Julia Hare
*Julia Hare was born on this date in 1939. She was a Black educator, actress, author, and Black intellectual.
Born Julia Reed, she was from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She earned her B.A. in Music from Langston University, her M.A. in music education from Roosevelt University, and her Ph.D. in education from California Coast University, Santa Ana.
She married psychologist Dr. Nathan Hare in 1956. During graduate school, Hare taught elementary school in Chicago, Ill., integrating music into the students’ lessons. She founded the Black Think Tank with her husband and was National Executive Director. She published a periodical, Black Male/Female Relationships, for several years. She and her husband have written and published several books on Black families and history.
As an actress, she appeared in three feature films: Mr. Billion (1977), Penn & Teller (2003), and State of the Black Union: Jamestown: The Next 400 Years (2007).
She educated and energized audiences nationwide with her bold talk on love, marriage, and community. Ebony magazine recognized Dr. Hare’s prominence as one of the 150 Most Influential African Americans in the United States for 2008. Dr. Hare’s work brought her many accolades and honors, including City Flight’s “Ten Most Influential African Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area,” Educator of the Year for Wash., D.C. by the Junior Chamber of Commerce, and the Abe Lincoln Award for Outstanding Broadcasting.
Following a move to California, Hare served as the director of educational programs at the Oakland Museum and later hosted talk shows for ABC television and KSFO radio stations. She also served as the public relations director of the local federal housing program in San Francisco. Julia Hare died on February 25, 2019.
