Humanitatian Director: Dr.

Julius Wayne Dudley

Dr. Julius Wayne Dudley, now professor emeritus of history at Salem State University and former vice president of the Phelps Stokes Fund, has spent much of his adult life pursuing academic excellence and promoting social activism for all. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 29, 1944, Dudley, the eldest of nine children, of Julius and Ethel Hanson-Dudley, both of whom were also born and reared in Georgia through its Jim Crow history, included the periods of share cropping and other forms of “slavery by another name.” The Dudley parents wanted a better life for their children an encouraged them to pursue education as a means to truly liberate themselves from racial oppression His mother read to him at an early age and thereby providing him with a sound foundation to later pursue his educational and professional objectives as well as humanitarian engagements. As a youth, he attended the public school systems of Atlanta and Smyrna, Georgia, graduating from Atlanta’s Booker T. Washington high school in 1962. Within the next four years, he attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio as an exchange student and graduated from Morris Brown College in 1966, and in the subsequent three years he completed a certification in early childhood education from the University of Georgia and completed his master’s degree in American history from Atlanta University (now Clark University). Over the next ten years, Dudley completed his certifications in African and African-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison Wisconsin and in the military history at West Point Academy as well as completing his requirements for the Ph.D. in history from the University of Cincinnati. Afterwards, he pursued additional training in higher education, which was the completion of a second master’s degree from Harvard University (1985) in the area of administration, planning, and social policy, and three years later, another credential from the Harvard University Extension School in the area, primarily focusing on administration. And in addition to earning degrees, Dr. Dudley taught in the Atlantic public school system beginning in1966 and became a university professor / administrator from1969 until his retirement in 2002. Over a period of thirty years, he was the first director / professor of African- American Studies at the University of South Florida, coordinator / professor of history at Morris Brown College, as well as professor at the University of Dayton, Emerson College, Boston College, Fitchburg State, Salem State and the University of Lowell. In these educational and social environments, Dudley marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other icons of the Civil Rights movement such as Congressman John Lewis, and Hosea Williams during the 1960’s and 1970’s. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, Dudley continued to support these efforts, but embraced other progressive movements, which included freedom for Africa, especially South Africa. As a grass roots effort, involving thousands of Americans, especially the youth, Dudley sent over three million books to primarily to Africa, focusing on South Africa initially. His non-profit organization later delivered thousands of books, and sometimes computers, to Ghana, Liberia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Egypt and Kenya. And to a lesser extent, he coordinated books / medical projects to children and educators in Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Philippine Islands and Kyrgyzstan.

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