The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is an American philanthropic organization that funds scholarships for black students and general scholarship funds for 39 private historically black colleges and universities. The UNCF was incorporated on April 25, 1944 by Frederick D. Patterson (then president of what is now Tuskegee University), Mary McLeod Bethune, and others. The UNCF is headquartered at 8260 Willow Oaks Corporate Drive in an unincorporated area in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, east of the city of Fairfax. In 2005, the UNCF supported approximately 65,000 students at over 900 colleges and universities with approximately $113 million in grants and scholarships. About 60% of these students are the first in their families to attend college, and 62% have annual family incomes of less than $25,000. UNCF also administers over 450 named scholarships. This is in contrast with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund that raises money for the public historically black colleges and universities.
The UNCF's president and chief executive officer is Michael Lomax. Past presidents of the UNCF included William H. Gray and Vernon Jordan.
Read more about United Negro College Fund: Scholarships, Fundraising and Lou Rawls Parade of Stars, The UNCF Motto
Famous quotes containing the words united, negro, college and/or fund:
“The popular colleges of the United States are turning out more educated people with less originality and fewer geniuses than any other country.”
—Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–?)
“We can rejoice that the time has arrived when millions of Negro Americans can step out of the shadows, and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“... when you make it a moral necessity for the young to dabble in all the subjects that the books on the top shelf are written about, you kill two very large birds with one stone: you satisfy precious curiosities, and you make them believe that they know as much about life as people who really know something. If college boys are solemnly advised to listen to lectures on prostitution, they will listen; and who is to blame if some time, in a less moral moment, they profit by their information?”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“School success is not predicted by a child’s fund of facts or a precocious ability to read as much as by emotional and social measures; being self-assured and interested: knowing what kind of behavior is expected and how to rein in the impulse to misbehave; being able to wait, to follow directions, and to turn to teachers for help; and expressing needs while getting along with other children.”
—Daniel Goleman (20th century)