President of Talladega College and The United Negro College Fund
In 1964, Talladega College's Board of Trustees completed a lengthy search for a successor to the institution's first African-American president, Arthur Gray, who served from 1952 to 1962, by offering the position to its distinguished alumnus, Herman Long. His 1965 inauguration at the College's DeForest Chapel took place thirty years after his own graduation ceremony there. As a highly-regarded figure in the African-American community, he continued to provide leadership during the turbulent 1960s and, in 1970, while continuing to serve in his Talladega post, was chosen as the next president of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), the organization, then in its 26th year (founded in 1944), which has as its goal the raising of funds for the 39 private historically black colleges and universities. Shortly after assuming his new position, he was interviewed in the New York studio of NBC's Today Show, and discussed his and the Fund's goals and projects. It was during his tenure, in 1972, that the slogan, "A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste", became the UNCF's motto.
Herman H. Long was 64 when he died of cancer at Talladega's Citizens Hospital. He was survived by his wife, Henrietta Shivery and daughter, Ellen. Buell Gallagher, president emeritus of New York's City College who, four decades earlier, from 1933 to 1943, himself served as Talladega College president, a period which included the junior and senior years future president Long spent as a student, said in memoriam, "Herman Long's studies were very powerful forces working for the integration of the races when the possibility of such integration was very slight. He was an important and imaginative figure before the actual transition phase of race relations in this country."
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