Quintard Taylor, Jr., the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor Emeritus of American History at the University of Washington, passed away on September 21. He was 76 years old.
Born in Tennessee to a family of sharecroppers, Dr. Taylor earned his bachelor’s degree in history from historically Black St. Augustine’s College (now University) in Raleigh, North Carolina. After receiving his master’s degree in history from the University of Minnesota, he joined the faculty at Washington State University, where he was one of two full-time professors of Black studies. He taught at Washington State for four years, before returning to Minnesota to complete his Ph.D. in history.
Next, Dr. Taylor taught history at California Polytechnic State University for 13 years, followed by nearly decade of service at the University of Oregon, where he had a stint as department chair. In 1999, Dr. Taylor began his long tenure with the University of Washington, where he would remain until his retirement in 2018.
As a scholar of African American history, Dr. Taylor authored numerous books throughout his lifetime, including In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West 1528-1990 (W. W. Norton & Company, 1999) and The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District From 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era (University of Washington Press, 1994).
In 2007, Dr. Taylor founded BlackPast, a nonprofit organization dedicated to freely publishing accessible research on Black history. The organization has since grown into the world’s largest online encyclopedia of African American history. To date, the website has engaged more than 64 million users.
