Fred Branford Syphax

Fred Branford Syphax was born on October 12, 1881 in Washington, DC, to Colbert Stewart Syphax, a messenger in the U.S. Treasury Department, and Caroline Cordelia Webster Syphax. He received his bachelor's from Yale in 1906, where he was a member of the fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha. Syphax worked primarily in education, teaching at Washington High School (1906-1907); Morgan College in Baltimore, Maryland (1908-1910); Howard University in Washington, DC (1910-1911); Princess Anne Academy, Maryland (1912-1913); Bluefield State Teachers College, West Virginia (1915-1920); Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte, North Carolina (1921-1926); and the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama (1928-1938). He married Nannie Sinclair in 1924, with whom he had a son.

Syphax died of heart disease and pneumonia on April 6, 1940 in Charlotte, North Carolina.