BIOGRAPHY:  Monroe Fordham

Monroe Fordham was born on October 11, 1939 in Parrott, Georgia. His mother’s name was Arie Deloris Oxford, and his grandparents were Mance and Sarah Ann Oxford. Within a year or so of his birth, his mother went to live with his Uncle Otis Oxford in Orlando, Florida in order to get a new start and build a better future for herself. Opportunities for a young African-American girl with a child were non-existent in Parrott. While in Orlando she met and married James Fordham.

Young Monroe stayed with his grandparents on their farm in Parrott. He lived with them until he was 6 or 7 years old. When Monroe reached school age he was enrolled at Helen Gurr School, the "Colored" school in Parrott. The school was located behind Macedonia Baptist Church and was about four miles from the area of the country where the farms of African Americans were located. Fordham notes that “All of my cousins who lived on farms near my grandparents’ farm also attended Helen Gurr. I remember that we all walked to school together. We walked through woods, across fields, along unpaved roads, and crossed swollen creeks on logs that the older people had placed there for us.”

When he was about seven years old Monroe moved with his mother and her new family in Orlando, Florida. Shortly thereafter, his grandparents sold their farm and moved to town.  Monroe lived with his mother, her husband James "Jabo" Fordham (who he describes as “my first real father”) lived in the Griffin Park Federal Housing Project. At that time, they also had three younger children, Vera, Lawrence, and Evelyn. They were members of the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. Monroe attended the Holden Street Elementary School. He says that “Growing up in Orlando was a wonderful experience.  

After completing 6th grade at Holden Street School, Monroe entered Jones High School as a 7th grader. Monroe notes that “My mother always encouraged me to think about college. He graduated from Jones High School in the class of 1957.  During high school, he was a member of the varsity basketball team for three years, he was a so-so trombone player in the band during his freshman and sophomore years, and he was on the varsity track team during his senior year. Fordham’s high school basketball coach was Art McAfee, a native of Kansas and a graduate student at Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia. "Mac" helped him to secure an academic scholarship and athletic grant-in-aid to attend KSTC.

Monroe entered KSTC in the fall of 1957 and decided to major in the social sciences. I wanted to become a history teacher. One event that would change his life took place during his third year in college. He met his future wife who transferred to KSTC from a community college. She was a young woman named Freddie Mae Harris from Kansas City, Kansas. They were married the following year in Kansas City, Kansas on August 28, 1960. Their first child, Cynthia, was born December 10, 1961.

After graduation both Fordhams were hired to teach in the Wichita, Kansas Public School System beginning in the fall of 1962. Monroe taught in the social science department at Wichita East High School from 1962 thru the spring of 1969. He served as the Coordinator of Afro-American Studies at Wichita State University during the academic year 1969-70. While in Wichita two more children were added to the Fordham family: Barry, born on September 1, 1965, and Pamela arrived August 6, 1968.

Fordham also earned an MS degree from Emporia State University in Kansas.  In the fall of 1970, he entered a doctoral program in history at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he earned a PhD in 1973.  He was a faculty member of the History Department at Buffalo State College from 1970-1998.  He served as department chair for 12 years.  During his tenure as a faculty member at Buffalo State College, Fordham pioneered a number of initiatives aimed at preserving state and regional African American historical sources.  He also worked with numerous community groups in developing records management and records preservation programs.

Fordham is the author of two books, Major Themes in Northern Black Religious Thought, 1800-1860 (1975), and A History of Bethel A.M.E. Church, Buffalo, New York (1977) and numerous scholarly articles.  Since 1977 he has served as editor of Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, an interdisciplinary journal that is published two times per year.  He co-edits, with his daughter, Pam Fordham, The Oxford Family Newsletter.  Fordham is also the author of numerous articles and book reviews in the field of African American History.

Fordham is a founding member of the Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier, Inc.  For more then thirty years, this organization has been dedicated to the preservation of African American history of Western New York.  Fordham has spearheaded the Association’s microfilm project, which films the papers of local individuals and organizations.

In 1986, Monroe Fordham was one of 50 educators in the United States selected by the American Association for Higher Education, the Carnegie Foundation and Change Magazine as a professor who made a difference in higher education. In 1993, Fordham received the Emporia State University Outstanding Alumni Award. In 1995 he was inducted into the Emporia State University Athletic Hall of Fame. 
Following his retirement, and in recognition of his work in regional and community history, Buffalo State College established the Monroe Fordham Center for Regional History (2002).  In 2001 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Degree by the State University of New York.  In 2005, Fordham was the recipient of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s (ASALH) Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion.  ASALH was founded by Dr. Woodson in 1915, the annual Woodson Award is presented to a scholar whose career is distinguished through at least a decade of research, writing and activism in the field of African American life and history.

Fordham resides in Buffalo, New York.  For 46 years, he has been married to the former Freddie Mae Harris of Kansas City, Kansas, also a career educator.  The couple has three children and six grandchildren.