William Augustus Banner

William Augustus Banner was born on September 18, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Nannie Perry Banner and Zachariah Banner. He received his BA from Pennsylvania State University in 1935 and subsequently attended Yale Divinity School, where he graduated with a master’s in divinity in 1938. He would also go on to receive an MA and a PhD in philosophy, both from Harvard University, in 1944 and 1947.

Banner married Beatrice V. Suggs in 1941, and they had two children. Following his graduation from Yale, he began a long career as a philosophy professor, first at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina from 1938-43, and then Howard University in Washington, DC, from 1945 to 1985. While at Howard he also served as associate dean (1971-1975) and chair of the philosophy department (1976-81). In addition to his career at Howard, Banner was a visiting professor at several universities and was the first known visiting professor at Yale Divinity School in 1954. He returned to Yale as a visiting professor from 1964-5 and also visited the University of Rochester in New York (1970), General Theological Seminary in New York (1986), Smith College in Massachusetts, University of Rhode Island, and University of Colorado.

Banner was a prolific writer during his long academic career. His publications include “Origin and the Tradition of Natural Law Concepts” (1954), Ethics: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy (1968), and The Philosophy of Human Affairs (1981). Banner was also involved in various academic and religious organizations, including the Mellon Fellowships in Humanities, the Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission, the American Philosophical Association, and the Guild Scholars of the Episcopal Church.

Banner died on October 14, 2013, at the age of 98.

"Natural Law and Human Rights: A Critical Exposition of a Theory of Just Law." PhD diss., Harvard University, 1946.

"School Speakers," The Washington Post, February 19, 1951.

"Powell Amendment," The Washington Post, February 27, 1956.

"An Ethical Basis for Racial Understanding," Religious Education 59, no. 1 (1964).

"Aid for Selma Negroes," The New York Times, March 14, 1965.

Origen and the Tradition of Natural Law Concepts. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954.

Ethics: Introduction to Moral Philosophy. New York, NY: Scribner, 1968.

"The Moral Philosopher Looks at Values Education," New Directions for Higher Education 31 (1980).

"Distributive Justice and Welfare Claims," Social Research 47, no. 2 (1980).

"A New American Justice: Ending the White Male Monopolies," The Journal of Negro Education 50, no. 2 (1981).

Moral Norms and Moral Order: The Philosophy of Human Affairs. Gainesville, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1981.

The Path of St. Augustine. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996.