Robert C. Hayden, prolific author of black history books, dies at 84
“We need to look below the surface and examine the contributions of ordinary individuals,” he said. “I think we could learn a lot by studying what the masses of black Americans did and how they worked together to change their condition.”
Author and prolific historian whose books include the glorified “African Americans in Boston: Over 350 Years,” Mr. Hayden died Jan. 23 at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. He was 84, lived in Oak Bluffs and was diagnosed with Lewy body disease several years ago.
In a 1992 editorial praising “African Americans in Boston”, the Globe said Mr. Hayden’s book “should be required reading” and applauded its celebration of “the rich history of survival and leadership that has existed in this city for centuries”.
Former Executive Director of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity and former President of the Boston Branch of the NAACP, Mr. Hayden has written more than 20 publications on black history and culture, often highlighting hitherto unrecognized achievements in scientific research, technology and medicine.
He pointed out that less important people often make important contributions.
“I completed a major oral history project about three years ago in which I interviewed retired black railroad workers: Pullman porters and dining car waiters who were part of the first black labor movement in the 20s, 30s and 40s,” he said. said in the 1992 Globe interview.
“And interestingly, many of the skills that these black men developed through unionization translated into the civil rights movement,” Hayden said. “A. Philip Randolph, who helped organize the Pullman Porters in 1925, became a father of the civil rights movement.
Mr Hayden’s son, Kevin Hayden, the Suffolk District Attorney, visited MBTA’s Back Bay station last week to view Pullman exhibits taken from his father’s purse.
“It was a walk down memory lane to see that,” Kevin said.
His father, he added, “was an amazing storyteller. And he never told you a story just to tell you a story. There was always a point to that. There was a, ‘This is what you can learn from it.’ “
As a historian, Mr. Hayden was also acutely aware that change can come slowly.
“Are Boston blacks better off in January 1987 than they were in January 1977 or January 1967? Many would say no, that we don’t find ourselves much better off than 20 years ago,” he said in a January 1987 speech when he became president of the NAACP Boston branch.
“We have won the desegregation battle, but we have not yet taken full advantage of it,” he added. “We won the battle for equal opportunities, but most of those in power are still white.”
The eldest of two brothers, Robert Carter Hayden Jr. was born in New Bedford on August 21, 1937.
Her father, Robert C. Hayden Sr., worked in the post office and her mother, Josephine Hughes Hayden, was a teacher.
He graduated from New Bedford High School in 1955 and went to Boston University, from which he received a bachelor’s degree in 1959 and a master’s degree in education in 1961.
About 15 years later, Mr. Hayden completed postgraduate fellowships at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He married Charlene Roberts-Hayden, they had four children and the family settled in Newton.
After their marriage ended in divorce, Mr Hayden lived in the Dudley Square area in a flat opposite the house where one of his grandmothers had lived, a place he had visited like a child during summer vacation.
That closeness became another starting point for the stories of Mr. Hayden, who examined his family’s history as closely as the history of Boston’s black community.
“Most people don’t know who their third and fourth cousins are. Well he did,” Kevin said. “His love of African-American history was broad, sure, but it was also personal.”
After graduating, Mr. Hayden was a college teacher before becoming an editor for the education division of Xerox.
He was executive director of METCO from 1970 to 1973, then spent several years at the Education Development Center in Newton directing ethnic heritage studies projects for urban school districts.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Hayden led MIT’s Secondary Technical Education Project and later served as Deputy Superintendent of Boston Public Schools.
For nearly three decades, he was also a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Northeastern University, Boston College, and Lesley University.
He began his publishing career in the early 1970s with three books dedicated to black American scientists, inventors and doctors.
“And, of course, school districts across the country and libraries bought my books,” he said in a 2004 interview for The story makers.
His writings included books on black history on Martha’s Vineyard and New Bedford, and he provided text for publications such as “A Cultural Guide to African-American Heritage in New England”. He received Boston’s NAACP Distinguished Service Award in 2013.
Mr. Hayden has also led tours of key Black History sites on the vineyardwhere he moved full time retired.
“He was a very compassionate and caring person, always friendly,” Kevin said. “People always noticed how much of a gentleman he was and how polite he had to be.”
In addition to his son, Kevin, and ex-wife, Charlene, Mr. Hayden leaves behind two daughters, Dr. Deborah Hayden of Attleboro and Karen McAdams of Wellesley; one brother, William of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and five grandchildren.
At noon on February 7, Mr. Hayden’s family will host a private service which will be broadcast live. A link is available on the Davis Funeral Home in Roxbury website. His family will later announce a celebration of Mr. Hayden’s life, which will be held on Martha’s Vineyard.
Decades ago, Mr. Hayden spoke of disparities that, to say the least, have since worsened.
“The danger facing Boston is that it will become a city of extremes,” he warned in his 1987 speech to the NAACP. “On the one hand, there can be the terribly rich and on the other the desperately poor.”
And in his 1992 Globe interview, Mr. Hayden said that one of the reasons black teenagers “don’t have the direction they should have is that they’re not program-focused. Their history, their culture, is not part of what they are taught in school.
He added, however, that the school should provide only part of the education for black students.
“You have to take them to places like the African Meeting House, or take them to sites on the Black Heritage Trail, or have them read a poem by Phillis Wheatley to have been brought from Africa to America,” he said. “What has she been through? How was life for her? Poetry, novels, visual material – it is very important to expose children to this stuff. Textbooks can become obsolete very, very quickly.
Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.
