UNCF, Igniting a Fire that Burned for Generations

During my recent trip to Las Vegas on a walk back from Cesar’s Palace I’d stoped inside of White Castle to satisfy nighttime dinner cravings. While waiting in line I struck up conversation with a girl around my age who was standing in front of me. I’d inquired about what school she went to, “I went to Howard one year, couldn’t afford it so I transferred to North Carolina State”. I asked her how the one year of Howard was in comparison to the state university and she’d pleasantly raved about the HBCU, wishing that she could’ve completed her educated there. She even persuaded me to attend a HBCU. “I’ve already graduated” I told her, “Well then get another degree, it’s so worth it!” She continued, “There’s nothing like it and every black person should experience it”. She was right, not necessarily about my pursuing another degree but she was right about the fact that every black person should experience being educated in an environment that caters to their culture, while immersed in their culture, surrounded by people who relate to and value their experience as Blacks in America. The majority of African Americans never get the chance to experience attending a HBCU and of those who do start their education on a HBCU campus, like my new friend in the White Castle line, many do not get to complete their degree due to cost.
In order to address this issue Frederick Patterson founded the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) on April 25, 1944. Patterson was a certified teacher who’d also received his doctorate in veterinary medicine and a Masters of Science Degree from Iowa State University. He’d benefited from a college education and was passionate about providing this opportunity to other young black students. The United Negro College Fund was established in order to fund historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) throughout the South. This helped support higher education for blacks who couldn’t afford college and who would have sacrificed having a college education otherwise. The organization grew in popularity receiving much support for its efforts. In 1959 Massachusetts Senator, and later President, John F. Kennedy donated the proceeds from his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage, to the UNCF.
Surprisingly, It wasn’t until Vernon Jorden’s leadership in 1970 that Blacks gained control of the organization. Jorden had been the first secretary of the NAACP in Georgia in 1944. He had a variety of leadership experience as a civil rights activist and was also apart of the United Negro League as president, a role he resigned after surviving an attempted assassination in 1980. He was a popular figure and had even been an advisor to Bill Clinton during his presidency in the 90s. As the organization continued to increase in popularity in 1972 Forest Long, developed the slogan, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste”  it became one of the most widely recognized slogans in advertising history. Since its beginning focus on young black students, the organization has evolved to also support Native Americans, Latino and Asian American students. Recently the UNCF has begun the Institute for Capacity Building, a grants-awarding program that assists smaller colleges and universities in reaching a wider network of donor support.
Although there are some stereotypes about HBCUs that circulate in our culture, attending a HBCU proves to be an invaluable experience for a Black person in the  United States where for the majority of our lives we’re the minority. At a HBCU this trend is reversed by the campuses’ majority black population. Throughout primary schooling African American history is reduced to slavery and the civil rights era, while at a HBCU Black history extended far before and beyond the era of slavery, classes explore the lives of blacks in other time periods and continents that students have yet to hear of prior to their college careers. While in a white dominated society many blacks find themselves assimilating into a culture that views their needs as secondary, while at an HBCU events that cater to black culture are frequent and various. While at a PWI or while working in a white dominated society a black person can easily fall into feeling isolated and attending a HBCU for even a year gives us an incredible feeling of belonging that exponentially develops ones self-esteem and strengthens ones understanding of world while being supported by the community around them. UNCF provided African Americans in the racially volatile South that experience through raising billions of dollars to help over 400,000 students attend college that would not have otherwise, creating an impact that would ring for generations.
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