Richard Theodore Greener

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Richard Theodore Greener (January 30, 1844 – May 2, 1922) was a pioneering African-American scholar, excelling in elocution, philosophy, law and classics in the Reconstruction era. In 1870, he became the first black undergraduate at Harvard University to receive a bachelor's degree. The previous year, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine awarded degrees to their first black graduates in 1869. After graduating with honors from Harvard, Greener worked as a high school teacher and principal. In 1873, he was recruited by the University of South Carolina (USC) to become the school's first black professor. While on the USC faculty, he enrolled in and graduated from USC's Law School. He also served as associate editor for the New National Era, a newspaper owned and edited by Frederick Douglass. In 1875, Greener became the first black elected to the American Philological Association, the primary academic society for classical studies in North America...

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