African American Criminological Thought

3. Monroe Nathan Work

45 THREE MONROE NATHAN WORK (1866–1945) I have undertaken to write you in detail in regard to Mr. Work because I think the qualities he has shown are so rare and so exceptional that they deserve to be recognized, and because I think it is important that you should know the sort of man you have working for you. —Robert E. Park in a letter to Booker T. Washington, 18 October 1909, Guzman (1949, p. 441). INTRODUCTION Monroe Work, described by McMurray (1985) as a pioneer African American sociologist , lived during a time of widespread acceptance of racial doctrines supporting white supremacy and black inferiority. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, a few African Americans, including Work, were admitted to (white) undergraduate and graduate programs, but they were rarely accepted as scholars or hired to teach within the academic community. Rather, they were viewed as Negro scholars studying Negroes (ibid., p. 6). These early African American intellectuals also struggled with their acceptance of either W. E. B. Du Bois’s perspective on the role of the educated “talented tenth,” or Booker T. Washington’s accomodationist approach emphasizing industrial work and farming. Work was one of very few African Americans of his era to have an opportunity to work with both Du Bois and Washington. For over forty years he documented the Negro experience as founder and director of the Department of Records and Research at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, headed by Washington. However, Work attributed his early contact as a student with Du Bois with contributing to the development of his own belief in the importance of sociology. After working with Du Bois on a study of African American churches in Illinois for the 1903 Atlanta conference, Work realized the importance of sociological research in eliminating prejudice and misunderstandings (McMurray, 1985). For Work, gathering information and compiling exact knowledge concerning Negroes was paramount (Guzman, 1949, p. 435). Most of the information about Negroes was made available in the Negro Yearbook that he founded and edited between 1912 and 1938. Throughout the 1900s, this publication was widely used as a reference for historical and sociological information pertaining to the Negro in the United States and abroad (Guzman, Jones, Hall, 1952). Work also contributed scholarly research on crime, health, and African studies to numerous journals. 46 Historical Scholars Work’s research and scholarly contributions, including his pioneering research on Negro crime, criminals, lynching, and social control, are summarized here. His discussions of these concepts are significant to understanding the economic, historical , social, and political context of African Americans, crime, and justice. His biographical and academic background, contributions to criminological thought, and other research topics are presented in this chapter. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Monroe Nathan Work was born on 15 August 1866 in Iradell County, North Carolina (McMurray, 1985, p.8). His father, Alexander Work, mother, Eliza Hobbs, and eight siblings were slaves; Monroe and two other siblings were born after emancipation (ibid., p. 8–9). Guzman (1949, p. 428) reported that Work’s grandfather, Henry Work, had obtained his freedom before the Civil War ended and had purchased most of his children, but not Work’s father. Work’s parents worked for the Poston family until emancipation. After emancipation, his father migrated to Illinois and was joined by his wife and children in Cairo in 1867 (ibid., p. 429). Alexander Work was part of the first wave of African American exodusters to stake a claim in Kansas. The Holmstead Act of 1860 offered land to U.S. citizens who were willing to migrate. In 1876, the family relocated to the 160-acre homestead in Sumner County (McMurray, 1985, p. 13). Eventually, Monroe would have the full responsibility of operating the family farm after his parents could no longer do so and his other siblings had moved away. Work remained on the farm until his mother died in 1889 (Guzman, 1949, p. 429). Work’s education began in Illinois and continued in Kansas. However, his high school education was delayed until he was twenty three, due in part to his responsibilities on the farm. Shortly after graduation, Work unsuccessfully sought teaching positions in Arkansas City, Kansas, and among the Creek and Cherokee Indians (McMurray, 1985, p.15). Although hired by neither, he did teach briefly at a private school, for room and board. Later that year, Work pastored an African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wellington, Kansas, for a few months before deciding to stake his own claim in Oklahoma...