Leslie Pinckney Hill

Leslie Pinckney Hill (14 May 1880 – 15 February 1960) was an American educator, writer and community leader.

Life

The son of a former slave, Hill was born in Lynchburg, Virginia. He attended primary school locally, and played the trumpet. His family moved to East Orange, New Jersey, where he attended high school. He excelled so much in school that he skipped his junior year, and was accepted to Harvard University his senior year. He entered Harvard University in 1899, supplementing his scholarship by working as a waiter. There he attended the classes of William James and was active in debating. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with Cum Laude. After graduation in 1903 he stayed another year for a master's degree in education.

Hill taught at Tuskegee Institute from 1904 to 1907, and was principal of the Manassas Industrial Institute from 1907 to 1913. In 1913 he became principal at the Cheyney, Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth, overseeing changes in name and status and staying there until 1951 and its establishment as Cheyney State Teachers College. In 1928 Hill published a play about Toussaint L'Ouverture. In 1944, he founded Camp Hope, a camp for underprivileged children in Delaware County. Hill was a part of the Harlem Renaissance. He died from a stroke in 1960.

Works

• 'Negro ideals: their effect and their embarrassments', Journal of race development, Vol. 6, No. 1 (July 1915)
• 'Introduction', in Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, ed., The Dunbar speaker and entertainer, containing the best prose and poetic selections by and about the Negro race, with programs arranged for special entertainments, 1920
• The wings of oppression, 1921
• Toussaint L'Ouverture: a dramatic history, 1928
• Jethro; A Biblical Drama, 1931