Anthropologist Profile: Dr. Mark Hanna Watkins

Dr. Mark Hanna Watkins (Source: Association of Black Anthropologists)

 

Mark Hanna Watkins is credited with being the first of many accomplishments, but it is the fact that he was the first African American linguist to earn his Ph.D. in anthropological linguistics that secured his place on the blog.  This is a noteworthy feat, but it pales in comparison to the greater achievements he went on to undertake in his lifetime.  This blog post will detail his lifetime achievements, demonstrating why he is considered one of the greatest and most influential linguistic and anthropological scholars to this day.

 

Watkins was born on November 23, 1903, in Huntsville, Texas.  He was the last of 14 children born to a Baptist minister father and homemaker mother.  It was his father’s position in the Baptist church that afforded his family various opportunities that they would otherwise not have access to.  It appears that Watkins capitalized on these opportunities in various ways, leading him to complete his bachelor’s in education at Prairie View State College in 1926. 

 

A few short years later in 1929, however, Watkins relocated from Texas to Chicago, Illinois, where he enrolled in the University of Chicago’s Master’s program in anthropology.  It is unclear what led him to pursue this field of study, although there is evidence that he was involved in some anthropological work in his undergraduate, which may have piqued his interest.  While he attended an all-Black school for his undergraduate degree, which was standard at that time due to educational segregation laws, Watkins’ entrance into the University of Chicago was an exception due to his race and the status of the school, which enrolled White students.  This choice, however, was significant for Watkins’ education and subsequent career. 

 

While at the University of Chicago he had the opportunity to study and work with several influential linguistic anthropologists, including Manuel J. Andrade, Leonard Bloomfield, and Edward Sapir.  He completed both his Masters and Ph.D. in linguistic anthropology at the University of Chicago, the latter of which was funded through various prestigious and difficult to acquire fellowships and grants.  It was also his doctoral work that led to a paradigm shift in American linguistic anthropology.  At that time it was standard practice that linguists study American Indian languages, but various circumstances led Watkins to take a different route.  Instead, he studied the African language, Chichewa, and published the first and only reference grammar text on the language.  This text remains a standard for linguists studying African languages, as well as cemented Watkins the title of being one of the founders of modern American linguistics.

 

Upon completing his dissertation Watkins took a job at the Municipal College for Negros in Louisville, Kentucky (today known as the Louisville Municipal College).  He was quickly recruited to work at Fisk University, where he went on to establish the first African Studies program in the United States.  He also advocated for the establishment of anthropology departments and programs at Black Colleges and Universities across the United States, which he was successful in accomplishing at several schools.  In 1947 he left Fisk to take a position at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he established an exchange program between American and African students in 1954.  He eventually retired from Howard University.

 

Outside of his academic pursuits Watkins was also employed by the United States government on several linguistic projects.  This led him to expand his research agenda from African and American Indian languages (the latter of which he studied for his master’s research) to Afro-Caribbean and African American languages and dialects.  He authored several government reports, as well as maintained a rigorous academic publishing record at the same time.  He remained committed to research until his dying day, reportedly dictating to his wife the revisions he wanted to see in his final publication, Setswana Phonemics: Sefokeng Dialect. 

 

Mark Hanna Watkins’ lifetime of achievements are incredible and numerous.  He achieved so much in a day and age where opportunities for Blacks were limited, if available at all.  It was his drive and personal commitment that drove his success, making him an inspiration to all those who hope to achieve even a little of what he accomplished over his lifetime.

 

Works Cited

Blatz, C. (2021, February 16). Mark Hanna Watkins. Retrieved from Medium: https://medium.com/representations/mark-hanna-watkins-1161d70a06de

Spears, A. K. (2022). This Month in Linguistic History: Tribute to Mark Hanna Watkins. Retrieved from Linguistic Society of America: https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/month-linguistics-history-tribute-mark-hanna-watkins

Wade-Lewis, M. (2005). 7. Mark Hanna Watkins: African American Linguistic Anthropologist. Histories of Anthropology Annual, 181-218.

 

 

Accidental Archaeological Pioneer: George McJunkin

Figure 1: George McJunkin (Source: Wikicommons)

 

The story of George McJunkin is remarkable in various ways (Figure 1).  McJunkin was born into slavery in 1851 and was denied many rights and privileges, but upon receiving his freedom in 1868 he took every opportunity to make up for lost time.  He learned to read, play the fiddle and guitar, and to speak Spanish.  He spent his time satiating his curiosity in naturalism, reading everything he could the subject.  He took up employment as a cowboy and rancher where he spent his free time combing the New Mexican desert searching for and collecting American Indian artifacts.  McJunkin has since been identified as the first Black avocational or early artifact collector, which was common in his day.  Prior to the established archaeological methods that exist today the field was filled with amateurs who simply went out looking for anything and everything they could find.  While these methods are not supported today they did yield a variety of amazing discoveries, one of which McJunkin has finally received long over due credit for.  This blog post will address McJunkin’s monumental discovery of the Folsom site in New Mexico.

 

The Folsom site is heralded as the first archaeological site to establish the earliest human occupation in the Americas, although it is no longer considered the earliest such site today.  Its discovery was accidental and very much due to McJunkin, who happened upon it while repairing fencing on the ranch where he was working.  Torrential rainfall had damaged the fence but also washed away topsoil, exposing mysterious bones that McJunkin recognized.  He knew they were bison bones, but they were unlike any bison bones he was familiar with.  They were far larger, leading him to recognize that this was an important discovery that required study by the scientific community.  He went about writing several other avocational and professional scholars, but only a couple were interested in visiting the site.  It is unclear if they were reluctant to do so because of McJunkin’s race or because of the isolated location of the site (as it was only accessible by either taking a two-day horse back ride or one day car trip, and cars were not as commonly available as they are today and not everyone knew how to ride a horse). 

 

Over the next decade and a half McJunkin did not give up his solicitation of interest.  His efforts were fruitful a few years after his death when two avocational fossil hunters were able to convince their friend, who had just purchased a car, to drive them out to the site.  Their confirmation of McJunkin’s discovery was brought to the attention of Colorado scholars who visited the site in short order.  They initially thought that the site was a significant paleontological site as the bison bones belong to a species that had neither been previously identified nor classified, leading to the first of McJunkin’s unintentional monumental discoveries.  

 

Figure 2: Folsom point (Source: Bureau of Land Management)

 

As they excavated the bones the researchers made another extraordinary discovery: lodged within the remains of the rib cage was a man-made, fluted stone point (Figure 2).  This instigated an intense debate within the archaeological community, one that had been raging for some time.  This debate concerned the initial timeline for human occupation of the Americas.  American Indians claimed that archaeologists and historians were wrong in their conclusion that the Americas had been occupied for only 4,000 years, a stance that well known anthropologist Aleš Hrdlicka was fervently committed.  The discovery of this man-made point and its association with an extinct megafauna species set that date back to 10,000 years, a far earlier date of occupation.  The site and the point were both named after a nearby town, Folsom. 

 

It was not until other similar sites were discovered throughout the American Southwest did the archaeological community begin to accept the earlier date of occupation, thereby establishing the first timeline for the Paleoindian occupation of the Americas.  Again, there have been further discoveries since McJunkin’s that have reestablished the timelines for Paleoindian occupations of the America’s, but the Folsom site, McJunkin’s discovery, will always be remembered as the first Paleoindian site, even though he could not know that initially.  It also means that McJunkin is the first Black American archaeologist, another title he never set to achieve but did nonetheless. 

 

References

Conner, C. D. (2021, July 7). Revolutionary Lives: George McJunkin. Science for the People.

Morrow, J. (n.d.). George McJunkin, a cowboy who loved archeology . Retrieved from University of Arkansas System-Arkansas Archaeological Survey: https://archeology.uark.edu/george-mcjunkin/

Nash, S. (2022, January 20). A Hidden Figure in North American Archaeology. Retrieved from Sapiens: https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/george-mcjunkin/

National Park Service. (2020, August 1). George McJunkin. Retrieved from National Park Service Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico: https://www.nps.gov/cavo/learn/historyculture/george-mcjunkin.htm

Peebles, M. (2020). George McJunkin and the Discovery That Changed American Archaeology. Retrieved from Archaeology Southwest: https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/2015/02/23/george-mcjunkin-and-the-discovery-that-changed-american-archaeology/

 

The Talented Dr. Irma McClaurin, Activist Anthropologist, Poet, Faculty Member, Consultant, and More...

Dr. Irma McClaurin (Source: Irma McClaurin Solutions, Inc.)

 

It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to activist anthropologist, Irma McClaurin.  She has blazed an astonishing career, and she demonstrates no possibilities of stopping anytime soon.  I share her story as I hope it inspires you to do great things as she has already and continues to do.

 

Irma McClaurin was born in Chicago, and in her own words, “I don’t come from great wealth.  I don’t come from a very long tradition of people going to college.”  These are often obstacles that deter individuals from going to college and earning a degree, but McClaurin did not allow these to be roadblocks.  She earned her Bachelors in American Studies in 1973, which she quickly followed up with a Masters in Fine Arts (English) from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst just three years later.  She actually did not earn her PhD in Anthropology until 1993.  It was during that time that she undertook her doctoral research and studied womanhood in Belize.  It was through this research that she realized that the struggles women of Belize faced were no different than those she experienced growing up in the United States, which sent her on the trajectory to make positive changes for those who have often been denied a voice both throughout history and today.

 

She has since become a prolific author, publishing several books of poetry and numerous nonfiction books and journal articles.  She has been bestowed various honors and awards throughout her career.  She has served as a professor at various institutions, as well as became the first female President of Shaw University, a Historically Black College and University and Chief Diversity Officer at Teach For America.  She is currently a faculty member and founder of the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

 

McClaurin founded the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive as a means of preserving histories, stories, documents, etc. pertaining to Black women’s stories and histories.  She was inspired to create this archive when she was conducting research on the anthropological work of Zora Neale Hurston, who is better known as a creative writer.  McClaurin believes that Hurston’s anthropological work has been largely ignored because it focused on African American people, culture, and their livelihoods, which are topics not readily addressed in history.  To this end she is actively working on digitizing the Archives collections so they are available to all members of the public, not just those with the means of traveling to Amherst.   As she put it, “I’m very attuned to how we preserve the things of those who don’t have the access or the privilege of working at a university.”

 

In addition to her academic work McClaurin is also a business owner.  She runs Irma McClaurin Solutions, Inc.  Her work focuses on organizational and leadership development.  She also advertises herself as available for various social justice work, including but not limited to serving as a social justice policy maker and Immigration and Asylum Expert Witness.  

 

 

Works Cited

Lewis, Eshe. "Preserving Black Women’s Stories as a Labor of Love." 21 October 2021. Sapiens. Electronic. 22 December 2022.

McClaurin, Irma. "Irma McClaurin." 14 June 2000. University of Florida. Electronic. 22 December 2022.

—. Irma McClaurin Solutions. 2018. Electronic. 22 December 2022.

Saint Louis, Christina. "Dr. Irma McClaurin, Activist Anthropologist." 29 June 2018. Crewomen.org. Electronic. 22 December 2022.