Joseph Toy Howell III

Howell was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1942 to Joseph Toy Howell Jr., a banker, and Carroll Cole Howell. At age 10, he contracted polio which left him partially paralyzed and required a spinal fusion operation. He achieved a full physical recovery within a few years. Howell is a graduate of Nashville's Montgomery Bell Academy, and Davidson College in North Carolina. He received a Masters in Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York and received a Master's degree in City and Regional Planning from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

While at Davidson College, Howell became involved in the civil rights movement and community work, inspired by the Freedom Rides of the early 1960s and his experiences during a summer volunteer project on New York's Lower East Side in 1963.

During his senior year at Davidson in the spring of 1964, Howell led a group of students in a civil rights march in which a group of more than 500 protesters, including students from Davidson and two historically black colleges, Barber Scotia College and Johnson C Smith University, marched in downtown Charlotte, NC.[2]

In the summer of 1966, Howell and his newlywed wife Embry traveled to southwest Georgia on the invitation of Charles Sherrod, a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to register voters and support the work of the movement. His account of their experiences working with black activists to effect change in communities deeply marred by racism and social justice is the central subject of his memoir, published by AuthorHouse in 2011.[3]

Following completion of his Master's in Urban Planning at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1970, Howell was recruited by UNC professor F. Stuart Chaplin Jr. to become a participant observer in a 1-year study of a White, working class community in metropolitan Washington DC, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.[4]

Howell's account of his experiences during that year was published in 1973 by Doubleday under the title Hard Living on Clay Street: Portraits of Blue Collar Families. The book follows the daily struggles of two working class families living next door to the Howells and their infant son.[5]

20 editions have been published between 1973 and 2017. As of 2022, the book is held by 866 WorldCat member libraries worldwide.[6]

In 1981, Howell founded Howell Associates, Inc., a consultancy specializing in providing technical assistance to developers of affordable and seniors housing. Howell wrote Real Estate Development Syndication, a book about raising capital for affordable housing, published by Praeger in 1983.[10] Howell Associates was acquired in 1998 by ZA Consulting, a healthcare and management consulting company, for whom Howell continued to serve as an advisor on seniors housing and long term care practice until his retirement in 2015.[11]

Since retiring, Howell has served on a number of nonprofit boards involved in affordable housing and seniors housing and publishes political blogs and cartoons on his website. He has lectured in affordable housing finance at the University of Maryland and has been an adjunct professor in the Honors College at the George Washington University.

While at Davidson, Howell met Embry Martin, daughter of Davidson College President Grier Martin. They married in 1965 and have two grown children and four grandchildren. They have travelled extensively including in a 4-month around-the-world trip in 2015 that was achieved without the use of airplanes.[12]

Howell is a lifelong sailor, which he enjoyed on the Chesapeake Bay and in regular trips to the British Virgin Islands. He is a prolific photographer, and a retrospective of his work was exhibited in the Katzen Arts Center at American University in 2017.

He is a recipient of the Davidson College Distinguished Alumni Award, which he received in 2019.[13]