An Academic Activist by Dr. Philip Carter Jr.

Professor Philip W. Carter, Jr., MSW, is an academic activist with over 40 years at Marshall University and a total of 50 years teaching, administering and training in higher education.  He has a 60-year legacy of social justice.  This advocacy began as a basketball player at Marshall and simultaneously as a spokesperson for the student led Civic Interest Progressives (CIP) responsible for desegregation in public accommodation, establishment of human rights commissions and racial betterment on Marshall’s campus and in the Tri-State community and elsewhere in West Virginia.  Professor Carter has employed throughout the country sit-ins, wade-ins, share-ins, picketing, courts, education/information, voting, business policy, economic disruption and marches to secure Black rights.  The Southern Governors’ Conference March, the March on Washington, D.C. and the Million Man March are a few personal engagements.  He has taught over 60 Africana Social Work courses.  He is a founder of the Black Legends of Marshall (a recognition of 125 African American Athletes at Marshall in 1995).

At age 26 he was one of the highest-ranking leaders of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), one of the big four civil rights organizations.  His education and experience at the University of Pittsburgh and in the community prepared him to lead Community Action Regional Training (CART) for 23 counties in Western Pennsylvania.  His cumulative preparation in academia, the community in policy and political change led him back to his alma mater where he demanded accreditation of the Social Work department as its sixth leader in 13 years in 1980.  Also, Professor Carter was founder of the Huntington Alumni Chapter making him a double charter founder in the International Fraternity, Kappa Alpha PSI, the first Black Greek organization on Marshall University’s campus in 1962.  He has received numerous awards and recognitions across the country and approximately 30 negative job, police, administrative challenges, court orders and arrests including one horrific gang of white police beating him in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

​Professor Philip W. Carter, Jr. continues in the pursuit of justice to expound and pound forward the gospel of persistent resistance to white Anti-African American racism regardless of cost and loss.