A00292 - Frederick Allen Parker (Amherst College Class of 1920), Dunbar High School Graduate and Civil Rights Activist

 As I continue with my Amherst College Biographies Blog, I come now to Frederick Allen Parker, Class of 1920.  Like so many of the pre-1960 African American students at Amherst College, Fred Parker was also a graduate of Dunbar High School.  The following indicates what Mr. Parker did for much of the rest of his life. 

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Frederick Allen Parker graduated from Amherst College in 1920.  He died on April 9, 1991. The May 2, 1991, edition of The Indianapolis News on page 37, reads

FREDERICK A. PARKER DEAD IN WISCONSIN

MEQUON, Wis. Frederick A. Parker, 91, a former Indianapolis teacher who helped racially integrate the state's schools, died April Services were last month in O'Bee Funeral Home, Milwaukee. Mr.

Parker taught mathematics and was the department chairman for Attucks High School from its beginning as a school for blacks in 1927 until 1946. He was then a teacher at Indianapolis Public Schools 17 47, later teaching at Harry E. Wood High School until 1966 before resuming a college teaching career. An advocate of integrated schools, he helped lobby the 1949 Indiana General Assembly to pass an anti-segregation school law. "Mr. Parker was well known as an effective teacher who helped build support and credibility" for the integration movement, said Indianapolis attorney Willard "Mike" Ransom, former state chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. After retiring from IPS, Mr. Parker was a math teacher at Yale University. From 1967 to 1969, he taught at Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He later taught at several colleges, including Butler and Purdue universities.

In 1960, he co-founded a Studies Skills Program, co-sponsored by the Presbyterian Church and the e Rockefeller Foundation. moved to Knoxville (Tenn.) College and was designed to build self-confidence and discipline and supplement college preparation for economically and academically deprived students. Most of the students were black, and 92 percent went on to obtain college degrees. In the 1970s, Mr. Parker received teaching awards from Harvard University and Amherst College, from which he graduated in 1920.

He received a master's degree from Indiana University in 1935. He was the widower of Frieda Alice Campbell Parker. Survivors - daughters Frieda P. Jefferson, Winifred P. White, Carolyn Cliver; 10 grandchildren; two greatgrandchildren.

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Fred Parker, Amherst Class of 1920, received an honorary degree from Amherst College in 1973. However, in the tradition of Dunbar High School, Mr. Parker also sent other African American students to his alma mater.  Perhaps, some of them may offer thoughts about Mr. Parker of their own. 

Peace,

Everett "Skip" Jenkins 

Fairfield, California

July 12, 2024