User:ChrisstalC/Elliott Skinner

Elliott Percival Skinner (June 20, 1924 – April 1, 2007) was an American anthropologist and United States Ambassador to the Republic of Upper Volta, the West African nation is now known as Burkina Faso.

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, Skinner came to the United States in 1943. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1944 and fought in World War II, which later allowed him to obtain citizenship. Skinner earned a bachelor's degree from New York University in 1951. He then attended Columbia University, where he earned a master’s degree in 1952. In 1955, Skinner earned a doctorate degree in anthropology with a dissertation titled: “Ethnic Interaction in a British Guiana Rural Community: A Study in Secondary Acculturation and Group Dynamics.” After obtaining his Ph.D. Skinner’s research interest shifted from Latin America to West Africa.

Skinner became a professor at Columbia from 1954 to 1994. Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him ambassador to Upper Volta from 1966 to 1969. Skinner learned the More (Language) spoken the Mossi while living in Upper Volta. From 1955 to 1957 Skinner lived and worked in what is now Burkina Faso.

In 1972, Skinner became the first African-American department chair at Columbia as well as the first African-American tenured by the university in 1963. In 1959 Skinner accepted a teaching position in the anthropology department at New York University where he researched and taught African ethnology. He earned tenure at that institution in 1963. In 1966, he joined the anthropology department at Columbia University and served there until his retirement in 1994.

At the time he was only the eleventh African American named a U.S. ambassador and the only one who actually conducted academic research in a country before his appointment. Skinner’s first major book, The Mossi of Upper Volta, was published just two years before his appointment.

In 1975 his book on the capital of the nation, titled African Urban Life: The Transformation of Ouagadougou, received the Melville J. Herskovits Prize from the African Studies Association. Skinner also received awards from the Ford Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center.

Skinner’s last major book, African-Americans and United States Policy Toward Africa 1850-1924, was released in 1992 and focused on his analysis of African political influence on the shaping of U.S. foreign policy.

On April 21, 2007, Skinner died of heart failure at his home in Washington, D.C.. He was 82 years old. He was survived by his wife, Gwendolyn Mikell, two daughters, Gale Holland and Luce Remy, three sons, Victor, Sagha, and Touray, and grandchildren and a great-grandchild.