Lucius Jefferson Barker (June 11, 1928 – June 21, 2020) was an American political scientist. He held academic appointments as the Edna Fischel Gellhorn Professor and chair of the political science department at Washington University in St. Louis, and later as the William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. He was a scholar of constitutional law, civil liberties, and race and ethnic politics in the United States.
Early Life and Education
Barker was born in Franklinton, Louisiana, on June 11, 1928, the fifth of six children born to school teachers. He attended segregated public schools and initially intended to study medicine. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Southern University in 1949, after taking a class with Rodney Higgins that shifted his academic focus. He earned a master's degree (1950) and a Ph.D. (1954) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where his doctoral advisor was Jack Peltason. His dissertation was titled Offshore oil politics: A study in public policy making. He was the first Black teaching assistant in the College of Arts and Science at the University of Illinois.
Academic Career
After completing his Ph.D., Barker held positions at the University of Illinois, Southern University, and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. In 1964, he was a Liberal Arts Fellow of Law and Political Science at Harvard Law School. In 1967, he returned to the University of Illinois as assistant chancellor. In 1969, he joined Washington University in St. Louis, where he became chair of the political science department and was named the Edna Fischel Gellhorn Professor. In 1990, he moved to Stanford University as the William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science. He retired in 2006.
Barker served as president of the American Political Science Association (APSA) from 1992 to 1993, becoming the second Black president of the association after Ralph Bunche. He also served as president of the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) in 1984. The MPSA established an annual award in his honor for exemplary papers on race or ethnicity and politics. He was the founding editor of the National Review of Black Politics (originally the National Political Science Review), a journal of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.
Research and Publications
Barker's research emphasized a systemic view of the American political and judicial system. His doctoral thesis argued that the Supreme Court functions as a policymaker, a perspective that informed his later work. He published the article "Third Parties in Litigation: A Systemic View of the Judicial Function" (1967), which examined the role of amicus curiae briefs and the judicial system's policy role.
He co-authored the textbook Civil Liberties and the Constitution with his brother Twiley Barker, which went through nine editions by 2020. He co-authored African Americans and the American Political System (1980, later editions as African Americans and the American Political System), described as a defining work on systemic racism through a political lens. He wrote Our Time Has Come: A Delegate's Diary of Jesse Jackson's 1984 Presidential Campaign (1988), chronicling his experience as a convention delegate for Jesse Jackson.
Personal Life and Death
Barker married Maude Beavers in 1965. They had two daughters. Maude died in May 2020. Barker died on June 21, 2020, at age 92, in Menlo Park, California, from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.
