# Why United Negro College Fund? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 23, 2006, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873 "2006-05-23T06:09:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/81 "2006-05-26T16:34:11Z")
Precisely. It was indeed with half a mind on the Historically Black Colleges & Universities (for those unaware of the abbreviation) that I posed the original question. Particularly puzzling to me in the PC age, where the fund, though, as pointed out above, it exists primarily to give money out, _does_ seek and receive quite a bit of corporate support. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/82 "2006-05-26T16:40:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Precisely. It was indeed with half a mind on the Historically Black Colleges & Universities (for those unaware of the abbreviation) that I posed the original question. Particularly puzzling to me in the PC age, where the fund, though, as pointed out above, it exists primarily to give money out, does seek and receive quite a bit of corporate support. Maybe this fact in itself is an indication that there is a fault in your chain of reasoning. In particular you should rethink this assumption: > [@](#): > > with its connotations of slavery and Uncle Tom Which has not been supported by any of the cites given in this thread. Anyway, the real answer has already been given in this thread in the first reply: > [@Marley23](#): > > The UNCF was created in 1944, and that was the term at the time. The fund’s Web site doesn’t address your question, although I think this quote makes it clear that they just didn’t want to lose name recognition. This simply and completely answered the one direct question in the OP. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/83 "2006-05-26T16:52:29Z")
What is more interesting is the pros and cons that were debated and discussed, and no doubt still are, by the PTB at UNCF, as the name gets more and more dated, with generations growing up for whom ‘negro’ is a word they hardly know beyond 19th century literature. Not to mention as their PR people have to deal with constant queries - and complaints - from the media and the public about the name, and the decision not to change it even as other organistions change with the times. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/84 "2006-05-26T16:56:12Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > Not to mention as their PR people have to deal with constant queries - and complaints - from the media and the public about the name, and the decision not to change it Is this the case or are you speculating? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/85 "2006-05-26T16:59:36Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Is this the case or are you speculating? Yeah, I’d like to see some evidence here. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/86 "2006-05-26T17:01:54Z")
> [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](#): > > If we can get back to the topic at hand… > > I think it’s interesting that the “negro colleges” have pretty much adopted a new group moniker and go by HBCU. Maybe it would be worthwhile to trace that name change. > > UNCF supports more than just HBCUs, of course, but the fact that the phraseology for HBCUs have changed makes the UNCF persistence all the more curious to me. The difference is that the UNCF is the longstanding formal name of a distinguished organization while HBCU is simply a way of describing an informal group of colleges. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/87 "2006-05-26T17:41:02Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I would really hate to think that you were simply posting for the purpose of riling up other posters as that would be a pretty clear violation of the rules, which I am sure that you would never do. are moderators allowed to “suggest” trolling? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/88 "2006-05-26T17:53:05Z")
> [@whole bean](#): > > are moderators allowed to “suggest” trolling? They’re allowed to remind users of the rules and to hope that a poster isn’t doing it. For that matter, they’re also allowed to call posters on it and issue warnings about it. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/89 "2006-05-26T18:04:20Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Malcolm X did found the Organization for Afro-American Unity in 1964, less than a year before he died. So perhaps he’d come to favor that term, but “Afro-American” was new then and it never caught on as far as I know. When I graduated from high school in 1981, my alma mater, Booker T. Washington, still had an “Afro-American Society”. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/90 "2006-05-26T18:30:18Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > They’re allowed to remind users of the rules and to hope that a poster isn’t doing it. For that matter, they’re also allowed to call posters on it and issue warnings about it. Don’t you generally get one of those ::mod hat on:: lead ins? No matter I guess. Sorry for the hijack. I don’t want to derail this train wreck of Rog’s. I just didn’t think the question required it’s own thread. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/91 "2006-05-26T18:43:09Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > with generations growing up for whom ‘negro’ is a word they hardly know beyond 19th century literature Incredible to think that they would somehow miss the entire Civil Rights movement of the 20th century, in which the predominant term was indeed “Negro”. **roger thornhill** , why don’t you just pick up an anthology of essays by 20th century black American writers? Why don’t you just read the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr.? The Autobiography of Malcolm X? Volumes of the leading black publications of the day: _Ebony_, _Jet_, and _Negro Digest_? From _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ (1965): > [@](#): > > The American Negro can never be blamed for his racial animosities — he is only responding to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American whites. > > Largely, the American white man’s press refused to convey that I was now attempting to teach Negroes a new direction. > > So how does anybody sound talking about the Negro in America waging some “revolution”? > > Both white people and Negroes — even including Muslims — would make me uncomfortable, always giving me so much credit for the steady progress that the Nation of Islam was making. > > Under the steady lullabies sung by foxy liberals, the Northern Negro became a beggar. But the Southern Negro, facing the honestly snarling white man, rose up to battle that white man. > > You will often hear today a lot of the Negro leaders complaining that what thrust the Muslims into international prominence was the white man’s press, radio, television, and other media. > > Only a few thousands of Negroes, relatively a very tiny number, are taking part in “integration.” ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/92 "2006-05-26T21:31:43Z")
I just did a search on ProQuest Historical Newspapers Database(which includes the Washington Post, N.Y.Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Defender, L.A. Times, and the Boston Globe). I used as my date period 1958-1967. First I searched for the phrase “Negro schools.” I got 3,442 hits. Then I searched for “black schools.” I got 50 hits, most of which were in the last two years of the search period. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/93 "2006-05-26T23:55:35Z")
> [@whole bean](#): > > Don’t you generally get one of those ::mod hat on:: lead ins? No matter I guess. Sorry for the hijack. I don’t want to derail this train wreck of Rog’s. I just didn’t think the question required it’s own thread. Had I specified my position as Mod, I’d have had to take a specific position on the issue. I am hoping that Roger is not trolling this thread, although his actions have been ambiguous. I am certainly not suggesting that Roger is a troll as regards the majority of his posts; I merely wanted to point out to him that his actions in this thread have suggested to others that he is not posting in good faith. Further discussion should probably be carried on outside of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/94 "2006-05-27T01:49:25Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > I just did a search on ProQuest Historical Newspapers Database(which includes the Washington Post, N.Y.Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Constitution, Chicago Defender, L.A. Times, and the Boston Globe). I used as my date period 1958-1967. First I searched for the phrase “Negro schools.” I got 3,442 hits. > > Then I searched for “black schools.” I got 50 hits, most of which were in the last two years of the search period. A couple of observations: first, thge discussion here is centred predominantly around ‘black’ used as a noun, rather than an adjective, e.g. ‘black people’, or as a noun modifier, e.g. ‘black school’. Second, and, more significantly, and for this I’m glad that someone has cited Malcolm X, be aware, **Sam** , and others, of the limitations of a corpus comprising only a very restricted generic sub-set, in this case, as X put it himself, consisting of “the white man’s press[, radio, television, and other media]”.\* X’s message, converyed in so many speeches and other texts, is reminiscent of Richard Wright’s _Twelve Million Black Voices_, an account published in 1941 of the migration of black people (yes, he deliberately and consciously uses the word ‘black’) from the south to the north of America. His line of argument is similar to X’s - that the word negro (or Negro) is a white man’s word, which is used by him to restrict the space, or allowable range, of a black person’s life, as well as to set black people apart (as the “other”) from white Americans. In other words, to control blacks, and to keep them in their place. Well worth reading. - I would advise great caution in the use of corpora and concordances. Some computer corpora are fed on a continuous basis from the same sources (certain newspapers, magazines and radio stations, for example), and this can constitute a serious problem. In terms of historical databases of the type **Sam** is using, the problem is similar - relying on “orthodox” media sources will not allow alternative voices to be heard very effectively, and they are liable to give a distorted picture if not used with great care and many riders as to their generalisability and value in general. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/95 "2006-05-27T02:08:36Z")
> [@Dewey Finn](#): > > The difference is that the UNCF is the longstanding formal name of a distinguished organization while HBCU is simply a way of describing an informal group of colleges. …And besides, I think some of y’all are parsing of the name wrong. It’s not supposed to be taken as “The United Fund for Negro Colleges,” but more like “The United College Fund for Negros.” In any event I wish Roger would explain what exactly is the point of this little campagin. What are you trying to prove? - That the UNCF is hopeless out of date and irrelevant, or worse run by Uncle Toms who want to bring back slavery? - That the UNCF is proof that we should be using the word “Negro” right and left? - That some British guy in Hong Kong knows the history of the cultural/racial issues of American history better than either American whites or blacks? BTW, why isn’t this in Great Debates, as I really don’t get the impression that factual answers are what Rog is after? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/96 "2006-05-27T02:11:12Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > and for this I’m glad that someone has cited Malcolm X . . . X’s message, converyed in so many speeches and other texts . . . that the word negro (or Negro) is a white man’s word Did you even read the quotes I supplied? I could have supplied several hundred more uses of “Negro” from _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_. > [@roger thornhill](#): > > relying on “orthodox” media sources will not allow alternative voices to be heard very effectively, and they are liable to give a distorted picture if not used with great care and many riders as to their generalisability and value in general. Yet you repeatedly quoted that most orthodox of sources, the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, as gospel! That’s an alternative voice? Like I said, **roger thornhill** , just do some research, _please_, in publications by black Americans for black Americans. Not obscure academic works; popular magazines like _Ebony_, _Jet_, and _Negro Digest_. Flip through those issues from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. You’d soon find out that your idea that “Negro” was associated with Uncle Tom and slavery is absurd. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/97 "2006-05-27T02:17:28Z")
As OP, I’d be cool with this thread being moved to GD. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/98 "2006-05-27T03:23:42Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > What is more interesting is the pros and cons that were debated and discussed, and no doubt still are, by the PTB at UNCF, as the name gets more and more dated, with generations growing up for whom ‘negro’ is a word they hardly know beyond 19th century literature. Not to mention as their PR people have to deal with constant queries - and complaints - from the media and the public about the name, and the decision not to change it even as other organistions change with the times. I would bet heavily that your scenarios are non-existent events for the United Negro College Fund just as they are for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Despite the use of an even older and even more rarely seen term, the NAACP manages quite nicely. History covers those objections from outsiders. You might also note the existence of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Inc.; National Association of Negro Musicians; and the National Council of Negro Women. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/99 "2006-05-27T03:26:54Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > relying on “orthodox” media sources will not allow alternative voices to be heard very effectively, and they are liable to give a distorted picture if not used with great care and many riders as to their generalisability and value in general. How very postmodern of you. Except it doesn’t support your argument at all - that being that “negro” was a marked word choice in the early sixties. If indeed some black people used the term “black” in preference to “negro” at the time, you’ve offered no evidence that it was the majority or even a significant proportion. It would be akin to arguing that since a few gay men have attempted to reclaim the word “faggot”, “faggot” is therefore the preferred term used to describe gay men and the word “gay” is old-fashioned and carries baggage from the days of Stonewall. The orthodox media are the _only_ source that would support your argument, since you’ve been arguing that “black” was the normal usage by the early 1960s, and for that argument to hold water, it would have to be normal not just amongst “alternative voices”. > [@roger thornhill](#): > > As OP, I’d be cool with this thread being moved to GD. Since the only argument is over a matter of strict fact, and the argument is between one person with one sentence to support his point and several other people who have completely demolished it, I don’t see any “debate” at all at the moment. And since the OP hasn’t really framed a real question for discussion, I don’t see what moving this thread would accomplish. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873/100 "2006-05-27T04:49:11Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > As OP, I’d be cool with this thread being moved to GD. Alternatively, since the **General Question** of the OP has actually been answered factually by several posters, you could simply ask that this thread be closed (or even allowed to die on its own) and you could post an actual discussion topic in **Great Debates** , couched in the specific language you wish to debate and not clouded by any interaction that has marked this thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-united-negro-college-fund/357873.md?page=6)