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Benjamin F. Payton assumes the office of president of Tuskegee Institute.
1981 (Aug 1)
Benjamin F. Payton assumed the office of president of Tuskegee Institute. Payton succeeded Luther H. Foster, who retired after twenty-eight years as president of the historic and predominantly Black university founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881. Payton was program officer for education and public policy at the Ford Foundation at the time of his appointment to Tuskegee. He had previously taught and directed the Community Service Project at Howard University, directed the Commission on Religion and Race and the Department of Social Justice at the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A., and was a president of Benedict College in South Carolina.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.