Associate Professor Emeritus Ira E. Harrison passed away on April 27, 2020. Dr. Harrison was raised in Syracuse, New York, and led a lifetime of activism and service, from participating in the 1963 March on Washington to studying the Black storefront churches that anchored his own community.

Harrison earned his PhD in anthropology and sociology from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School in 1967 and a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins in 1971. His work combined the study of medicine, culture, and justice. His research helped pave the way for federally funded neighborhood health centers, and his decades of scholarship discussing migrant labor, religion and African and African American health traditions.

At the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Harrison was committed to institutional change as well as his research. As a member of the university’s Black Faculty and Staff Association, he pushed for equal representation of Black faculty and staff on campus. His scholarly legacy reached well beyond Knoxville, and he is remembered for his work in the many institutions he was a part of during his career.

In addition to his academic journey, he was also a founding member and first archivist of the Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA) and worked tirelessly for the preservation of the history of Black scholars in the field. Dr. Harrison was also a published poet, author of eight poetry collections, and the second African American president of the Georgia Poetry Society.

The Department of Anthropology is grateful for the legacy he leaves in our discipline and beyond.