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Atlanta’s famous African American educator and race leader John Hope was born into an elite black family. His father, a white businessman, and his free-born black mother lived as an unmarried couple because Georgia law prohibited interracial marriages.
At 30, Hope took a teaching position in Atlanta, where he befriended activists including W. E. B. Du Bois. Although he became an important race leader himself, supporting full civil rights, education was always his priority. In 1906 he became the first black president of Morehouse College, serving until 1929 when he became president of Atlanta University, now Clark Atlanta University.
– Caroline Parsley, The 100 Companies