Edgar Toppin, 76, Expert on Black History
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Dr. Edgar Allan Toppin, a nationally known expert on African-American history died Wednesday in Ettrick, Va., of congestive heart failure. He was 76.
As president of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, Toppin was instrumental in turning Black History Week into Black History Month in 1976.
Toppin, a professor emeritus at Virginia State University, had a career that spanned nearly five decades during which he wrote 10 books.
Born in Harlem in 1928, Toppin won a scholarship to Howard University, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He received his Ph.D. in 1955 from Northwestern University.
During the mid-1960s, Toppin created a 30-lesson television course, “Americans from Africa,” which aired on educational stations across the country.
In 1969, he wrote “Blacks in America,” a 15-part series of articles published by the Christian Science Monitor. From then on, he was in demand as an expert in African-American history.
