His dedication to academic excellence and rejection of racial inferiority influenced other black colleges and American education in general. John Hope, former Morehouse president and Atlanta University's first black president, is noted in every history of American education during the first half of this century. Atlanta University's most famous faculty member (1897-1910) was W. E. B. DuBois, who began the Atlanta Studies on Negro Sociology and later became the director of publications for the N.A.A.C.P.