Preston Valien

Valien was born on February 19, 1914, in Beaumont, Texas. He graduated from Prairie View A&M University, where he earned a bachelor's degree. He subsequently earned a PhD from the University of Wisconsin.[1]

Valien became a Sociology professor at Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee. He served as the head of its Sociology department until 1960, when he resigned to work as a cultural attaché at the Embassy of the United States in Nigeria for the United States Information Agency until 1962.[2][3]

Valien was an associate professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Brooklyn College from 1962 to 1965. He later served as chief of graduate programs for the U.S. Office of Education.[1] He was the commencement speaker at Alcorn State University in 1975.[3]

Valien author of several books about school desegregation in the Southern United States. With his wife, he interviewed Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.[1]

Valien married Bonita Harrison, a sociologist.[2] He died in 1995.[1]

• Masuoka, Jitsuichi; Valien, Preston, eds. (1975). Race Relations: Problems and Theory: Essays in Honor of Robert Ezra Park. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press. OCLC 476442564.