awards, including honorary degrees.

Survivors include his wife, the former Elizabeth Dewey Johns; a daughter, Dr. Sandra Drake, of Palo Alto, who is an associate professor of English at Stanford, and a son, Karl, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.