the summers of 1897 and 1898 at the UNIVERSITY
OF CHICAGO before returning to Providence,
Rhode Island, to complete his master’s degree at
Brown in 1907.
Hope married Lugenia Burns of Chicago in
December 1897. An active social work reformer in
Chicago, she became a leader in Atlanta’s African-
American women’s club movement and in the
city’s settlement house movement. She was the
first vice president of the Atlanta branch of the
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCE-
MENT OFCOLOREDPEOPLEand spearheaded the
effort to establish African-American branches of
the YOUNGWOMEN’SCHRISTIANASSOCIATION
in the South.
Hope was an influential college administrator
who championed academic excellence and intel-
lectual opportunity for people of color. Rather than
accept a teaching post at TUSKEGEEINSTITUTE,
the school founded by Washington, Hope joined
the faculty at Roger Williams College in Nashville,
Tennessee, where he taught Latin, Greek, and sci-
ence from 1894 to 1898. In 1898 he became a pro-
fessor of classics at Atlanta Baptist College, the
school that eventually became MOREHOUSECOL-
LEGE. In 1906, he began a lengthy tenure as presi-
dent of Morehouse. In 1931 he was appointed
president of Atlanta University and served until he
passed away in February 1936.
Hope was an outspoken scholar-activist with
close ties to the African-American intelligentsia.
Among his colleagues and friends was W. E. B.
DUBOIS, editor of THECRISISand a former At-
lanta University professor. Hope published often
on matters relating to African-American educa-
tion, business, and success. In May 1931, for exam-
ple, he published “Trained Men for Negro
Business” in OPPORTUNITY.His essay was powerful
in its incorporation of dramatic statistics about
African-American economics and its argument
about black enterprise in the face of “economic
and social handicaps that the Negro faces in ven-
turing into business.” Hope linked black en-
trepreneurial success to education. He noted that
while many institutions had graduated ministers
and teachers, the new trend in education was to
train “lawyers, doctors, dentists, and social workers
who have won confidence by their skill and under-
standing.” Yet, Hope proposed that colleges were
facing “a new and perhaps more difficult task—the
training of Negro men and women for careers in
business.” He advocated preparation for leadership
and technical training that would equip more peo-
ple of color to succeed in business.
Hope’s position on education, business, and
economic advancement was echoed frequently in
the fiction of the Harlem Renaissance. Writers
such as JESSIEFAUSET,ALICEDUNBAR-NELSON,
and others created sobering narratives about in-
spiring, talented, and highly educated characters in
pursuit of rewarding professional careers.
Playwright RIDGELYTORRENCEpenned one of
the first biographies of Hope. His history, The Story
of John Hope,was published in 1948.Bibliography
Davis, Leroy. A Clashing of the Soul: John Hope and the
Dilemma of African American Leadership and Black
Higher Education in the Early Twentieth Century.
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998.
Hope, John. Leadership: The Heart of the Race Problem.
Atlanta, Ga.: Atlanta University, 1931.
John and Lugenia Hope Papers, Atlanta University Cen-
ter Archives.
Torrence, Ridgely. The Story of John Hope.New York,
Macmillan Co., 1948.Hope, Rhonda
A pseudonym that writer CLAUDEMCKAYused
while on staff at the WORKER’SDREADNOUGHTin
England during the early 1920s.“Hope Deferred”Alice Dunbar-Nelson
(1914)
A short story published by ALICEDUNBAR-NELSON,
an accomplished writer, educator, and activist.
“Hope Deferred” appeared in the September 1919
issue of THECRISIS.Dunbar-Nelson was the for-
mer estranged wife of the deceased poet Paul Lau-
rence Dunbar, who died in 1906. Despite her
established career as a writer before and after her
failed marriage, The Crisisidentified the story’s au-
thor as “Mrs. Paul Laurence Dunbar.”
The story focuses on the highly demoralizing
aspects of racism in 20th-century America. Like
JESSIEFAUSET’s short story “EMMY,” which ap-246 Hope, Rhonda