Allen B. Ballard Jr.

Allen B. Ballard Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 1, 1930. His parents were Olive Robinson Ballard, a Philadelphian, and Allen B. Ballard, born in Greenville, South Carolina. Allen Jr. attended the Joseph E Hill Elementary School, a legally segregated all-black school in Germantown, Philadelphia. He carried a love of his schoolmates and teachers there throughout his life. He then attended the integrated Central High School, where he lettered in football and graduated as “the Varsity Athlete With the Highest Academic Average in his class.” He loved this school too and upon the slightest pretext, whenever he met a “Central Man,” would burst out in its Alma-Mater, “Dear High, Dear Central High. Thy Memories Never Die!”

Upon graduation from Central, he was admitted to Kenyon College in Ohio, where, along with Stanley L. Jackson of Steubenville, Ohio, he was the first black student to matriculate there. He was active on campus, playing both football and lacrosse, and he was elected Student Council President. He graduated Magna Cum Laude and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. In his later years, he greatly enjoyed returning to its beautiful and tranquil campus for reunions with his classmates and teammates of old!

Before active military service at NATO headquarters in Paris, France in 1953-1955, he spent a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bordeaux. He then entered Harvard University where, specializing in the study of the Soviet Union, he received a Ph.D. degree in Government in 1960. He then embarked on a career of teaching and college administration, serving as a Dean of the City University of New York for some years , and a teacher of history, political science, and Africana studies at CCNY and then, SUNY-Albany. He was the recipient of honorary doctorates from both Kenyon College and Tuskegee University.

While at City College, he was instrumental in the founding of the SEEK program, the precursor of Equal Opportunity Programs in New York and in the country at large. He also authored five books, three non-fiction, and two novels. His novel, Where I’m Bound, was the first Civil War novel to depict the war from an African-American perspective , and his 1984 history of Black Philadelphia, One More Day’s Journey was a pioneering work in the study of the “Great Migration” of blacks from the rural South to the urban North.

Allen greatly enjoyed life in the beautiful Capital Region and particularly loved sailing on and swimming in Lake George, where as a young college student he had worked as a cook at the Silver Bay Association. He often told the story of how in 1946, you could drink the water right out of the lake and how the kids would run down to the shore and shout, “motor boat, motor boat!” when a single small outboard craft would pass by. A Senior Life Guard, he swam across the lake when he was seventeen years old.

Allen enjoyed photography, guitar playing, folk-singing, and driving a good handling car down the steep mountain roads bordering Lake George. But his greatest love was of his thousands of students for whom he did his very best to prepare them for their journey through life.

He was a faithful and long-time member of the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Albany, New York, where he put his cooking skills to work as a member of the Soup Kitchen Ministry and sang in the Male Chorus. Indeed, they even let him solo sometimes! In his latter years, due to transportation needs, he became a member of the fellowship of Macedonia Baptist Church in that same city.

He leaves to mourn a wife, Josephine, a son, John, of New York City, a stepdaughter, Alayna, and a step-son, Michael. Also a brother, Walter, and a sister-in-law, Marcia, of Cary, North Carolina.. Also his nephews, and nieces, Michael Ballard, Karla Ballard, Raymond Ballard, and Walter Ballard Jr.

His favorite saying, when asked about his health, was, “Been better, been worse, but I’m still above ground!”

A calling hour will be held on Thursday, November 12, 2026 from 9am-11am at Mount Calvary Baptist Church, 58 Alexander St, Albany, NY 12202. A funeral service celebrating the life of Allen will being at 11am. Interment with full military honors will be held following the service at 2pm at Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery, 200 Duell Road, Schuylerville, NY 12871.