TITLE: Theodore Stephens Sr.

SOURCE: The Beaufort Gazette, June 20, 2001

SUBMITTED: The Beaufort Gazette

FORMATTED: Kim Grissom, June 2001

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Alonzo Theodore Stephens Sr. 

Alonzo Theodore Stephens Sr., Ph.D., 82, of Lady's Island died 
Saturday, June 16, 2001, in Beaufort Memorial Hospital. Visitation 
will be from 6 to 8 tonight in Tabernacle Baptist Church. Services 
will be at noon Thursday in the church with burial in Beaufort National
Cemetery with military honors. There will be no viewing after the 
eulogy. Dr. Stephens was born April 19, 1919, in St. Petersburg, Fla., 
a son of John Wesley Stephens and Alice Elizabeth Melton Dicks. He was 
educated in the segregated public schools of St. Petersburg. He 
graduated from Gibbs High School and enrolled in Bethune-Cookman 
Junior College. He received his bachelor of arts degree in history and 
biology from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical State University in 
Tallahassee, Fla., in 1948. He later received the master of letters 
(1953) and doctor of philosophy degrees in history from the University 
of Pittsburgh (1955). A career educator, he was a social sciences and 
English instructor at Gibbs High School, St. Petersburg and at W.A. 
Rochell High School, Lakeland, Fla. He served as an educational 
training officer for the Veterans Administration at Bethune-Cookman 
College and Florida Normal and Industrial College in 1946-1947, and 
assistant veterans coordinator at Florida A&M College from 1947-1948. 
His university appointments included assistant professor of History, 
FAMU (1953-1955); associate professor of history, geography and 
business, Savannah State College (1955-1958); professor of history and 
head of the Department of History and Political Science, Tennessee 
State University (1958-1984); visiting professor of African History, 
Wake Forest University (1989-1994); and senior program lecturer at the 
University of South Carolina Beaufort (1999-2000). He was an 
internationalist and civil rights activist. Among his many 
associations were the Nashville Community Relations Council, American 
Association of University Professors, American Historical Association, 
Organization of American Historians, African Studies Association, 
American Association of Middle East Studies, the Middle East Institute 
and the American Society of African Culture. He was an advisor to the 
Midwest and Mid-South Collegiate Council in 1960; president of the 
Nashville Chapter of the United Nations Association of the United 
States from 1966 to 1967; and a delegate to the Commission to Study 
the Organization for Peace of the Carnegie Foundation of Peace. His 
foreign assignments took him to Israel, Egypt, Jordan, the former 
Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania. A veteran of World 
War II, Army Private Stephens achieved the rank of personnel sergeant 
major and battalion sergeant major in the European and Western Pacific 
theaters. He was a member of the Beaufort Graduate Chapter of Omega 
Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. He was previously an active member of the 
graduate chapters of the fraternity in Nashville,, Tenn., and 
Winston-Salem, N.C. He was an elder and adult Sunday school teacher at 
St. Andrews Presbyterian Church. He was an elder and helped revive the 
Christian Education Program at Grace Presbyterian Church, 
Winston-Salem. Upon moving to Beaufort, he joined Tabernacle Baptist 
Church and participate in the Elder Circle. Surviving are his wife of 
50 years, Dorothy Mae Andrews Stephens of Lady's Island; a daughter, 
Andrea Stephens Allen of Beaufort; a son, Alonzo Theodore Stephens Jr. 
of Philadelphia, Pa.; a sister, Berthenia Stephens White of Miami, Fla.
; a brother, John Edward Stephens of St. Petersburg, Fla.; and three 
grandchildren. W. Leon Sherman Mortuary and Marshel's Wright-Donaldson 
Home For Funerals are in charge. 
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