"William Alphaeus Hunton Jr" (September 18,1903-January 13,1970)

From in Atlanta,Georgia,his granddaddy,Stanton Hunton,was a slave,an abolitionist and a close friend of John Brown who participated in the planning of the battle of Harper's Ferry.The family moved to Brooklyn after the Atlanta riots of 1906.He attended Boys High School in Brooklyn
and worked as a porter to finance his education after his daddy died prematurely in 1916.William graduated from Howard University in 1924,and Harvard University in 1926.He then because an instructor,lecturer and assistant professor in the English & Romance Languages Department at Howard.During this time,he was also a PhD candidate at New York University and attended convention of the National Negro Congress in Chicago in 1936.
He helped launch the Washington,D.C. branch of that organization and was chairman of its Labor Committee.He led and participated in several campaigns to "blast Jim Crow out of Washington,"and in his own words,"make the District budget serve the human needs of the community." through boycotts,picket lines,demonstrations,petitions,and strikes,they confronted racism,against African Americans in federal government,stores,hotels,and various branches of industry,as well as in the fields of health,education and housing.William became Educational Director of the Council on African Affairs in 1943 and assumed the role of executive secretary assuring,often alone,the functioning of the entire organization until its conclusion in 1955.The CAA wanted to educate the general public about the history of Africa and its struggle against colonialism and imperialism.But the emergence of the Cold War and the increasing scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee of civil rights and progressive organizations in this country hampered the work of the Council.The CAA and its officers were repeatedly investigated and accused of subversion unpatriotic views and disloyalty.
He published his book;Decision on Africa in 1957 and when President Sekou Toure invited him to
immigrate to Guinea,he quickly accepted.William taught a course on Foreign Affairs at the Guinean National School of Administration and served as temporary editor of the weekly English Bulletin of the information Ministry.In 1962 he resigned his appointment and accepted an invitation from W.E.B.Du Bois to work in Ghana under his direction.As secretary of the Encyclopedia Africana Project at the Ghana Academy of Sciences William built their conceptual,human and material framework. the ten volume encyclopedia slated for publication under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity,
beginning in 1970.With the overthrow Nkrumah,he was demoted in late 1965 to the post of area editor.
The following year,William was expelled from Ghana,following the expulsion order,he and his third wife sailed to New York in late 1966,only to return to Africa the following year on a personal
invitation from Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda.William began to work on a history and collection of  the nationalist movement in Zambia,under the sponsorship of Kaunda's Foundation.This project was never completed.William died of cancer in Lusaka.