Thompson himself published more than 100 scholarly articles, editorials, and research papers, many of which pertained to the teaching and advancement of African-American students' education.

Joshua Baker Simpson, the Union faculty member of that university inspired many students like Thompson to appreciate research as a tool for enhancing the human condition, specifically the African Americans.

In 1920, he completed a master's degree in education with a thesis titled "A Study of the Reading Accomplishments of Colored and White Children".

[4] A year later in 1925, Thompson found another position, this time at Summer High School and Junior College in Kansas as a psychology and social science professor.

As the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Thompson implemented selection procedures of promising high school graduates through the utilization of nationwide scholarship examinations.

[1] He forwarded efforts into improving admission processes to the University and introduced an advisory system catered towards freshman students.

Furthermore, Thompson aided in both studying and expanding the usage of standardized testing and in developing faculty tenure policies and improvement procedures (at the university).

[1] As the Dean of the Graduate School, Thompson oversaw changes to numerous sections of the programs, including the master’s degree requirements as well as both the standards of admission and scholarship.

He concluded that the overwhelming accepted idea of racial intelligence inferiority (during his time in early academia) was a myth and it was undemocratic to impose policy based on unfounded science.

Although, his improvements were not approved when he first introduced them, he slowly made progress throughout his academic career as he moved on to larger administrative roles.

[2] Even before creating this journal, Thompson would write articles for other papers criticizing the laws on education for African Americans and Caucasians.

[5] This made him to want to create the paper to draw more global attention on the issues of education for African Americans.

The importance of the paper was doubted in this time of low funds but was thought to be useful to bring national attention to Howard University.

[2] His main purpose for starting the journal was because he believed there was a lack of information on African American education making it hard to have good schooling for people of colour.

To the authority figures that worked for the University Thompson would explain the journal in more mild terminology to not cause alarm to them so they could provide funding for it.

[2] However, to the audience that read his journal he stayed true to make bold statements about the discrimination that occurred in education for African Americans.

[2] This sparked debate among many people of color as they wanted to be able to attend higher schooling at universities that were at the time only for White Americans.

When this came to the attention of Thompson, he wrote an article in The Journal for Negro Education about the failure of the government to follow through with the Gaines decision that stated that segregated schools should have equal access and resources.

[2] Thompson played a role in contributing to Sweatt’s case by providing information about the issues with segregation in education.