Digital publication | Page 8

Classicist Spotlight:

frank m. snowden jr.

President - Gabrielle Walker

Frank M. Snowden Jr. was a renowned Classicist of the late 20th Century and a lead scholar on the topic of Black people in Antiquity. He was the first academic to study and evaluate depictions of Africans in Ancient Literature and Art. Born in rural Virginia in 1911, Snowden was the son of an army colonel. After moving to Boston as a young child, he attended Boston Latin School. At Boston Latin School, he first developed his passion for Classics. In undergraduate school, Snowden attended Harvard University as a Classics Major, where he began to further research the lives of Africans in the ancient world. He graduated from Harvard in 1932. In 1944, Snowden obtained a PhD from Harvard as well.

His dissertation was titled "De servis libertisque Pompeianis." After obtaining his Doctorate, Snowden mainly taught at historically Black colleges (HBCUs). He taught at Virginia State University, Spelman College in Atlanta, and Howard University in Washington D.C. Howard University was ultimately his final teaching location, where he taught Classics for many decades. Outside the teaching higher education, Snowden served as a cultural attaché to the American embassy in Rome, a position he held until 1956. At the time, he was the first African-American to hold said position.However, Snowden is most widely known for his published academic works: Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience and Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks. In these works, Snowden argued that race and color prejudice was a post-classical phenomenon, not present in the Ancient World. On the contrary, Snowden argued that Africans were valued and even respected in the Ancient World. For his decades long research and commitment to Classics, Snowden was awarded the National Humanities medal in 2003. 4 years later, in 2007, he died of congestive heart failure in his home.

Snowden's scholarship continues to be considered revolutionary and groundbreaking even after his death.

8