Eugene Mason Collection

1930-1993

Eugene Harold Mason has been a teacher, specialist in race relations and intercultural education, and lecturer. Born in 1901 in Kentucky, he attended Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, the University of California, and the American Baptist Seminary of the West in Berkeley. He was the first African-American male to graduate from the latter school with a theological degree in 1935.

Early in his long career, Mason taught in the Kentucky public schools and the Social Studies Division of the California public school system. In 1937, he was chosen by the United States Office of Education to direct a survey of vocational guidance in California schools. In California, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, Mason was associated with community church fellowship houses, and served as a lecturer for the Fellowship House in California in the early 1940's. He was Associate Director of the Intercultural Education Workshop in New York City, from 1942-1948. This group offered consultative service to churches, schools and community groups on problems related to minority groups, racial, religious and cultural conflicts. He lectured to schools and organizations during this time. Mason was an early promoter of black studies, teaching a class in a Baptist Church and a YWCA in Oakland, California in the 1930's. He co-founded that city's Carter Woodson's Historical Society in 1956. Although this society did not have a permanent address, in 1965 he helped to found the East Bay Negro Historical Society in Oakland.