© Susan J Ross
Richard A. Long (1927-2013), renowned scholar of language and the arts, was a
central figure in African American cultural life for nearly fifty years, being
particularly important to Atlanta, Georgia’s art communities. As a professor,
raconteur, author, and collector, he shared a breadth of knowledge about African
Diaspora expression in lectures, literature, tours, conversations, and informal
gatherings at his home. While the Atticus Haygood Professor of Interdisciplinary
Studies in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University, he
directed over thirty dissertations, sat on additional committees, and often
convened graduate seminars in his living room, with a general walk-through of
his art collection on the main floor of his residence as the opener to the first class
meeting. He hosted Romare Bearden, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, and other
notables, and conducted impromptu talks with small groups of artists or
associates about his visits with Alma Thomas, Lois Jones, James Porter, James
Wells, Hale Woodruff, Barbara Chase Riboud, and his close friend Beauford
Delaney among others. He remained committed to artists with local and regional
ties, often attending events with South Carolinian Jonathan Green to be
supportive, and providing updates on the events in the life of Robert Tomlinson,
a former Emory University colleague who relocated to Paris. He consistently
organized trips to France and Haiti to advance and sustain culture-based agenda.
A native of Philadelphia, Long received his B.A. and M.A. in 1947 and 1948 from
Temple University. He did post-graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania
and abroad in Oxford, England and Paris, France. From 1957-1958 he was a
Fulbright Scholar at the University of Paris, completing doctoral work in medieval
literature at the University of Poitiers in 1965.
An avid reader since childhood, Long was already intrigued by New Negro era
literature when he entered Temple at age sixteen, especially Alain Locke’s
The
Negro in Art
(1940). In 1944 he visited Locke’s home and had a personal tour of
his art collection. The next year, he became the youngest member of the
Richard A. Long
— by Amalia K. Amaki
