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Jean E. Fairfax
Jean Emily Fairfax (October 20, 1920 – February 12, 2019) was an American educator, civil rights worker, community organizer, and philanthropist whose efforts have focused on achieving equity in education, especially for poor African Americans. She served as Director of Community Services of the NAACP from 1965 to 1984.
Fairfax was born on October 20th, 1920, in Columbus, Ohio, to parents Daniel Robert Fairfax Sr. and Inez Elizabeth Wood. She was the third-born of four children whose names were Florence, Betty Harriet, and Daniel Robert Fairfax Jr. She learned the importance of education from the example of her parents, who were the first in their families to be born legally free and who went on to earn college degrees. She attended Cleveland public schools and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in 1941, graduating with honors in Liberal Arts and being inducted into the honor society Phi Beta Kappa. In 1944 she earned a master's degree in World Religions from Union Theological Seminary, where she studied under Reinhold Niebuhr. She later attended Harvard University as a Radcliffe visiting scholar, 1984-1986.
In 1942, Fairfax moved to Kentucky and served as Dean of Women at Kentucky State College until 1944. Subsequently, she served as Dean of Women at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama from 1944 to 1946. Because her role at these colleges included coordinating religious activities, she became involved with numerous organizations in the Student Christian Movement in the South. The interconnection among faith, service, and justice was a core value for Fairfax. She once explained, "Back then [in her childhood] we talked very much about the need, the obligation that we have as individuals to work for social justice. It was part of my religious upbringing. I have a deep concern about what happens to the community, that is, I don’t separate myself from what happens to my people." She also commented, "As faithful Christians, we are taught not to separate faith from action."
Fairfax worked very closely with the local YWCA and the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen. The main goal of the Fellowship, she said, was "to affirm the unity of the Christian fellowship in a divided society [...] and to translate that into specific acts." It held open fellowship meetings and public gatherings across racial lines, at a time when to do so was itself considered a political act. Through this work, Fairfax became close friends with the influential civil rights leader and feminist Nelle Morton, then the executive secretary of the Fellowship.
After World War II, from 1946 to 1948, Fairfax served as a program director for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization. She traveled to Austria to participate in direct relief work. In 1949 she returned to the U.S. and continued to work for the AFSC as its representative to students in colleges and universities in New England. Fairfax returned to the South in 1957 to work for eight years as director for the Southern Civil Rights Program of the AFSC. She worked closely with African-American families affected by school desegregation cases. When those families participating in desegregation litigation suffered economic reprisals, she helped them receive modest financial support.
In 1965, Fairfax joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In this capacity she made important contributions to the civil rights movement in the South, as she continued to organize and assist black families confronted with the effects of early school desegregation. She drove Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) attorneys through rural Mississippi to meet with parents to discuss their decision about whether to send their children to white schools with a high risk of hostility. In addition, Fairfax personally (with Derrick Bell) escorted 6-year-old Debra Lewis to her first day of integrating the all-white Carthage Elementary School in rural Leake County, MS.
Interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor, Fairfax once said, "Someone had to break the pattern, and very often the civil rights revolution was initiated by the most vulnerable black persons. Many of them were women and many of them were children -- tough, resilient, hopeful, beautiful children. The greatest experience of my life was standing with them as they took the risks." Later she would claim that rural counties of the Deep South had some of the most integrated school systems in the nation.
Fairfax's efforts at educational opportunity were not limited to young children in the rural South. She fought for historically black colleges to prevent their downgrading or closure in the face of cutbacks in funding and programs.
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Jean E. Fairfax
Jean Emily Fairfax (October 20, 1920 – February 12, 2019) was an American educator, civil rights worker, community organizer, and philanthropist whose efforts have focused on achieving equity in education, especially for poor African Americans. She served as Director of Community Services of the NAACP from 1965 to 1984.
Fairfax was born on October 20th, 1920, in Columbus, Ohio, to parents Daniel Robert Fairfax Sr. and Inez Elizabeth Wood. She was the third-born of four children whose names were Florence, Betty Harriet, and Daniel Robert Fairfax Jr. She learned the importance of education from the example of her parents, who were the first in their families to be born legally free and who went on to earn college degrees. She attended Cleveland public schools and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan in 1941, graduating with honors in Liberal Arts and being inducted into the honor society Phi Beta Kappa. In 1944 she earned a master's degree in World Religions from Union Theological Seminary, where she studied under Reinhold Niebuhr. She later attended Harvard University as a Radcliffe visiting scholar, 1984-1986.
In 1942, Fairfax moved to Kentucky and served as Dean of Women at Kentucky State College until 1944. Subsequently, she served as Dean of Women at Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama from 1944 to 1946. Because her role at these colleges included coordinating religious activities, she became involved with numerous organizations in the Student Christian Movement in the South. The interconnection among faith, service, and justice was a core value for Fairfax. She once explained, "Back then [in her childhood] we talked very much about the need, the obligation that we have as individuals to work for social justice. It was part of my religious upbringing. I have a deep concern about what happens to the community, that is, I don’t separate myself from what happens to my people." She also commented, "As faithful Christians, we are taught not to separate faith from action."
Fairfax worked very closely with the local YWCA and the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen. The main goal of the Fellowship, she said, was "to affirm the unity of the Christian fellowship in a divided society [...] and to translate that into specific acts." It held open fellowship meetings and public gatherings across racial lines, at a time when to do so was itself considered a political act. Through this work, Fairfax became close friends with the influential civil rights leader and feminist Nelle Morton, then the executive secretary of the Fellowship.
After World War II, from 1946 to 1948, Fairfax served as a program director for the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization. She traveled to Austria to participate in direct relief work. In 1949 she returned to the U.S. and continued to work for the AFSC as its representative to students in colleges and universities in New England. Fairfax returned to the South in 1957 to work for eight years as director for the Southern Civil Rights Program of the AFSC. She worked closely with African-American families affected by school desegregation cases. When those families participating in desegregation litigation suffered economic reprisals, she helped them receive modest financial support.
In 1965, Fairfax joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In this capacity she made important contributions to the civil rights movement in the South, as she continued to organize and assist black families confronted with the effects of early school desegregation. She drove Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) attorneys through rural Mississippi to meet with parents to discuss their decision about whether to send their children to white schools with a high risk of hostility. In addition, Fairfax personally (with Derrick Bell) escorted 6-year-old Debra Lewis to her first day of integrating the all-white Carthage Elementary School in rural Leake County, MS.
Interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor, Fairfax once said, "Someone had to break the pattern, and very often the civil rights revolution was initiated by the most vulnerable black persons. Many of them were women and many of them were children -- tough, resilient, hopeful, beautiful children. The greatest experience of my life was standing with them as they took the risks." Later she would claim that rural counties of the Deep South had some of the most integrated school systems in the nation.
Fairfax's efforts at educational opportunity were not limited to young children in the rural South. She fought for historically black colleges to prevent their downgrading or closure in the face of cutbacks in funding and programs.