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Clarence A. Bacote Papers
1886-1990 (bulk dates 1944-1983)

34 linear feet

Clarence Albert Bacote (b. 1906 d. 1981) joined the faculty of Atlanta University as an Assistant Professor of History in 1930 and was promoted to full professor in 1939. He was appointed department chair in 1963, a position he held until his retirement in 1977. He was the first person appointed to the graduate faculty of Atlanta University and also served as the University Marshall. After retirement from Atlanta University, Dr. Bacote accepted a teaching position in the history department of Morehouse College, where he served until his death in 1981. Dr. Bacote was active in many professional organizations including the American Association of University Professors, the American Historical Association and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. A prolific writer, he contributed numerous articles and reviews to the Journal of Negro History, Phylon, and the Negro History Bulletin. He also authored The Story of Atlanta University (c. 1969). Dr. Bacote was involved with many civic, community, and political organizations such as Atlanta Branch of the NAACP, Atlanta Negro Voters League, Georgia State Advisory Committee to the U. S. Civil Rights Commission, and Fulton County Democratic Party. Under his leadership, citizenship schools were established and voter registration for African Americans in Georgia increased significantly. He was consulted by local media to provide analysis for local, state and national elections.

The Clarence A. Bacote Papers document his life and career and include personal and business correspondence, teaching materials, minutes, reports, speeches and writings by him and others, news clippings, election analysis documents, and printed materials of Atlanta University and other organizations in which he was affiliated. Among the correspondents are W.E.B. DuBois, Horace Mann Bond, Rufus Clement, C. Vann Woodard, E. Franklin Frazier, John Hope, Vincent Harding and Rayford Logan. Of interest is a letter addressed to Dr. Bacote's father, Reverend Samuel William Bacote, from Booker T. Washington regarding the dishonorable discharge of a Negro army unit by President Theodore Roosevelt. There are research notes from his dissertation, The Negro in Georgia Politics, 1880-1908, and his book The Story of Atlanta University. Photographs are of his family and events at Atlanta University including a photo album of campus life during World War I.