Reed, Adolph L., 1921-2003.

Adolph L. Reed was born in Little Rock, Ark., in 1921. He relocated to Chicago in the late 1930s, working as a waiter in a railroad dining car. He served in the European Theater during World War II and took part in protests against racial segregation within the armed services. After the war he attended college on the G. I. Bill, receiving degrees from Fisk University, New York University, and American University. While completing his studies, Reed worked as a journalist for progressive publications and became an activist for labor rights, economic equality, and social justice. His first professional appointments as a political scientist were at Arkansas A. M. and N. College in Pine Bluff, Ark., and at Southern University and Agricultural & Mechnical College in Baton Rouge, La. While in Baton Rouge during the early 1960s, Reed emerged as a national voice in the Civil Rights Movement following a series of contentious student protests and counter-measures taken by the Baton Rouge Police Department, the State of Louisiana, and the Southern University administration. From 1971 until his retirement in 1994, Reed was on the political science faculty at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Reed's scholarly output and teaching were a major influence on subsequent generations of black political scientists and he remained active in politics and education until shortly before his death on January 3, 2003.