Viewing page 249 of 260

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

FRANK S. HORNE was the first executive director of the New York City Commission on Human Rights and an authority on minority group housing problems.

A native New Yorker, Dr. Horne was graduated from City College in 1921 with a Bachelor or Arts degree. He received a master's degree from the University of Southern California in 1933 and a doctorate in ophthalmology from the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology. He was dean and acting president of Fort Valley State College in Georgia from 1926 to 1935.

Dr. Horne began his public service career as assistant director, from 1935 to 1938, of the Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration, where he worked under the direction of the late Mary McLeod Bethune.

He joined the staff of Robert C. Weaver in the Office of Race Relations of the United States Housing Authority in 1938. Two years later he succeeded Mr. Weaver as director of the Office of Race Relations.

In 1946, Dr. Horne became assistant to the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency. Seven years later he was appointed director of the newly organized New York City Commission on Intergroup Relations. Subsequently he was named to the staff of the New York City Housing Redevelopment Board.

A found of the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, Dr. Horne at his death was its honorary chairman. He was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights organizations, and was secretary of the Phelps-Stokes Fund.

He also was a poet whose work appeared in a number of anthologies of Negro American literature, including "The New Negro" edited by the late Alain Locke.

Dr. Horne was survived by his wife, Mercedes Christopher Rector; his brother, J. Burke Horne; his niece, Lena Horne, and his nephew, J. Burke Horne, Jr.

[[images - black & white photographs of attendees at Dr. Frank S. Horne's funeral]]