S. Allen Counter, DMSc, PhD

In 1981, the president and deans of Harvard University established the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations with the mandate to "improve relations among racial and ethnic groups within the University and to enhance the quality of our common life."  In pursuit of this mission, the Foundation seeks to involve students of all racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds in the ongoing enterprises of the University.  ~ Mission Statement, Harvard Foundation

Much of the awareness we have today of African American explorer Matthew Henson can be credited to Harvard professor S. Allen Counter. Henson and Robert Peary are credited with locating the Geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909, with Henson arriving about 45 minutes before Peary who was riding in a sled due to ill health.

Dr. Counter, a neurophysiologist as well as explorer and ethnographer, was on a scientific mission to the northern portion of Greenland in 1986 when he encountered the 80 year old sons of Henson and Robert Peary, fathered during the explorers' 1906 unsuccessful journey in search of the North Pole. Counter brought Anaukaq Henson and Kali Peary to the US the next year, along with 12 of their family members. They were introduced to American relatives and honored by President Reagan, the Mayor of Washington DC, and the President of Harvard University.

Counter with Matthew Henson's grandson Ussarquak
and his wife

Dr. Counter petitioned President Reagan to have the remains of Henson and his wife Lucy reinterred from a Bronx cemetery to Arlington National Cemetery. The ceremony was conducted on April 6, 1989 with full military honors and they are buried next to Peary and his wife with a monument noting Henson's achievement.

Henson has also been honored by the US Navy with the 1996 commissioning of the USNS Henson oceanographic exploring ship. In 2000 the National Geographic Society gave Henson its highest honor, the Hubbard Medal. On the hundredth anniversary of the polar expedition, Dr Coulter again went to Greenland to celebrate with Henson's descendants, and a "Centennial Commemorative Case" containing artifacts from the 1909 expedition was taken by submarine to the exact location of the North Pole.

Dr. Coulter has documented his work with the Henson and Peary descendants in a book and documentary video North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo. 

He has visited Suriman to study descendants of enslaved people, recorded in I Shall Moulder Before I Shall Be Taken  and in the PBS specials I Sought My Brother  and Vanishing Tribes. Journeys to Equador are noted in Lost Africans of the Andes, and her has led medical mission trips in that country to treat the effects of lead poisoning from ceramics and mercury poisoning in gold mining. He has also led relief efforts in Haiti, working with celebrities such as Will Smith and Debbie Allen.

Dr. Coulter is also the founding director of the Harvard Foundation which sponsors frequent lectures and multi-cultural events dedicated to "improving intercultural understanding, equality and and peace among students" by promoting an atmosphere of civility and racial harmony.

He was born July 8, 1954 in Americus, Georgia and attended Tennessee State University, earning his BS in biology and audiological science in 1976. He received his PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1979 and did postgraduate research at Harvard University, joining the Harvard Medical School Faculty as a Professor of Neurology in 1981. In 1989 he earned a Doctorate of Medical Science at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and in 2004 was appointed Consul General of Sweden in Boston and New England by the decree of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Jan Eliasson, Swedish Ambassador to the UN.

Matthew Henson

“As I stood there on the top of the world and I thought of the hundreds of men who had lost their lives in the effort to reach it [North Pole], I felt profoundly grateful that I had the honor of representing my race.” ~ Matthew Henson

Matthew Alexander Henson was born August 8, 1866 in Nanjemoy, Maryland near Baltimore, and grew up in Washington, DC. Orphaned at an early age, he went to sea as a cabin boy on a merchant ship when he was 11 or 12. For the next several years he sailed around the world, educating himself in mathematics and navigation, and became a skilled navigator.

While working as a stock boy at a fur and supplies store in Washington DC in 1887 Henson met explorer Robert E. Peary, who hired him as a valet to accompany him on his travels. Their first journey was to Nicaragua where Peary had a government contract to survey the land for a possible canal to be built there. Peary was impressed with Henson's map-making ability and made him his assistant.

For years they explored together, primarily in the Arctic in attempts to reach the North Pole. Henson traded with the Inuit, learning their language and local skills such as sled-building. Their name for him was "Maye-Paluq", which translates as "Kind One." Harvard ethnographer and explorer S. Allen Counter found that both Henson and Peary fathered children in Greenland during their 1906 visit.

Along with native sled-bearers Ootah, Egingwah, Seegloo and Ooqueah, Henson and Peary were successful in reaching the Pole on April 6, 1909. At the time, Peary was riding in the sled because of frostbite and Henson had gone ahead as a scout, arriving at the spot calculated to be correct about 45 minutes before the rest of the party. When they arrived Peary handed Henson an American flag which he planted at the site. Later Peary's calculations showed the Pole to be about three miles away. He set off to that site with Egingwah and Seegloo, placing a flag there as well. Further controversy about the location of the pole has followed throughout the years, including Frederick Cook's claim that he arrived there a year before Henson and Peary. Nevertheless, Peary was recognized by Congress as having "attained" the Pole.

Peary returned to acclaim and was awarded the rank of Rear Admiral in the U. S. Navy. He did not recognize Henson's contribution, and Henson found work parking cars in a garage in New York City. After pressure from African American leaders, President Taft gave him a Civil Service position as a messenger in a U. S. Customs House.

Henson died on March 9, 1955 at the age of 88 and was buried in the Bronx. Dr. Coulter petitioned to have him and his wife, Lucy, who had died in 1968, reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery. On April 6, 1988 (the 79th anniversary of the discovery of the North Pole) a ceremony was held with full military honors and Henson's American and Inuit descendants in attendance.