James Farley Ragland, Sr., pharmacist and poet, was born on August 24, 1904, in South Boston, Halifax, Virginia, in the Community Memorial Hospital, to Parham B. Ragland (1854-1909), a Baptist Preacher, and Lucy Ragland (1862-1943). James Ragland had one brother, Elijah Paul Ragland (1900-1962). The elder Ragland had other children: Leon Benson Ragland, and three sisters, Lizzy Ragland Lawrence, Kate Ragland Owens, and Annie Ragland.
Ragland graduated from Virginia State College (now Virginia State University) in Petersburg in 1926, and the Howard University College of Pharmacy in Washington, DC, in 1929, where he was the Pharmacy Class President for three years and a member of Chi Delta Mu, an African American professional fraternity for students and graduates in the allied health professions.
Ragland owned and operated the Campus Pharmacy at 101 Church Street in Lawrenceville, Virginia, for fifty years and taught chemistry at St. Paul’s College, a small Episcopal HBCU in the town. He was also a former teacher in the Public School System of Halifax County and served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Chase City, Virginia from 1964 to 1981.
James Ragland married Hattie Elizabeth Hamilton in 1932. She was a Supervisor in Elementary Education at St. Paul’s College, and they parented four sons, James F. Ragland, Jr., Leon Clifton Ragland, Ray Hamilton Ragland, and Lawrence Carey Ragland as well as two daughters, Lucia Ragland Windley and Irma Ragland Moore.
While he remained devoted to his professional career as a pharmacist, Jame Farley Ragland was also an accomplished poet. Over his lifetime he was credited with seven volumes of verse, including Rhymes of the Times: The Poems of J. Farley Ragland, released by Wendell Malliet, and Company, and Warming Words, Selected Poems by J. Farley Ragland. His verse was a weekly delight in his column in the Brunswick Times-Gazette in Lawrenceville, Virginia.
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Dr. James Farley Ragland, Sr., a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., died in South Hill, Virginia, on January 8, 1983. He was 78. His legacy lives on through his children, who have followed in his footsteps in various fields, and the countless lives he touched through his work in education, pharmacy, and literature, and his service to the church and community.
