Person

Joseph James Rhoads

Attended Yale Divinity School 1922-1923

Joseph James Rhoads - *The Call* (Kansas City, Missouri), 19 October 1951

Biography

Joseph James Rhoads was born on October 30, 1890, to Martha and George Rhoads in Marshall, Texas.1 He attended the local high school, Central High School, and matriculated to Bishop College, a historically Black college in Marshall, Texas, in 1906, graduating with a B.S. in 1910. He became principal of the Normal School in Grambling, Louisiana until 1912, before returning home and serving as assistant principal at Pemberton High from 1912 to 1915. He served as an assistant principal at A. J. Moore High School in Waco, Texas until 1918. He then moved to Alabama to teach at the Tuskegee Institute between 1919 and 1922. While there, he also became the executive secretary of the YMCA at Tuskegee, Alabama.2 In 1918, he married Lucile O. Bridge, a fellow Texan native who was a teacher and a graduate at the Tuskegee Institute.3

In 1923, Rhoads won second place in the first-term examinations for the Yale Divinity School. Charles Reynolds Brown, dean of the Yale Divinity School, awarded him the Henry W. Allis Scholarship, which provided $150 and admission to Yale University.4 He left Yale in 1923 to take up a post as principal of the Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas, Texas. He received praise from the Dallas community for bringing the idea of class sorting from the north and implementing it in the school.5 Beginning in 1927, he took graduate-level courses at the University of Michigan during the summers and received a master’s degree in 1935. In 1929, he was unanimously elected by the board of trustees of his alma mater, Bishop College, to become the seventh president and the first Black president of the college.6

Rhoads served as the president of Bishop College from 1929 until his death in 1951. During his two-decade tenure as president, he gained accreditation status for the college, onboarded Black faculty, built a new stadium and increased enrollment.7 President Rhoads won praise from the broader Black community when, in a discussion with the governor’s representative surrounding a proposed public Black college in Texas, Rhoads and Dr. E. C. McCleod, president of Wiley College, were addressed derogatorily as “boys” midway in the meeting. They continued the meeting without challenging it but later penned a public letter to denounce the racist sentiment.8

In 1942, Rhoads presided over the new Texas Commission on Democracy in Education, which campaigned for equal pay for white and Black public school teachers. In 1945, the organization succeeded in increasing the payroll for Black teachers in Texas by $2,000,000.9 Rhoads was also the president of the Texas Council of Negro Organizations and a chairman at the YMCA in Dallas. Rhoads also authored Democracy’s Debt of Honor and America’s Ideals of Brotherhood.10

In 1951, a local publisher, Carter Walker Wesley, organized a J. J. Rhoads appreciation fund which raised $50,000 for his retirement. In 1951, Rhoads resigned his post as president of Bishop College and died at his home on the college’s campus later that year, on October 19, 1951, at the age of 60.11

  1. "United States, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XPK2-F5Q : Fri Mar 29 15:03:23 UTC 2024), Entry for Joseph James Rhoads, 1942. ↩

  2. “His Alma Mater Has Won Recognition Under His Presidency,” The Michigan Alumnus 46, no. 16 (1939), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015071120920&seq=352&q1=rhoads. ↩

  3. "United States, Census, 1920", FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MX8P-B1G : Wed Jan 15 21:11:43 UTC 2025), Entry for Joseph J Rhoads and Lucile O Rhoads, 1920; “Bishop College Shows Steady Gains Under Negro Leadership: Bishop College Reports Surplus Notable Scenes and Prominent Figures At Bishop College,” The Pittsburgh Courier, October 1, 1932, https://www.proquest.com/docview/201948269/fulltextPDF/B5FBDC8561CA4FCAPQ/33?accountid=15172&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers. ↩

  4. “New Wine in New Bottles,” Opportunity 4, no. 45 (1926), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015004953173&seq=286&q1=Rhoads; “What Others Say,” The Southern Workman 52, no. 9 (1923), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015006944501&seq=501&q1=rhoads. ↩

  5. “Joseph J. Rhoads, Educator”, The Bulletin 9, no. 3 (1929), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nc01.ark:/13960/t7bs91p5z&seq=88&q1=rhoads ↩

  6. “Colored Man Is Chosen As President Of Texas College: Bishop College Elects J. J. Rhoads as Head; Institution Has Had Six White Presidents,” Kansas City Call, February 8, 1929, https://www.proquest.com/docview/2898475220/fulltextPDF/E75308EE88F14366PQ/2?accountid=15172&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers. ↩

  7. “Bishop College Prepares To Get Accredited Rating,” The Call, February 2, 1934, https://www.proquest.com/docview/2884017719/fulltextPDF/B99FD15E20254C3FPQ/51?accountid=15172&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers; “Begin Work On $10,000 Bishop Gym: Stadium Also Will Be Constructed at Marshall, Texas. College,” The Call, August 16, 1935, https://www.proquest.com/docview/2903957715/fulltextPDF/B99FD15E20254C3FPQ/65?accountid=15172&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers; “His Alma Mater Has Won Recognition Under His Presidency,” The Michigan Alumnus 46, no. 16 (1939), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015071120920&seq=352&q1=rhoads. ↩

  8. “Calls College Heads ‘Boys’,” New York Amsterdam News, August 31, 1946, https://www.proquest.com/docview/226047556/fulltextPDF/748F4ACDF50E434EPQ/15?accountid=15172&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers. ↩

  9. “Bishop President Speaks at Michigan U,” The Call, March 2, 1945, https://www.proquest.com/docview/2892850989/fulltextPDF/5E674CAACE9C4303PQ/14?accountid=15172&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers. ↩

  10. Who’s Who in Colored America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Persons of African Descent in the United States, eds. G. James Fleming, Christian E. Burckel (Yonkers-on-Hudson: Christian E. Burckel & Associates, 1950), 436. ↩

  11. “Dr J. J. Rhoads of Texas Dead: Last Rites For Noted Educator; Former President Of Bishop College Dies On Campus,” The Call, October 19, 1951, https://www.proquest.com/docview/2916648717/fulltextPDF/FB34865634E84D46PQ/6?accountid=15172&sourcetype=Historical%20Newspapers. ↩

Full Name

Joseph James Rhoads

Family Name

Rhoads

Yale Affiliation

Attended Yale Divinity School 1922-1923

Birth Date

1890

Birth Place

Marshall, Texas, United States

Educated At

Yale Divinity School
University of Michigan
Bishop College

Employed By

Grambling State University
Tuskegee University
Bishop College

Places Lived

Marshall, Texas, United States
Waco, Texas, United States
Dallas, Texas, United States
Grambling, Louisiana, United States
Tuskegee, Alabama, United States

Death Date

1951

Gender

male

Decade(s) at Yale

1920s
Media
Joseph James Rhoads - *The Call* (Kansas City, Missouri), 19 October 1951Joseph James Rhoads - *The Call* (Kansas City, Missouri), 19 October 1951