Michigan State University
        <familusi@msu.edu>

Ruth Simms Hamilton, Professor of Sociology, Director of the
African Diaspora Research Project, and Faculty Member of the
African Studies Center and the Center for Latin American and
Caribbean at Michigan State University died on Monday,
November 10, 2003.

Born in 1937 in Savannah, Georgia, Dr. Hamilton received her
B.A.  from Talladega College. She obtained her MA and Ph.D.
in Sociology from Northwestern University. A teacher and
researcher at Michigan State University (MSU) for 35 years,
Ruth taught courses on international inequality and
development, comparative race relations, international
migration and diasporas, Third World urbanization and
change, and sociological theory. Her research focused on
comparative cross-cultural studies of peoples of African
descent in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Colleagues and
friends describe her as everything that an engaged,
intelligent, hard working, creative, demanding, sympathetic,
and productive faculty member should be.  For the dozens of
students she mentored who today are faculty members around
the world, she was a rigorous and supportive teacher who
insisted that their work be the very best they could
produce.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Ruth pioneered the study of the
African diaspora when the notion of "diaspora" was a
relatively obscure concept. In 1986 she founded the African
Diaspora Research Project (ADRP), a comparative,
multidisciplinary research program studying the dispersion
and settlement of African peoples beyond the continent of
Africa (http://www.msu.edu/unit/uap/africa.html).  The
ADRP's comparative research and graduate training program,
was first conceptualized in 1984 by Dr. Hamilton and her
colleague, the late historian Dr. Leslie Rout, Jr.  The ADRP
originated in the need for a broader, multidisciplinary
understanding of communities of African descent grounded in
sound scholarship and policy analysis.

Dr. Hamilton was also one of the founding and core faculty
members of the MSU African Studies Center and served as one
of its Associate Directors in the 1970s. She pioneered the
study of African urbanization when others were more focused
on villages and rural areas and of gender in African
development. She was the founding editor of the journal
African Urban Studies and the Working Paper Series on the
African Diaspora and editorial board member of the Sage
Series in Race and Ethnic Relations.  Her books and articles
included: Racial Conflict, Discrimination, Power;
Urbanization in West Africa; "The African woman as
entrepreneur: problems and prospects for development;" "The
African Diaspora in the Late Twentieth Century World System:
Recent Observations;" and "Toward A Conceptualization of
Modern Diasporas: Exploring Contours of African Diaspora
Social Identity Formation." At the time of her death, Ruth
was finalizing an 11 volume series on the African Diaspora,
Routes of Passage, the culmination of over a decade of
research to be published by Michigan State University Press
(http://msupress.msu.edu/bookTemplate.php?bookID=73).

She was a member of the Rockefeller Foundation-funded
Commission on U.S. Policy on South Africa that resulted in
the ground-breaking report, South Africa: Time Running Out.
This Commission helped to shape the political policies in
Washington that contributed to passing the Comprehensive
Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986.  She also has been a Trustee
Emeritus of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and a
Trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the
Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA).

In 2002, she co-chaired the Task Force on Urban and
Metropolitan Studies in the College of Social Science
charting a new direction for urban studies at MSU
(http://www.ssc.msu.edu/sscHome/urbanAgenda/).
Subsequently, she was convener for the College's Urban and
Metropolitan Design Team which, under the theme Urbanization
and Transnationalism: Globalizing Cities and Metropolitan
Areas, is pursuing "a new, interdisciplinary instructional
and research program focused on urban and metropolitan
studies."

Ruth received many awards for her work, including the A.
Wade Smith Award for Outstanding Teaching, Mentoring and
Service in 2000 from the Association of Black Sociologists;
the 1995 Ralph Smuckler Award for Advancing International
Studies and Programs at MSU; the 1971 Teacher-Scholar Award
of MSU; and the Michigan Association of Governing Boards
Distinguished Faculty Award in 1987.

She was a caring, compassionate, responsible, and serious
human being - and a dear friend who will be missed terribly
by so many of us who knew and worked with her.

David Wiley
Steve Gold
Raymond Familusi

Humanities & Social
Sciences Online

Copyright © 1995-2006 - Contact Us
RSS | Validate: XHTML | CSS