Sheldon Hackney
Born in Birmingham, Jefferson County, Francis Sheldon Hackney (1933–2013) was a historian, university administrator, public intellectual, and pioneer in the humanities. During his long and distinguished career, Hackney served as a history professor, department chair, university president, and chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). He is recognized as a leader in the development of quantitative history and southern historiography and was deeply committed to public service and civic dialogue. Hackney also served on several influential committees, including the American Historical Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s President’s Commission, the Rockefeller Commission on the Humanities, the American Council on Education, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Francis Sheldon Hackney was born on December 5, 1933, in Birmingham, the third son of Cecil Fain and Elizabeth Morris Hackney. He attended Ramsay High School and took several early college courses at Birmingham-Southern College before enrolling at Vanderbilt University in 1952. There, he studied history and was shaped by the intellectual ferment of a region undergoing enormous political and cultural change. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, Hackney began postgraduate study before being called to active duty in the U.S. Navy in 1956. He served for three years, primarily aboard the destroyer USS James C. Owens, and spent time at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland.
Upon completing his service, Hackney returned to Alabama and married Lucy Durr of Montgomery. Lucy’s parents, Clifford and Virginia Foster Durr, were outspoken civil rights activists whose influence would shape the couple’s lifelong commitment to justice. Clifford Durr was a New Deal lawyer who defended civil liberties and provided legal counsel to Rosa Parks following her arrest in 1955. Virginia Durr was a founding member of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW), an interracial advocacy organization dedicated to fighting segregation and improving economic conditions across the South. Their home was a meeting place for progressive activists, and it was through this environment that Hackney was introduced to the grassroots realities of civil rights struggles. Two years after her arrest, Rosa Parks, a seamstress, altered Lucy’s wedding dress and attended their wedding, a symbolic moment that underscored the convergence of personal relationships and political commitments in Hackney’s life.
The Durrs’ influence brought Hackney into contact with several leading thinkers of the time, including historian C. Vann Woodward. In 1961, Hackney began doctoral study at Yale University under Woodward, a towering figure in southern historiography known for his nuanced interpretations of race, class, and the historical contradictions of the South. He was best known for his influential book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, published in 1955. Hackney’s dissertation examined the ideological and electoral continuities between the Populist and Progressive movements in post-Reconstruction Alabama. His findings were published in Populism to Progressivism in Alabama (1969), a work that received the American Historical Association’s Albert J. Beveridge Award (later renamed the Beveridge Family Prize in American History) and the Southern Historical Association’s Charles S. Sydnor Award. The book remains a foundational text in the field of New South history and reflected Hackney’s ability to blend rigorous archival research with questions of democratic participation and reform.
While still completing his dissertation, Hackney joined the history faculty at Princeton University in 1965. There, he advanced both scholarly innovation and institutional change. He directed Princeton’s Upward Bound program, aimed at increasing access to higher education for underrepresented students, and played a key role in the development of its African American Studies program. These initiatives reflected Hackney’s belief that universities should not only preserve knowledge but serve as engines of social transformation.
Hackney also contributed to the emerging field of quantitative history. His article “Southern Violence,” published in the 1969 February American Historical Review, used statistical methods to analyze patterns of violence in the South, challenging prevailing narratives that portrayed southern violence as a cultural inevitability. By applying social science methodologies to historical questions, Hackney was part of a broader intellectual movement in the 1960s and 1970s that sought to make history more empirical and inclusive. His methodology in “Southern Violence” cemented him as a pioneer of quantitative history.
In 1971, Hackney was appointed chair of the American Historical Association’s Special Committee on Academic Freedom, which was tasked with examining violations of academic freedom and recommending actions to the AHA. The resulting report, On the Rights of Historians, addressed the erosion of academic freedom during the politically charged atmosphere of the Vietnam War and civil rights era. It articulated a strong defense of scholarly independence and was widely cited in debates about the role of the university in public life.
Hackney became provost of Princeton in 1972 and served in that role until 1975, when he was appointed president of Tulane University in New Orleans. Hackney led efforts to modernize university facilities, expand research capacity, and strengthen community engagement. Among his most visible decisions was approving the demolition of Tulane Stadium, home of Tulane’s Green Wave football team since 1926. The team subsequently moved to the newly completed Louisiana Superdome (present-day Caesars Superdome), which had broader implications for university branding and citywide development. The stadium became the home of the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League and has hosted league Super Bowl games as well as other high-profile events. Hackney’s leadership at Tulane earned praise for his ability to navigate institutional transformation in a city grappling with its own challenges of race, inequality, and post-industrial transition.
In 1981, Hackney was named president of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), where he presided over more than a decade of growth and reform. Under his leadership, Penn increased its endowment from $160 million to more than $1 billion, dramatically expanded access for minority students, and strengthened ties with the West Philadelphia community. Hackney also emphasized interdisciplinary research and curricular innovation, positioning Penn as a leader among Ivy League institutions. During his presidency, the university implemented strategic plans to promote gender equity, multiculturalism, and inclusive hiring practices and the percentage of underrepresented minority undergraduates rose from 13 to 30 percent. He also fostered dialogue between the university and surrounding neighborhoods, addressing the persistent challenges of urban universities in distressed cities.
Hackney’s tenure at Penn made him a nationally recognized voice on higher education and the humanities. In 1993, Pres. Bill Clinton appointed him chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). At NEH, Hackney launched “A National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity,” a landmark initiative designed to prompt public dialogue on race, identity, and the evolving meaning of American citizenship. The program organized more than 1,400 events in every U.S. state, engaging scholars, students, civic leaders, and the general public in difficult but necessary conversations about national unity and division.
The initiative was emblematic of Hackney’s belief that the humanities had a critical role to play in democratic life, particularly in moments of discord. His essays and speeches from this period were later collected in One America Indivisible: A National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity (1997), a volume that underscores his enduring faith in civil discourse as a cornerstone of the American experiment.
Hackney’s tenure at NEH was not without controversy, however. Following the 1994 congressional elections, in which Republicans overturned a large Democratic majority in the House and retook the Senate, the agency faced severe budget cuts. Congressional Republicans cut nearly 40 percent of its federal funding amid broader attacks on the humanities. Hackney’s leadership was credited with preserving the institution amid political opposition, and his 2002 memoir, The Politics of Presidential Appointment, offered an insider account of the tensions between scholarship and politics during this turbulent era.
Returning to Penn in 1997, Hackney served as the David Boies Professor of U.S. History and was later elected as chair of the history department. In 2001, he was awarded the university’s Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, a testament to his enduring influence in the classroom. He also turned his attention to a long-planned intellectual biography of C. Vann Woodward and published a collection of essays titled Magnolias without Moonlight: The American South from Regional Confederacy to National Integration in 2005.
Hackney retired in 2010 following the death of his and Lucy’s eldest daughter, Virginia, and moved to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where he resumed work on the Woodward biography. Unfortunately, his research was cut short by a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He died in Martha's Vineyard on September 12, 2013, at the age of 79.
To honor his life and legacy, Hackney’s former students, colleagues, and friends published Dixie Redux: Essays in Honor of Sheldon Hackney (2013), with proceeds donated to the ALS Foundation. Today, Hackney is remembered as a scholar who brought rigor, integrity, and civic engagement to every institution he touched. His life’s work exemplifies the belief that the humanities are not only tools for understanding the past, but also vital instruments for shaping a more inclusive and reflective future.
Selected Works by Hackney
Populism to Progressivism in Alabama (1969)
Populism: The Critical Issues (1971)
One America Indivisible: A National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity (1997)
The Politics of Presidential Appointment: A Memoir of the Culture War (2002)
Magnolias without Moonlight: The American South from Regional Confederacy to National Integration (2005)
