Johnnetta Cole

Johnnetta Cole (born October 19, 1936, Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.) is an anthropologist and educator who was the first African American woman president of Spelman College (1987–97).

Among Cole’s early influences in education were her mother, who taught college English, pioneering educator Mary MacLeod Bethune, and writer Arna Bontemps, who was the school librarian at Fisk University when Cole matriculated at age 15. She left Fisk to study sociology at Oberlin College (B.A., 1957) and anthropology at Northwestern University (M.A., 1959; Ph.D., 1967).

After teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles (1964), and directing the black studies program at Washington State University at Pullman (1969–70), Cole taught in the anthropology department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1970–83), where from 1981 to 1983 she was provost of undergraduate education. A pivotal figure in the development of the school’s African American Studies program, she became closely associated with the academic journal Black Scholar. In 1983 she moved to Hunter College, where she directed the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program.

In 1987 Cole became the seventh president of Spelman College, the oldest African American women’s college in the United States. She was committed to making the school a centre for scholarship about African American women. Calling herself “Sister President,” she became known as a strong advocate for the liberal arts curriculum in a changing society. She retired as president emerita in 1997.

In 1998 Cole returned to teaching as Presidential Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Women’s Studies, and African American Studies at Emory University, retiring in 2001. From 2002 to 2007 she was president of Bennett College for Women, where she chaired the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity & Inclusion Institute. She also served as chair (2004–06) of the board of trustees of the United Way of America, a nationwide network of charitable and community organizations. In 2009–17 Cole was director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art.

Cole’s writings focus on race, gender, and class in the pan-African world. In addition to many scholarly articles and a regular column in McCall’s magazine, she wrote Anthropology for the Eighties: Introductory Readings (1982), All American Women: Lines That Divide, Ties That Bind (1986), Anthropology for the Nineties (1988), Conversations: Straight Talk with America’s Sister President (1993), and Dream the Boldest Dreams: And Other Lessons of Life (1997).