"Horace Roscoe Cayton Jr." (1903-1970)

Was the son of Horace and Susie Cayton and the grandson of Hiram Revels, the first black U.S. Senator.After graduation from Seattle's Franklin High School and the University of Washington,Horace attended the University of Chicago.It was that his career as a sociologist was defined.He was "determined to learn all there was about the Negro community."Teaching assignments at Tuskegee and Fisk University broadened his knowledge.Returning to Chicago after his teaching sojourns,one of his first in-depth research efforts was interviewing black policemen on Chicago's police force.His book,written in collaboration with economics professor George S.Mitchell,was black workers and the New Unions.Horce Clayton and Clair St.Drake,a social anthropologist,co-athored Black Metropolis which was published in 1945.The book was based largely on data collected from major research project ostensibly developed to investgate juvenile delinquency but was,in realty a vehicle to study the social structure of Chicago's entire black community (Cayton-Warner Research Project).Still considered a landmark study,Black-Metropolis won the Anisfield-Wolf Award for best book published on race relations.During his career,Horace was a columnist for the Pittsburgh Courier,wrote articles and reviews for numerous major publications,and served as director of Chicago's Parkway Community Center.He rarely visted Seattle after his orginal departure.He died in Paris while attending to gather data for a Richard Wright biography.