UNCF, the United Negro College Fund, also known as the United Fund, is an American philanthropic organization that funds scholarships for black students and general scholarship funds for 37 private historically black colleges and universities. UNCF was incorporated on April 25, 1944 by Frederick D. Patterson, Mary McLeod Bethune, and others. UNCF is headquartered at 1805 7th Street, NW in Washington, D.C. In 2005, 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.
Thurgood Marshall was an American lawyer and civil rights activist who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from October 1967 until October 1991. Marshall was the Court's first African-American justice. Prior to his judicial service, he successfully argued several cases before the Supreme Court, including Brown v. Board of Education.
Jackson State University is a public historically black university in Jackson, Mississippi. It is one of the largest HBCUs in the United States and the fourth largest university in Mississippi. The university is a member of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Morehouse College is a private historically black men's liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia. Anchored by its main campus of 61 acres (25 ha) near downtown Atlanta, the college has a variety of residential dorms and academic buildings east of Ashview Heights. Along with Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and the Morehouse School of Medicine, the college is a member of the Atlanta University Center consortium. Founded by William Jefferson White in 1867 in response to the liberation of enslaved African-Americans following the American Civil War, Morehouse adopted a seminary university model and stressed religious instruction, in the Baptist tradition. Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, the college experienced rapid albeit financially unstable institutional growth by establishing a liberal arts curriculum. The three-decade tenure of Benjamin Mays during the mid-20th century led to strengthened finances, an enrollment boom, and increased academic competitiveness. The college has played a key role in the development of the civil rights movement and racial equality in the United States.
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Most of these institutions were founded in the years after the American Civil War and are concentrated in the Southern United States. During the period of segregation in the United States prior to the Civil Rights Act, the overwhelming majority of higher education institutions were predominantly white and completely disqualified or limited African-American enrollment. For a century after the end of slavery in the United States in 1865, most colleges and universities in the Southern United States prohibited all African Americans from attending, while institutions in other parts of the country regularly employed quotas to limit admissions of blacks.
Howard University is a private, federally chartered historically black university (HBCU) in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) is a public, historically black college in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. ECSU, which enrolls nearly 2,500 students in 28 undergraduate programs and 4 graduate programs, is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, as well as a member-institution of the University of North Carolina system.
Texas Southern University is a public historically black university (HBCU) in Houston, Texas. The university is one of the largest and most comprehensive HBCUs in the nation with over 10,000 students enrolled and over 100 academic programs. The university is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and it is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) is a public, historically black university in Tallahassee, Florida. Founded in 1887, it is located on the highest geographic hill in Tallahassee. It is the 3rd largest historically black university in the United States by enrollment and the only public historically black university in Florida. It is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, as well as one of the state's land grant universities, and is accredited to award baccalaureate, master's and doctoral degrees by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Lincoln University (LU) is a state-related, historically black public university near Oxford, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as the private Ashmun Institute in 1854, it has been a public institution since 1972 and was the United States' first degree-granting HBCU. Its main campus is located on 422 acres near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university has a second location in University City, Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides undergraduate and graduate coursework to approximately 2,000 students. It is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Alabama State University (ASU) is a public historically black university in Montgomery, Alabama. Founded in 1867, ASU is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) is a public historically black university in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Founded in 1873, the second oldest public institution in the state of Arkansas. UAPB is part of the University of Arkansas System and Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Grambling State University is a public historically black university in Grambling, Louisiana. The university is home of the Eddie G. Robinson Museum and is listed on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail. The university is a member-school of the University of Louisiana System and Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Coppin State University is a public historically black university located in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. It is part of the University System of Maryland. The University is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
A career lawyer, entrepreneur and public servant, Harry E. Johnson, is a partner at the Law Office of Glenn and Johnson in Houston, Texas. He served as City Attorney for Kendelton, Texas from 1996 to 1999, and taught at Texas Southern University in both the Thurgood Marshall School of Law and School of Public Affairs from 1994 to 1999. Johnson is a former National President of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and is the President and CEO of the Washington, D.C. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc.
Savannah State University is a public historically black university in Savannah, Georgia. It is the oldest historically black public university in the state. The university is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Jim Clifton is Chairman and CEO of Gallup a global analytics and advice firm. Clifton has served as CEO of Gallup since 1988, and is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller It’s the Manager, the bestseller Born to Build, The Coming Jobs War, and writes The Chairman’s Blog. He is the creator of the behavioral economic framework, “The Gallup Microeconomic Path,” a metric-based economic model that establishes the linkages among human nature in the workplace, customer engagement and business outcomes, which is used by over 500 companies worldwide. His father was psychologist, educator, and author Dr. Donald O. Clifton, who founded of Selection Research, Inc. (SRI). Under Jim's leadership, SRI acquired the Gallup Organization in 1988.
Johnny Clayton Taylor Jr. is an American lawyer, author and public speaker who is the president & CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). He was previously president & CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), which represents the US's 47 publicly supported historically Black colleges and universities. In February 2018, President Donald J. Trump appointed Taylor Chair of the President's Advisory Board on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Taylor was also on the board of Gallup, a research-based, global performance-management consulting company. From December 2016 until leaving the board in mid-2018, he was chair of the Cooper Union Governance Committee and as member of the Executive Committee. Along with Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Partners Chief Information Officer and Cooper Union alumnus Eric Hirschhorn, Taylor co-chaired the school's search committee for a full-time president. Taylor was elected to the board of trustees of the University of Miami on May 5, 2017.
Paris Perrial Dennard is an American conservative political speaker. He previously worked in the Administration of President George W. Bush, the Republican National Committee (RNC), and has appeared as a conservative commentator on many national outlets including CNN and NPR, and is the Senior Director of Strategic Communications for the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
Dr. Harry L. Williams is the president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), which is an organization of America's 47 publicly-supported historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominately black institutions (PBIs) representing nearly 300,000 students across the country. Williams' higher education career spans several senior leadership positions within institutions such as the University of North Carolina General Administration, Appalachian State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Delaware State University. He is married to Dr. Robin S. Williams and is the father of two sons, Austin Williams, who graduated from Howard University, and Gavin Williams who is a current student at Howard University in Washington, DC.
