Jack D. Foner; Afro-American Studies Pioneer

Jack D. Foner, 88, pioneer in Afro-American studies and champion of civil liberties who was blacklisted in the 1940s. Foner started teaching history in 1935 at the downtown branch of the City College of New York, now Baruch College. He was an advocate of trade unionism, civil rights for African Americans and the anti-fascist movement in Spain, causes that led to his branding as a Communist in 1941, when he was called before the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York, also known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee. He was among 60 instructors and staff members at City College who were dismissed for refusing to testify before the committee and was unable to find another teaching job for nearly three decades. After serving in the Army during World War II, Foner supported himself and his family as a freelance lecturer and in the Foner Orchestra, a swing band that played the Borscht Belt. Its other members were his brothers: labor historian Philip and trade unionists Moe and Henry, who also had been blacklisted. One of the complaints that had brought Foner to the attention of the New York legislative committee was that he taught too much black history in his courses. In 1969, when he was on the faculty of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, he established one of the first black studies programs in the country. His best-known book is “Blacks in the Military in American History,” published in 1974. In 1986, the Foner brothers were given the Tom Paine Award by the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. The New York City Board of Higher Education apologized to Foner in 1981, 40 years after his dismissal from his City College post. On Dec. 10 at a Manhattan hospital.