Jack Donald Foner was an American educator, historian and author. He was known for writing histories of the labor movement and the struggle for civil rights.
Background
Jack Donald Foner was born December 14, 1910 in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was one of four sons of Abraham and Mary Foner. His parents were Jewish who had immigrated from the Russian Empire. Jack was a twin brother of Philip S. Foner, a historian, Henry Foner and Moe Foner.
Education
Jack Foner attended Eastern District High School and graduated from the City College of New York in 1929. Foner earned a master's degree in 1933 and a doctorate in 1967 in American history, both from Columbia University.
Starting in 1935, Jack Donald Foner taught history at the downtown branch of City College, now Baruch College. He became active in the era's left-wing causes, including support for Spain and for the rights of Black Americans. In 1941 he was forced out of his teaching job along with 60 other City University faculty members in the wake of an investigation of alleged communist influences in higher education by the New York state legislature's Rapp-Coudert Committee.
Foner served in the United States Army from 1942 to 1945. After the war, he supported himself as a freelance lecturer on current affairs to devoted groups of listeners in New York, Philadelphia, and Florida. He was finally hired by Colby College in 1969. Foner retired from Colby in 1976 and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the college in 1982. In 1981, the New York State Board of Education officially apologized to Foner and other teachers and staff who were fired and whose lives were disrupted by the activities of the Rapp-Coudert Committee, which it described as having egregiously violated academic freedom. After retiring from Colby, he returned as a visiting scholar in 1983 and 1985.