Harry Walter Roberts

Harry Walter Roberts was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Berlin, New Jersey. He graduated from Wilberforce University before coming to the Yale Divinity School, where he received a bachelor's of divinity in 1932. After receiving a master's degree from the London School of Economics in 1935, he returned to Yale and completed a PhD in Race Relations in 1943. He was a scholar of Black life and culture in rural Virginia, publishing works such as “Disadvantaging Factors in the Life of Rural Virginia Negroes” (1945), “The Rural Negro Minister: His Work and Salary” (1947), “The Rural Negro Minister: His Educational Status” (1948), and “The Rural Negro Minister: His Personal and Social Characteristics” (1949). He was a professor at Virginia State University from 1935 to 1968, where he established the Department of Sociology, the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Delta, and the National Sociology Honor Society.

"The Influence of External Relations Upon the Inner Life of Social Groups." M.A. thesis, London School of Economics, 1932.

"Review of Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South," American Journal of Sociology 42, no. 1 (1936).

"Effects of Farm Ownership on Rural Family Life," Social Forces 24, no. 2 (1945).

Disadvantaging Factors in the Life of Rural Virginia Negroes. Ettrick, VA: Virginia State College for Negroes, 1945.

"The Rural Negro Minister: His Educational Status," The Journal of Negro Education 17, no. 4 (1948).

"The Rural Negro Minister: His Personal and Social Characteristics," Social Forces 27, no. 3 (1949).

"Prior-Service Attitudes Toward Whites of 219 Negro Veterans," The Journal of Negro Education, no. 4 (1953).

"Responsibilities and Opportunities," The Phi Delta Kappan 37, no. 8 (1956).

"Review of Neighbor and Kin: Life in a Tennessee Ridge Community," American Sociological Review 35, no. 3 (1970).