"Rufus Early Clement (b. 1900 d. 1967) was the sixth and longest-serving President of Atlanta University."[1]
Clement served as the first dean of Louisville Municipal College.[2] Elected president of Atlanta University in 1937, he held that position until his death in 1967.[3]
W. E. B. Du Bois suspected Clement of being behind DuBois' forced retirement from Atlanta University in 1944.[4] And at least one author supports this theory, positing that Du Bois' confrontational approach to civil rights for African-Americans clashed with Clement's more accomodationist approach.[5]
In 1953 Clement was elected to the Atlanta School Board, becoming the first black person since Reconstruction to hold public office in Atlanta.[6]
One nephew is George Clement Bond, anthropologist at Columbia University. Another nephew is J. Max Bond, Jr., architect. He is also related to Horace Mann Bond.
Clement's son-in-law was Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, who became Ray Charles' personal physician.[7]