Interview with Mr. Alfred Prettyman

Alfred Prettyman

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About The Author

Alfred Prettyman

While at Harper & Row Publishers (1966-1971) Prettyman was Executive Editor for the Social & Behavioral Sciences and Humanities in the College Department, Consultant for Social Sciences in the Elementary and Secondary School Book Department, Editor-Manager of a series of original titles and scholarly reprints for the new imprint J & J Harper Books and Senior Editor of Adult Trade Non-fiction. Later, he became Editor-Manager of New Press at McGraw Hill Publishers. He was an elector for the National Medal of Literature (1980) and judge for the National Book Awards (1980). Co-chair of Literature for the NY State Council on the Arts (1970), he was consultant for the National Endowment for the Humanities (1970-73), the National Endowment for the Arts (1970-72) as well as the Asia Society. He was Director of Public Affairs and Community Relations for the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice, Director of Communications for Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and Director of Public Relations at Union Theological Seminary, NY.

With his colleague and tennis partner, Albert Blumberg, Prettyman co-founded the Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy (ongoing since 1976 and hosted by Prettyman in NYC ; formerly, the Society for the Study of Black Philosophy). He founded his own publishing house, Emerson Hall Publishers (1971-80), specializing in trade non-fiction in the social and behavioral sciences. He served on the editorial board for Christianity & Crisis magazine, was chairman of the Minority Publishersâ€™ Committee of the Council on Interracial Books for Children, a member of Delta Sigma Rho (Forensics), Pi Delta Epsilon (Journalism) and P.E.N. His other board membership has included the Berkshire Farm Center and Services for Youth and a Rockland County Community Center, Nyack Center (board chair and executive director). He formerly served as Trustee of Hamilton College, NY. Since 2003 he has been Chairman of the Board of the Ophelia J. Berry Fund, Inc., Pathways to College.

Author of numerous articles and lectures, Prettyman is the editor of the college textbooks, U.S. National Civics in a Mosaic Democracy (1996, 1998), U.S. The Intercultural Nation (1999), and co-author of â€œThe History of African American Educationâ€ and author of â€œThe History of Black Collegesâ€ in the Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History (1995). His article, â€œFrederick Douglass, A Developing Self,â€ is included in The Teachers & Writers Guide to Frederick Douglass (1996), and his essay, â€œCivil Smother: Folkways of Renewed Racism in the United States,â€ was published in Pragmatism and the Problem of Race (2004). A contributor to the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, Prettyman lectures widely on literature, education, social and political thought. In 2006 he was a W.E.B. Dubois Lecturer at Humboldt University, Berlin. The film, â€œOgunâ€™s Fire: The Sculpture of Melvin Edwards,â€ (PrettySteady Productions) of which he was Executive Producer, was selected Best Film/Video in the Fine Arts XV Black International Cinema Festival 2000, Germany and USA. Recently his essay â€œCompulsion and Persuasion in a Democracy of Split Levelsâ€ was published in Persuasion and Compulsion in Democracy (Kegley & Skowronski, 2013), and in 2014 The Haverford Discussions: A Black Integrationist Manifesto for Racial Justice, for which he was a participant observer and editor of the original transcripts, was published by the University of Virginia Press with his Afterword. Prettyman is the Co-Founder and Host of Society for the Study of Africana Philosophy (SSAP) (1976 - ) with the late Albert I. Blumberg, Ph.D. He is Adjunct Assistant Professor at School of Social Science and Human Behavior (SSHS) at Ramapo College of New Jersey.

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