Daniel A. Collins (1916-2007)

January 02, 2016 
/ Contributed By: Martin Schiesl

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Daniel Collins

Courtesy Collins Family

Dentist and civil rights leader Daniel A. Collins was born in Darlington, South Carolina, on June 11, 1916. His father ran a heavy equipment company, and his mother was a school principal and an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Following high school graduation in 1932, Collins received a bachelor’s degree in science from Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, in 1936, and four years later (1940), he earned a D.D.S. degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1944, Collins received a master’s degree in dental science from the University of California, San Francisco, School of Dentistry, where he became an assistant professor, the first African American to teach at the dental school. He also opened a private practice in the city.

Collins helped establish the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco in 1944. It was one of the earliest multiracial and interdenominational churches in the United States.

Economic opportunity for African Americans was important to Collins. In 1946, he founded the San Francisco branch of the National Urban League, a biracial organization that was devoted to improving Black employment prospects. Collins worked at the branch and helped Black residents get decent jobs. Many businesses in the city, however, refused to employ African Americans.

In 1951, Collins, Urban League director Seaton Manning, and other prominent civil rights activists formed the San Francisco Citizens Committee for Equal Opportunity, which subsequently campaigned for a mandatory anti-discrimination ordinance. Although the San Francisco Board of Supervisors did not adopt a fair employment ordinance, some employers signed antidiscrimination agreements with the city government in 1964.

Collins also devoted time to education. In 1960, California Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown appointed him to the State Board of Education. In 1966, the Board approved a new history textbook for the eighth grade titled Land of the Free: A History of the United States, co-written by noted Black historian John Hope Franklin. The book credited the contributions of people of color and women. Collins also served on the board of the National Committee for Citizens in Education.

During the 1960s, Collins was very active in the dental profession. He served on the board of directors of the San Francisco Dental Society, was a member of the California Dental Society, and belonged to the trustees of the American Fund for Dental Education.

Noted civic organizations were also part of Collins’s career. He served on the board of the National Urban League and was a member of the National Advisory Council on Minorities in Engineering.

In 1989, Collins was honored for his exemplary work. The National Urban League awarded him the Whitney M. Young Medallion for his leadership of civil rights. Six years later, UCSF School of Dentistry named him a Distinguished Alumnus.

Daniel A. Collins, a member of Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, died in Mill Valley, California, on September 13, 2007, at the age of ninety-one. He was survived by four sons, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

About the Author

Author Profile

Martin Schiesl is Professor Emeritus of History at California State University, Los Angeles. His specialities are the history of urban America in the twentieth century and the social, political, and governmental histories of Los Angeles and California since 1900. He is the author of The Politics of Efficiency: Municipal Administration and Reform in America, 1880-1920 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977), co-editor of 20th Century Los Angeles: Power, Promotion, and Social Conflict (Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 1990), editor of Responsible Liberalism: Edmund G. “Pat” Brown and Reform Government in California, 1958-1967 (Los Angeles: Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs, California State University, Los Angeles, 2003), and co-editor of City of Promise: Race and Historical Change in Los Angeles (Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 2006). He is also the author of “Residential Opportunity for All Californians: Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown and the Struggle for Fair Housing Legislation, 1959-1963,” Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs, Historical Essay, August, 2013, 1-6. Dr. Schiesl is currently writing a book on the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in California in the years from 1940 to 1970.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Schiesl, M. (2016, January 02). Daniel A. Collins (1916-2007). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/collins-daniel-1916-2007/

Source of the Author's Information:

Sabin Russell, “Daniel Collins dies – dentist and Bay Area Urban League
founder,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 2007; Richard Halstead,
“Dr. Daniel Collins, Marin black civil rights leader pioneer, dies at
91,” News, September 27, 2007, marinij.com; Paul T. Miller, The Postwar
Struggle for Civil Rights: African Americans in San Francisco, 1945-1975

(New York: Routledge, 2010).

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