Robert Thomas Kerlin

Robert Thomas Kerlin (March 22, 1866 – February 21, 1950) was an American educator, minister, and civil rights activist. He authored several books and edited the 1920 anthology The Voice of the Negro and the 1923 poetry anthology Negro Poets and Their Poems. Kerlin taught English at several schools, and was fired from three in a row for his activism.

Early and personal life

Robert Thomas Kerlin was born on March 22, 1866, to John Lindsay Kerlin and Nancy Jeffries Kerlin in Newcastle, Missouri. His parents had owned one slave. Kerlin first received higher education at Central College in Missouri. He then attended Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University before graduating from Yale University with a PhD. Kerlin spent some time out of the country. He was a Quaker. On July 10, 1907, Kerlin married Adeline Koster Kerlin. They had three daughters.

Career

For four years, beginning in 1890, Kerlin taught English at Missouri Valley College. He left the college to join the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as a minister. Kerlin worked there until 1898, when he became involved in the Spanish–American War in 1898 as a chaplain, accompanying the Third Missouri Volunteers. When the war ended he returned to teaching English.

Kerlin worked at a number of schools in the decade that followed: Missouri Valley College (1901–1902), Southwestern University (1902–1903), State Normal School at Warrensburg, Missouri (1903–1906), Yale University (1906–1907, as an instructor), and State Normal School at Farmville (1908–1910). From 1906 to 1907 he was an associate editor of The Arena.