Shirley Jean Hatchett, a survey researcher whose work yielded new insights about Black American attitudes and the sociology of race, died August 9, at 77. An early faculty member at the Program for Research on Black Americans (PRBA) at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, Dr. Hatchett made essential contributions to the program’s National Survey of Black Americans, which blew open a field of research by providing a sweeping and nationally representative view of Black America.

One of five daughters, Dr. Hatchett was born to James and Marie Hatchett in Yazoo, Mississippi. After the family moved to Flint, Michigan, she attended Dewey Elementary and graduated from Flint Northern High School in 1965, as valedictorian. She completed her undergraduate and doctoral studies in Sociology at the University of Michigan. 

Dr. Hatchett was an expert in the nuances of field work, interviewing, and survey sampling of Black populations. She wrote her dissertation, “Black Racial Attitude Change in Detroit: 1968-1976,” (1982) under the guidance of giants at the Institute for Social Research: Howard Schuman (chair), James S. Jackson, Reynolds Farley, and Angus Campbell. 

As a student and an early faculty member with the PRBA, she was instrumental in the data collection for the National Survey of Black Americans, the first wave of the National Black Election Survey, and the Early Years of Marriage Study. 

“Working closely with Irene Hess, Head of the Survey Research Center Sampling Unit, Dr. Hatchett played a pivotal role in designing and planning the first national representative sample of Black Americans,” said Letha Chadiha, Professor Emerita of Social Work and Dr. Hatchett’s colleague in data collection at the PRBA. “She was the mastermind behind the successful implementation and execution of the NSBA sampling and field interviewing.”

“I cannot imagine what the National Survey of Black Americans would have been without Shirley’s essential contributions,” said Belinda Tucker, Professor Emerita of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. “She was fearless, witty, brilliant, unbelievably hard working, and a tremendous motivator. I recall her continuing on with an interview during our pretest phase even after the respondent placed a gun on the table next to him. No neighborhood was too tough for Shirley during sampling.”

Dr. Hatchett wrote books and articles investigating varied research topics, including the causes of racial residential segregation, race-of-interviewer effects, and marital instability. With Howard Schuman, Dr. Hatchett co-authored Black Racial Attitudes: Trends and Complexities (1974), one of the first monographs to focus specifically on the attitudes of Black adults. 

Among other volumes, she also co-authored Hope and Independence: Blacks’ Response to Electoral and Party Politics (1990) with Patricia Gurin and James Jackson, exploring Black political engagement and attitudes toward electoral and party politics, including Jesse Jackson’s first presidential bid. Dr. Gurin said the book benefited from “Shirley’s brilliance, compassion, and determination, and her masterful writing.”

Dr. Hatchett is also remembered for the mentorship she provided at the Program for Research on Black Americans, guiding papers, advising postdocs on how to collect national data on Black populations, and helping developing scholars contemplate their purposes and roles in social science.

“I remember her patience, kindness and willingness to go the extra mile to help students,” said the Harvard public health scholar David Williams. “She has left us all a great legacy of outstanding scholarship and investing in the next generation. She will be greatly missed.”

Working with Drs. Hatchett and Gurin, Vickie Mays– Distinguished Psychology Professor at UCLA– said she learned how to tell stories using research data, and to tell the story from an insider’s perspective: not to prove something to the outsider. “[Dr. Hatchett] had a way of looking at the data that raised to your attention the life and struggles of Black people not in the way we learned about them in our classes but more in how the variables told a story that we knew from our experiences but never found the right set of variables to explain,” said Dr. Mays. “I was amazed at, for me, this new way of looking at variables for the ‘truth’ of experiences it could explain.”

After leaving the University of Michigan, Dr. Hatchett was an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois. 

Dr. Hatchett was extremely proud of her family, including her four sisters, Jacquelin, Cheryl, Linda, and Valerie, and nieces and nephews whom she mentored to successful careers.

“Shirley had a loving spirit and was deeply connected to her African heritage, which she promoted within her family, and explored through several trips to Africa,” said Phillip Bowman, Director of the Diversity Research and Policy Program at the University of Michigan and a PRBA affiliate. 

“We all owe a debt of gratitude to her,” said Dr. Mays. “The foundation she gave us in PRBA was a strong one!”

A funeral was held Aug. 19 from the Lawrence E. Moon Funeral Home, with a service at the Saints of God Church in Flint.

This post was written by Tevah Platt of the Research Center for Group Dynamics, where PRBA is housed.