Channing Tobias papers

Channing Heggie Tobias was born 1 February 1882 in Augusta, Georgia, the second child and only son of Fair and Belle (Robinson) Tobias. He was educated in the public schools of Augusta, and went on to earn a B.A. from Paine College in 1902, a B.D. from Drew Theological Seminary in 1905, and did special work at the University of Pennsylvania. Gammon Theological Seminary (Atlanta, Geo.) conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1924.

Most of Tobias's career was devoted to the YMCA. He joined that organization in 1911, after a six year stint as professor of bible literature at his alma mater, Paine College, serving for twelve years as student secretary of the International Committee of the YMCA. He was appointed as senior secretary of the YMCA's "Colored Work" Department in September 1923, a position he held until 1946, when the YMCA abolished separate programs for Black men. During these twenty three years, he also held a number of other YMCA positions relating to race relations, including member of the Executive Committee of the National Interracial Conference and associate director of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. He was a delegate and a speaker at the 1926 World Conference in Finland, and traveled to YMCAs throughout the world during his career. After leaving the YMCA in 1946, he became the first Black director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, a foundation devoted to the improvement of educational opportunities for African Americans. He retired in 1953.

In addition to his extensive work through the YMCA movement, Tobias held numerous civic and volunteer positions in the area of race relations. During World War II, he was a member of the National Advisory Committee on Selective Service and the Joint Army and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation. President Truman appointed him to the Committee on Civil Rights in 1946. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the NAACP and elected its chairman in 1953. In 1953, he was alternate representative to the United Nations for the United States. He served on the boards of the Marshall Filed and Jessie Smith Noyes Foundations, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, the American Bible Society, Hampton Institute, and Palmer Memorial Institute. He received numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the 1948 Spingarn Medal, awarded annually to an African American for distinguished achievement.

Tobias married Mary Pritchard in 1908. The couple had two daughters. After the death of his first wife in 1949, Tobias married Eva Arnold in 1951. He died on 5 November 1961 after a long illness.