Jeanne L. Noble
Encyclopedia
Jeanne Laveta Noble was an innovative black
American
educator who served on education commissions for three U.S. presidents. Noble was the first to analyze and publish the experiences of female African Americans in college. She served as president of the Delta Sigma Theta
(DST) sorority within which she founded that group's National Commission on Arts and Letters. Noble was the first African-American board member of the Girl Scouts of the USA
, and the first to serve the U.S. government's Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services
(DACOWITS). She headed the Women's Job Corps Program in the 1960s, and was the first African-American woman to be made full professor at the New York University
's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Noble wrote several books including The Negro Woman's College Education and Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of My Black Sisters. In 1973 with Roscoe Lee Browne
she produced Roses and Revolutions, a record album funded by DST. She won a regional Emmy Award
for her New York-area television program The Learning Experience which she wrote and moderated; it aired weekly on WCBS
in the 1970s. In 1979, Noble co-hosted the TV program Straight Talk. Natalie Cole
appeared in an anti-drug abuse public service spot produced by Noble. In 1984 Noble signed A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion
noting her affiliation with the National Assembly of Religious Women.
on July 18, 1926, the first child of Floyd and Aurelia Noble. After three boys were born to the couple, Floyd Noble left his family around 1930 or 1931. Child-rearing duties fell to Aurelia Noble and her mother Maggie Brown, a first grade teacher. Grandmother Brown stressed to Noble the importance of education. During her childhood, Noble attended an Episcopal church favored by her mother.
Noble entered Howard University
and earned a B.A. degree in 1946. E. Franklin Frazier
was her adviser, and her teachers included Alain LeRoy Locke
and Sterling Allen Brown
. From Howard, Noble went to Columbia University
and earned master's degree in 1948. Returning home, she taught summer school at Albany State College. Later she said of the experience, "I fell in love with teaching and never left [the field]." After two years Albany State, she accepted a position as dean of women at Langston University
in Oklahoma. Two years later, she re-enrolled at Columbia University to pursue a doctorate. With a grant from Pi Lambda Theta
, she studied black college women and analyzed data relative to their backgrounds, educations, and achievements. In 1955 she earned her doctorate in educational psychology and counseling. She studied for a time in England at the University of Birmingham
.
as an associate professor teaching at the Center for Human Relations in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, a school of sociology. When Noble advanced to full professor, she said that she was probably the first African-American female to so so at a major university primarily catering to white students. Other lecturer positions Noble has held during her career include summer visiting professorships at the University of Vermont
and at the Tuskegee Institute. She served as assistant dean of students at City College of New York
, a counseling position.
Noble has written books detailing her studies and thoughts. The first was her doctoral dissertation, The Negro Woman's College Education, published by Columbia University Teachers College in 1956. Pioneering educator Esther Lloyd-Jones wrote the foreword to this ground-breaking, progressive work. The next year, she published a summary in The Journal of Negro Education, titled "Negro Women Today and Their Education". In 1960 Noble published the freshman-oriented guide College Education as Personal Development, co-authored with Margaret Fisher, the dean of South Florida University. In 1970 Noble published The Negro Woman College Graduate, a book analyzing the lives of 400 black women who had four or more years of college education. For this, Noble was honored with the Pi Lambda Theta Research Award. In 1976, Noble produced Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of My Black Sisters, a psychosocial montage of personal stories from some of the 400 black college women that Noble had interviewed.
Noble led the Delta Sigma Theta
sorority for from 1958 to 1963. Before taking the presidency she responded as vice president with financial assistance and moral support to the Little Rock Nine
. Later, as president, she helped DST work to desegregate her hometown, Albany. Under her leadership, DST opened a chapter in Liberia and sponsored a maternity wing in a remote Kenyan hospital. She instituted new programs such as the "Teen Lift" mentors and the Commission on Arts and Letters. As she passed the baton to her successor, Ebony magazine named her "one of the 100 most influential Negroes of the Emancipation Centennial Year [1963]."
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson
tapped Noble to help him plan the Women's Job Corps
, a program of his announced War on Poverty
. She worked for five months on a 40-page plan to increase jobs for girls and women aged 16 to 21; a demographic that was vulnerable and in great need of employment. Noble recommended to Johnson that a woman should be named director of the program. Later presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford also asked Noble to serve on educational and investigative commissions.
and of the City University of New York
's Graduate Center
. On October 17, 2002, Noble died at New York University Medical Center of congestive heart failure.
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
educator who served on education commissions for three U.S. presidents. Noble was the first to analyze and publish the experiences of female African Americans in college. She served as president of the Delta Sigma Theta
Delta Sigma Theta
Delta Sigma Theta is a non-profit Greek-lettered sorority of college-educated women who perform public service and place emphasis on the African American community. Delta Sigma Theta Sorority was founded on January 13, 1913 by twenty-two collegiate women at Howard University...
(DST) sorority within which she founded that group's National Commission on Arts and Letters. Noble was the first African-American board member of the Girl Scouts of the USA
Girl Scouts of the USA
The Girl Scouts of the United States of America is a youth organization for girls in the United States and American girls living abroad. It describes itself as "the world's preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls". It was founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912 and was organized after Low...
, and the first to serve the U.S. government's Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services
Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services
The Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services was established in 1951 by then Secretary of Defense, George C. Marshall...
(DACOWITS). She headed the Women's Job Corps Program in the 1960s, and was the first African-American woman to be made full professor at the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Noble wrote several books including The Negro Woman's College Education and Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of My Black Sisters. In 1973 with Roscoe Lee Browne
Roscoe Lee Browne
Roscoe Lee Browne was an American actor and director, known for his rich voice and dignified bearing.-Biography:Browne was the fourth son of a Baptist minister, Sylvanus S. Browne, and his wife Lovie...
she produced Roses and Revolutions, a record album funded by DST. She won a regional Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for her New York-area television program The Learning Experience which she wrote and moderated; it aired weekly on WCBS
WCBS
WCBS may refer to:Assets of CBS* WCBS , a radio station licensed to New York, New York, United States* WCBS-FM, a radio station licensed to New York, New York, United States...
in the 1970s. In 1979, Noble co-hosted the TV program Straight Talk. Natalie Cole
Natalie Cole
Natalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...
appeared in an anti-drug abuse public service spot produced by Noble. In 1984 Noble signed A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion
A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion
A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion, alternatively referred to by its pull quote "A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortion Exists Among Committed Catholics" or simply "The New York Times ad", was a full-page advertisement placed on October 7, 1984 in The New York Times by Catholics for...
noting her affiliation with the National Assembly of Religious Women.
Early life
Jeanne Laveta Noble was born in Albany, GeorgiaAlbany, Georgia
Albany is a city in and the county seat of Dougherty County, Georgia, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. It is the principal city of the Albany, Georgia metropolitan area and the southwest part of the state. The population was 77,434 at the 2010 U.S. Census, making it the...
on July 18, 1926, the first child of Floyd and Aurelia Noble. After three boys were born to the couple, Floyd Noble left his family around 1930 or 1931. Child-rearing duties fell to Aurelia Noble and her mother Maggie Brown, a first grade teacher. Grandmother Brown stressed to Noble the importance of education. During her childhood, Noble attended an Episcopal church favored by her mother.
Noble entered Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
and earned a B.A. degree in 1946. E. Franklin Frazier
E. Franklin Frazier
Edward Franklin Frazier , was an American sociologist. His 1932 Ph.D. dissertation The Negro Family in Chicago, later released as a book The Negro Family in the United States in 1939, analyzed the cultural and historical forces that influenced the development of the African American family from the...
was her adviser, and her teachers included Alain LeRoy Locke
Alain LeRoy Locke
Alain LeRoy Locke was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. He is best known for his writings on and about the Harlem Renaissance. He is regarded as the "Father of the Harlem Renaissance"...
and Sterling Allen Brown
Sterling Allen Brown
Sterling Allen Brown was an African-American professor, author of works on folklore, poet and literary critic. He was interested chiefly in black culture of the Southern United States.-Early life:...
. From Howard, Noble went to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and earned master's degree in 1948. Returning home, she taught summer school at Albany State College. Later she said of the experience, "I fell in love with teaching and never left [the field]." After two years Albany State, she accepted a position as dean of women at Langston University
Langston University
Langston University is an institution of higher learning located in Langston, Oklahoma, USA. It is the only historically black college in the state, and the westernmost historically black college in the United States...
in Oklahoma. Two years later, she re-enrolled at Columbia University to pursue a doctorate. With a grant from Pi Lambda Theta
Pi Lambda Theta
- Basic information :Pi Lambda Theta is an honor society and professional association for educators. As an honor society, its purpose is to recognize persons of superior scholastic achievement and high potential for professional leadership...
, she studied black college women and analyzed data relative to their backgrounds, educations, and achievements. In 1955 she earned her doctorate in educational psychology and counseling. She studied for a time in England at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
.
Career
With her doctorate in hand, Noble was hired by New York UniversityNew York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
as an associate professor teaching at the Center for Human Relations in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, a school of sociology. When Noble advanced to full professor, she said that she was probably the first African-American female to so so at a major university primarily catering to white students. Other lecturer positions Noble has held during her career include summer visiting professorships at the University of Vermont
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
and at the Tuskegee Institute. She served as assistant dean of students at City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
, a counseling position.
Noble has written books detailing her studies and thoughts. The first was her doctoral dissertation, The Negro Woman's College Education, published by Columbia University Teachers College in 1956. Pioneering educator Esther Lloyd-Jones wrote the foreword to this ground-breaking, progressive work. The next year, she published a summary in The Journal of Negro Education, titled "Negro Women Today and Their Education". In 1960 Noble published the freshman-oriented guide College Education as Personal Development, co-authored with Margaret Fisher, the dean of South Florida University. In 1970 Noble published The Negro Woman College Graduate, a book analyzing the lives of 400 black women who had four or more years of college education. For this, Noble was honored with the Pi Lambda Theta Research Award. In 1976, Noble produced Beautiful, Also, Are the Souls of My Black Sisters, a psychosocial montage of personal stories from some of the 400 black college women that Noble had interviewed.
Noble led the Delta Sigma Theta
Delta Sigma Theta
Delta Sigma Theta is a non-profit Greek-lettered sorority of college-educated women who perform public service and place emphasis on the African American community. Delta Sigma Theta Sorority was founded on January 13, 1913 by twenty-two collegiate women at Howard University...
sorority for from 1958 to 1963. Before taking the presidency she responded as vice president with financial assistance and moral support to the Little Rock Nine
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine was a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then...
. Later, as president, she helped DST work to desegregate her hometown, Albany. Under her leadership, DST opened a chapter in Liberia and sponsored a maternity wing in a remote Kenyan hospital. She instituted new programs such as the "Teen Lift" mentors and the Commission on Arts and Letters. As she passed the baton to her successor, Ebony magazine named her "one of the 100 most influential Negroes of the Emancipation Centennial Year [1963]."
In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
tapped Noble to help him plan the Women's Job Corps
Job Corps
Job Corps is a program administered by the United States Department of Labor that offers free-of-charge education and vocational training to youth ages 16 to 24.-Mission and purpose:...
, a program of his announced War on Poverty
War on Poverty
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent...
. She worked for five months on a 40-page plan to increase jobs for girls and women aged 16 to 21; a demographic that was vulnerable and in great need of employment. Noble recommended to Johnson that a woman should be named director of the program. Later presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford also asked Noble to serve on educational and investigative commissions.
Final years
Noble was active in the Episcopal church in New York City. In the 1990s, she was named professor emeritus of Brooklyn CollegeBrooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
and of the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
's Graduate Center
CUNY Graduate Center
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York brings together graduate education, advanced research, and public programming to midtown Manhattan hosting 4,600 students, 33 doctoral programs, 7 master's programs, and 30 research centers and institutes...
. On October 17, 2002, Noble died at New York University Medical Center of congestive heart failure.