Uncrowned Community Builders

Monroe Fordham was born on October 11, 1939 in Parrott, Georgia. My mother's name was Arie Deloris Oxford, and my grandparents were Mance and Sarah Ann Oxford. Within a year or so after I was born, my mother went to live with my Uncle Otis Oxford in Orlando, Florida in order to get a new start and build a better future for herself. Opportunities for a young African-American girl with a child were non-existent in Parrott. While in Orlando she met and married James Fordham.

When my mother went to Florida, I was left to live with my grandparents on their farm in Parrott. I remained with them until I was 6 or 7 years old. My Aunt Ozie Carter and her three boys (L'Overture, Reggie, and Robert) also lived with my grandparents. I developed a very close relationship with my grandmother, as I was too young to work in the cotton and peanut fields. I spent most of my time with my grandmother who was cook and housekeeper for the family. She was like a mother to me. When I reached school age I was enrolled at Helen Gurr School, the "Colored" school in Parrott. The school was located behind Macedonia Baptist Church and was about four miles from the area of the country where our farms were located. All of my cousins who lived on farms near my grandparents' farm also attended Helen Gurr. I remember that we all walked to school together. We walked through woods, across fields, along unpaved roads, and crossed swollen creeks on logs that the older people had placed there for us.

I was re-united with my mother who took me to Orlando, Florida to live with her, her husband and their three younger children. Shortly thereafter, my grandparents sold their farm and moved to town. My mother and her husband James "Jabo" Fordham (my first real father) lived in the Griffin Park Federal Housing Project. At that time, they had three younger children (Vera, Lawrence, and Evelyn). From the very beginning I felt completely at home in my new environment. Because I was the oldest child, I always felt special. My father would take me to the Lincoln Theater on Friday nights to see the weekly cowboy movie. He "wrote numbers" to make extra income and sometimes he would take me with him to "collect" from his regulars on Saturday afternoons. We had a three-bedroom apartment, and I shared a bedroom with my little brother Lawrence. We were members of the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. I attended the Holden Street Elementary School. Growing up in Orlando was a wonderful experience. My life took many twists and turns, which I may write about later. In retrospect, I feel that God watched over me and protected me during those early years. He was preparing me for a special mission.

After completing 6th grade at Holden Street School, I entered Jones High School as a 7th grader. I was always a bright and serious student and by the time I entered the 8th grade I could feel that I was destined for something special. I had no idea what that "mission" would be, but I always took school very seriously. In my 8th grade year the new Jones High School opened on Orange Blossom Trail. Again, my life during the high school years took many twists and turns, which I may write about later. My mother always encouraged me to think about college. She always said that I could attend one of the Black colleges in Atlanta Georgia and live with my aunt Nan Telafair. (When I attended college in the 1960s, only one other relative had ever gone to college).

I graduated from Jones High School in the class of 1957. My high school years were filled with excitement and expectation. I had always been a good student academically, I was a member of the varsity basketball team for three years, I was a so-so trombone player in the band during my freshman and sophomore years, and I was on the varsity track team during my senior year. My high school basketball coach was Art McAfee, a native of Kansas and a graduate student at Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia. "Mac" helped me to secure an academic scholarship and athletic grant-in-aid to attend KSTC.

I entered KSTC in the fall of 1957 and decided to major in the social sciences. I wanted to become a history teacher. My life in college took many twists and turns which I may write about later. One event that would change my life took place during my third year in college. I met my future wife who transferred to KSTC from a community college. She was a young woman named Freddie Mae Harris from Kansas City, Kansas. We were married the following year in Kansas City, Kansas on August 28, 1960. Our first child, Cynthia, was born December 10, 1961.

Both my wife and I graduated from KSTC (she in 1961, and I in 1962). We were both hired to teach in the Wichita, Kansas Public School System beginning in the fall of 1962. I taught in the social science department at Wichita East High School from 1962 thru the spring of 1969. I served as the Coordinator of Afro-American Studies at Wichita State University during the academic year 1969-70. While in Wichita two more children were added to our family: Barry (born on September 1, 1965), and Pamela arrived August 6, 1968. (reprinted with permission from autobiographical statement of Dr. Fordham)

Monroe Fordham earned the BS and MS degrees from Emporia State University in Kansas. He taught social studies at Wichita, Kansas East High School from 1962-1969. in the fall of 1970, he entered a doctoral program in history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he earned a PhD in 1973. He was a faculty member of the History Department at Buffalo State College from 1970-1998. He served as department chair for 12 years. During his tenure as a faculty member at Buffalo State College, Fordham pioneered a number of initiatives aimed at preserving state and regional African American historical sources. He also worked with numerous community groups in developing records management and records preservation programs.

In 1986, Monroe Fordham was one of 50 educators in the United States selected by the American Association for Higher Education, the Carnegie Foundation and Change Magazine as a professor who made a difference in higher education. In 1993, Fordham received the Emporia State University Outstanding Alumni Award. In 2001 Fordham was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Degree by the Sate University of New York. Following his retirement and in recognition of his work in regional and community history, Buffalo State College established the Monroe Fordham Center for Regional History in 2002.

Fordham is the author of two books, Major Themes in Northern Black Religious Thought, 1800-1860 (1975), and A History of Bethel A.M.E. Church, Buffalo, New York (1977). Since 1977 he has served as editor of Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, an interdisciplinary journal that is published two times per year. He co-edits, with his daughter, Pam Fordham, The Oxford Family Newsletter. Fordham is also the author of numerous articles and book reviews in the field of African American History.

In 1993, he received the Emporia State University "Outstanding Alumni Award". In 1995 he was inducted into the Emporia State University Athletic Hall of Fame. Following his retirement, and in recognition of his work in regional and community history, Buffalo State College established the Monroe Fordham Center for Regional History (2002). In 2001 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Degree by the State University of New York. In 2005, Fordham was the recipient of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History's (ASALH) Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion. ASALH was founded by Dr. Woodson in 1915, the annual Woodson Award is presented to a scholar whose career is distinguished through at least a decade of research, writing and activism in the field of African American life and history.

Fordham resides in Buffalo, New York. For 46 years, he has been married to the former Freddie Mae Harris of Kansas City, Kansas, also a career educator. The couple has three children and six grandchildren.

Following Dr. Fordham's death, the following memoriam statement was issued by his colleagues at Buffalo State College, Buffalo, New York.

The Buffalo State community is saddened by the death of Monroe Fordham, professor emeritus of history and social studies education, who passed away on June 13.

Dr. Fordham earned a bachelor of science in social studies and a master of science in United States history from Emporia State University, which named him a distinguished alumnus in 1993. He joined the Buffalo State community in 1970 as an instructor of American and African American history.

He quickly earned a reputation as an outstanding teacher while completing a Ph.D. in history at the University at Buffalo. He was appointed assistant professor in 1974, associate professor in 1980, and chair of the History and Social Studies Education Department in 1984. He was promoted to full professor in 1987 upon the strong recommendation of his colleagues, who noted that, in 1986, the American Association of Higher Education recognized him as an outstanding teacher in higher education. He retired in 1998.

Dr. Fordham attained local, regional, and national recognition as a scholar for his research and publications as well as for his groundbreaking work in community history. He established the Monroe Fordham Regional History Center at Buffalo State as a repository for local African American historical documents, including material from the Urban League and the NAACP, from newspapers, and from many members of the African American community. He told interviewers in 2000 that the model he used to collect source material could be used by any group that wanted to preserve its history, and today the centerâ??s collection includes many such histories.

His contribution to scholarship included serving as editor of an interdisciplinary history journal, Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, and authorship of A History of Bethel A.M.E. in Buffalo and Major Themes in Northern Black Religious Thought, 1800â??1860, in addition to many articles and book reviews. He also published and presented widely on collecting and preserving community histories. He helped to plan and implement a series of TV shorts on African Americans in Buffaloâ??s history for a local television station in 1975, and he contributed to a television docudrama, â??Voices from the Civil Rights Movement,â? in 1993.

Dr. Fordhamâ??s service to the university included serving on and chairing many committees. He was instrumental in establishing the African American interdisciplinary unit and, later, the criteria for the diversity and global issues requirements at Buffalo State. He also presented seminars about teaching at Buffalo State to new faculty members.

He received a SUNY Research Foundation Award for â??Black Cooperative Economic Society of Buffalo: A History,â? and he served on many statewide commissions, including the New York State Board for Historic Preservation.

â??Monroe epitomized all of the best things about the academic profession,â? said Andrew Nicholls, professor and chair of the History and Social Studies Education Department. â??I am proud to have had the opportunity to work with him.â?;

Dr. Fordham is survived by his wife, Freddie, and three children. Services will be held on Tuesday, June 19, at First Shiloh Baptist Church, 15 Pine Street, Buffalo, NY 14204. A wake will begin at 11:00 a.m., followed by a funeral service at noon. His family requests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Monroe Fordham Regional History Center by sending a gift to the Buffalo State College Foundation and designating it for the Monroe Fordham Regional History Center.