Revolutionary, Board member and “Black Studies Pioneer John H. Bracey Jr. Joins the Ancestors”

Board member John Bracey with author Bradley Greene in Spring 2022.

Over the weekend, the world lost a great revolutionary John H. Bracey Jr. at 81.

His brilliance and generosity transformed many lives. In addition to be a pioneer in Black Studies and founding member of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he fought for civil rights and Black liberation “as part of the Congress of Racial Equality, Chicago Friends of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Revolutionary Action Movement.”

He wrote the introductions to We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960-1975 by Muhammad Ahmad and the 2006 edition of Facing Reality by C.L.R. James and Grace C. Lee. A long-time champion of Kerr for its role in publishing central work from Black revolutionary movements, Bracey often quoted James saying, “I want the Kerr edition.” Kerr was fortunate to have him serve on its Board until his passing.

“John H. Bracey Jr.—an architect of Black studies—who helped to create one of the nation’s first doctoral programs in African American studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, died over the weekend. Bracey was 81. …

An expert on Black social history, racial ideologies and movements and the history of African American women Bracey wrote and edited a number of books including Black Nationalism in America, African American Women and the Vote: 1837-1965; African American Mosaic: A Documentary History from the Slave Trade to the Twenty-First Century that he co-authored with Dr. Manisha Sinha; and SOS—Calling All Black People: a Black Arts Movement Reader that he edited with his colleague, Dr. James Smethurst and well-known poet Sonia Sanchez.”

Read the quoted memoriam in Diverse: Issues in Education here and Amherst Bulletin here.