LANGSTONHUGHESand the novel NATIVESONby
RICHARDWRIGHTappeared. She died in 1971.
Bibliography
Jones, Adrienne Lash. Jane Edna Hunter: A Case Study of
Black Leadership, 1910–1950.Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carl-
son Publishers, 1990.
Sowash, Rick. Heroes of Ohio: Twenty-Three True Tales of
Courage and Character. Bowling Green, Ohio:
Gabriel’s Horn Publishing Company, 1998.
Hunton, Addie D. Waites (1875–1943)
A leader in the racial uplift movement of the early
20th century, Addie Waites Hunton also was a his-
torian, activist, and writer whose essays focused on
women’s rights, suffrage, and African-American
history and politics.
She was born in Norfolk, Virginia, to Jesse and
Adelina Lawton Waites. Her mother passed away
when she was a young child. Her father, who
owned a successful oyster and shipping company,
allowed his sister-in-law in Boston to take in his
daughter. Hunton completed high school at Boston
Latin School before relocating to Philadelphia to
attend the Spencerian College of Commerce.
There, she became the first African-American fe-
male graduate. She pursued a teaching career and
was appointed principal at the State Normal and
Agricultural College in Alabama. She married
William Alphaeus Hunton, the son of a formerly
enslaved man who married and raised his family in
Chatham, Ontario. Hunton was climbing the ranks
of the YOUNGMEN’S CHRISTIANASSOCIATION
and in 1891 became the first African-American
secretary of the Colored Men’s Department of the
organization’s International Committee. The cou-
ple married in 1893 after a lengthy courtship. They
had four children: Eunice Hunton Carter, William
Alphaeus, Jr. and two others who died in infancy.
By the time of the Harlem Renaissance,
Hunton was a newly widowed mother of two.
Committed to honoring her husband’s dedication
to African-American uplift, she published his biog-
raphy. Her tribute, William Alphaeus Hunton,was
published in 1938.
During World War II she pursued service as a
volunteer with the YOUNGWOMEN’SCHRISTIAN
ASSOCIATION. She was stationed in southern
France. While in FRANCE, she attended the Pan-
African Congress held in Paris in February 1919.
With the small but intrepid number of African-
American YWCA workers who became involved
with the war effort abroad, Hunton advocated
teaching the troops. She organized literacy pro-
grams and established libraries for the use of
African-American soldiers. In 1920 Hunton collab-
orated with her fellow YWCA colleague Kathryn
Johnson on a memoir of their time abroad. Their
account, Two Colored Women with the American Ex-
peditionary Forces,was a remarkable and impressive
description of their challenges and experiences
abroad.
Hunton was an activist who spearheaded nu-
merous campaigns to secure women’s rights and
equality for people of color. She was an officer in
the NATIONALASSOCIATION FOR THEADVANCE-
MENT OFCOLOREDPEOPLE, serving as vice presi-
dent and field secretary of the organization. She
was instrumental to the success of the Fourth Pan-
African Congress that convened in New York City
in 1927. Hunton died in Brooklyn, New York, in
June 1943.Bibliography
Davis, Elizabeth Lindsay. Lifting as They Climb.New
York, G. K. Hall, 1996.
Giddings, Paula. When and Where I Enter.New York:
Morrow, 1984. 87, 102, 166–169.
Hunton, Addie Waites. “Negro Womanhood Defended,”
Voice of the Negro(July 1904): 280–282. Photo-
graph, p. 281.
———. William Alphaeus Hunton: A Pioneer Prophet of
Young Men.New York: Association Press, 1938.Hurok, Solomon(Sol Hurok)(1888–1974)
A Russian-born producer and theater manager
who worked closely with Harlem Renaissance–era
performers and artists.
Known affectionately as the “Mahatma of
Music,” it was Hurok who discovered MARIAN
ANDERSON, the powerful contralto singer who
soared to fame. He was deeply involved in the pro-
motion of Cabin in the Sky,the successful Broadway
musical that starred Katherine Dunham, the
choreographer, dancer, and anthropologist who
studied with MELVILLEHERSKOVITSand whose re-260 Hunton, Addie D. Waites