Mark Hanna Watkins

Welcome to the publication, “Representations.” This is a project designed to bring the perspectives of a wider variety of groups to the forefront of the anthropology classroom. To celebrate Black History Month, we are covering the accomplishments of 28 Black anthropologists across 28 days. Learn more about our project; read on for the amazing accomplishments of Mark Hanna Watkins.

As a leading scholar within anthropology, sociology, and linguistics, Mark Hanna Watkins played an important role throughout his pedagogical career in conveying foundational criteria that models current understandings within the fields surrounding social science. Watkins earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from The University of Chicago, and set precedence as one of the first African Americans to obtain a doctorate.

With his doctoral dissertation focusing on African languages, Watkins’ “A Grammar of Chichewa: A Bantu Language of British Central Africa” renowned itself as the first book on African grammar and intonation written by an American. Watkins went on to be a professor Anthropology at Fisk University in Nashville, where he saw the nation’s very first African Studies program come to fruition in 1943. Following his time at Fisk, Watkins began his tenure at Howard University where he served as the head of the Sociology department, while simultaneously teaching classes in both sociology and anthropology. While the work Watkins curated throughout his lifetime provided pivotal considerations within the realm of social sciences, his mere life and individuality distinguish him as not just a pioneer but also an inspirational figure for those in academia.

Bibliography

Staff, DPAAC, “Watkins, Mark Hanna” (2016). Manuscript Division Finding Aids. 262. https://dh.howard.edu/finaid_manu/262