Robert Page Sims
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Class_of_1893_at_Storer_College_in_Harpers_Ferry_West_Virginia_an_African_American_school_featuring_M._DeHonney%2C_Robert_P._Sims%2C_Henry_Carter%2C_W._P._Crump%2C_Stella_James_Sims%2C_J._C._Gilmer.jpg/220px-thumbnail.jpg)
Robert Page Sims (1872–1944) was an early African American academic, civil rights leader, scientist, and college president who held positions at Virginia University of Lynchburg and Bluefield State College.
Sims was born in Meyerstown, West Virginia, to Charles and Lucy (Page) Sims and grew up working on a farm. Sims graduated from Storer College, a Freewill Baptist school, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in 1893[1] and then Hillsdale College, a Free Will Baptist school in Michigan, in 1897. He also did post-graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1901 Sims married Professor Stella James Sims, a graduate of Bates College, whom he knew from Storer, and they had six children together.
Sims taught first at the Virginia Seminary (Virginia University of Lynchburg) as a science professor. Next he taught at the Douglass School in Huntington, West Virginia. He then served five years as assistant principal of Bluefield State College under President Hamilton Hatter before becoming president himself in 1906. While serving as president he maintained a correspondence and professional relationship with W.E.B. Dubois regarding civil rights issues for African Americans[2] and attended the Pan-African Congress in Europe in 1921. Sims stepped down as president of Bluefield in 1936 but continued to stay involved with the school. He died in 1944.[3] He was buried at the Cedar Hill Cemetery in Bolivar, West Virginia, near Harpers Ferry.
References
[edit]- ^ http://www.jcblackhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/StorerCollegeStudents.pdf [dead link]
- ^ William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Herbert Aptheker, The Correspondence of W. E. B. Du Bois: Selections, (1997)
- ^ "Robert Page Sims". West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History. Retrieved 2019-10-18.
- 1872 births
- 1944 deaths
- Hillsdale College alumni
- University of Pennsylvania alumni
- Free Will Baptists
- Heads of universities and colleges in the United States
- Activists from New Hampshire
- People from Jefferson County, West Virginia
- Activists for African-American civil rights
- American academic administrators
- 20th-century African-American scientists
- Storer College alumni
- Bluefield State College faculty