John Rudolph Hatcher was born February 8, 1928, in New Madrid, Missouri. He was the only child of John Rufus Hatcher and Adeline Riley Hatcher. After having passed the 8th grade examination early he moved to Cape Girardeau, Missouri to live with his aunt, Mable Riley, in order to attend the high school there. At the age of 15 years old he graduated from high school and was admitted to Howard University in Washington, D.C. where he completed his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees. In 1949 he was accepted into the Ph.D. program at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Although he completed the requirements for his Ph.D. in 1952, his degree was not conferred on him because of the racial climate at the time.

Before beginning his teaching career John traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to bicycle through part of Norway and was interviewed on a Norwegian radio program. He was an accomplished musician; he played the piano and the saxophone. He would practice for hours to perfect some of his classical favorites like Clair de Lune by Debussy and Malaguena by Ernesto Lecuona. He also enjoyed playing hymns and popular songs of the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s. He liked swimming, diving and of course having a big garden where he would grow enough vegetables and fruits for the entire neighborhood.

In 1952 John took his first teaching position at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. On October 10th of that same year he married his childhood friend Linetta Amanda Glass. They purchased their first house in Nashville and lived there for two years. Then they moved to California where he was certified in an Applied Mathematics Program at Stanford University. He then worked for an aviation company as an engineer but missed teaching. They moved to Los Angeles, where he enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). While studying at UCLA he taught math at California State University, Northridge. In 1959 their only child, Sylvia Valene Hatcher was born. While in Los Angeles they hosted pool parties, and he played minor league baseball. John was awarded his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1968 from UCLA.

In 1969, Dr. John R. Hatcher broke the racial barrier as the first African American professor at Southwest Missouri State University, now Missouri State University, in Springfield, Missouri. He used his knowledge of baseball as a coach for the South Haven Baptist Church Girls Softball Team in the mid-1970’s. He retired from SMSU in 1987 but he did not stop teaching. In 1989-1990 he taught at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota as a Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor. He also was a Visiting Professor Emeritus at the Missouri University of Science and Technology, known as the University of Missouri – Rolla at the time. Throughout his career and retirement Dr. Hatcher published several articles in various journals of the American Mathematical Society. He continued to do research until shortly before his death on November 26, 2022; he was 94 years old.

He is survived by his wife of 70 years: Linetta Amanda Glass Hatcher, his daughter and her husband: Phillip and Sylvia Smith, his grandchildren and their spouses: Gerald and Dominique Bargaineer and John-Rudolph and Madison Smith, his great-grandchildren: Gerald Anthony Bargaineer III, Giovanna Arielle Bargaineer and Khari Hatcher Smith, many relatives, neighbors, colleagues and friends.