Rufus Monroe Meroney

Rufus Monroe Meroney was born in 1880 in Austin, Texas to Oliver Hazzard Meroney and Alice Cleveland Meroney. Before entering Yale, he attended Tillotson College and taught for five years in Austin. He excelled as a student at Yale, and was also a Sunday School teacher and organist while living in New Haven. After graduating in 1909, he became head of the college department of Samuel Huston College in Austin, where he also taught English, German, and Spanish. In May, 1911, he was called from his position at Samuel Houston College to do work with the YMCA for the Tenth Cavalry, a Black U.S. army regiment, stationed in San Antonio. This led to other positions with the YMCA, and from 1911 until his death in 1922, he served as executive secretary of the Carlton Avenue Branch of the Brooklyn YMCA in New York. Under his leadership, the branch raised funds for and built a new building. The Crisis, remembering Meroney’s tireless work, described the branch as “a Temple” providing a wide range of needed resources for the local community, from “a gym, a pool, a floor for dancing, a stage for theatricals, billiards and pool, a library, periodicals, pictures” to sports teams, educational support, and employment aid. He was a well-known figure in Brooklyn’s Black community. Meroney died in Brooklyn in 1922 at the age of 43, following complications from a surgery for appendicitis.

"Rufus M. Meroney Letter to Tillotson Tidings," The American Missionary 62, no. 1 (1908).

"Announcement," The Chicago Defender, September 27, 1919.