Articles

Lomax: UNCF Taps Former Fulton Chief

Andrea Jones and Andrew Mollison, AJC Staff
February 9, 2004

Michael Lomax, former chairman of the Fulton County Commission, was named president of the United Negro College Fund on Monday and immediately announced an ambitious plan to raise $1 billion dollars.

Lomax, who replaces the retiring William Gray in June, said he plans to build a massive endowment that will ensure the organization's continued support for its 39 member schools.

The fund is the nation's oldest minority higher education scholarship program and contributes significant financial support to private historically black colleges and universities. "Bill Gray turned the United Negro College Fund into one of the most important institutions in the country, giving hundreds of millions of dollars a year to deserving students," Lomax said Monday in Washington. "I want to continue his good work."

Lomax, 56, has been president of Dillard University in New Orleans since 1997. He helped double enrollment at the historically black school and spearheaded a $60 million renovation campaign.

Lomax has deep roots in Atlanta. He taught literature for 20 years at Spelman and Morehouse colleges and Emory University. A Morehouse graduate, he began writing speeches for Mayor Maynard Jackson while in his 20s. He was Fulton County Commission chairman for 12 years, ran twice for mayor of Atlanta and founded the city's National Black Arts Festival.

Lomax said he intends to divide his time between the UNCF headquarters outside Washington and Atlanta, where he and his wife, Cheryl, still own a home.

He said his ties to Atlanta and the schools within the Atlanta University Center will serve as a fund-raising advantage.

"These schools have a long, rich and powerful history," he said. "Morehouse and Spelman, especially, are exemplars of the very best in higher education. The city of Atlanta has long been a generous supporter of the fund. I'm hoping I can continue that trend."

Morehouse President Walter Massey said Lomax's appointment "just makes sense."

"He understands our institutions and understands the political scene," Massey said. "He's a perfect fit."

At the same time, Massey said, Lomax has a tough act to follow.

Gray, a former congressman from Philadelphia, raised more than $1.6 billion in his 12 years as UNCF president Ñ about 70 percent of what the fund has amassed in its 59-year history. In 1999, he helped secure a $1 billion gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Ñ the largest single donation ever to higher education.

Gray ramped up fund-raising at a particularly tough time for historically black colleges, whose mission often includes serving lower-income students who might otherwise not be able to afford college. Many of the schools operate with little or no endowment, and in tough economic times, some run into the red.

Fund-raising, Gray said, is the most important part of the UNCF president's job.

"Michael Lomax increased giving at Dillard by 300 percent," Gray said. "He knows how to get it done.

"He's a strategic thinker, strong manager and an effective fund-raiser," Gray said. "I am quite sure he will be able to take UNCF to even higher levels."

Lomax, who rose to political power in Atlanta in the 1980s, took some hits for decisions he made while leading the Fulton Commission. Blamed for state-mandated property tax reappraisals and called by some "too intellectual" for politics, Lomax left the political arena in 1994 and became president of the National Faculty, a nonprofit organization that focused on developing academic programs for elementary and secondary schools.

Former Spelman College President Johnnetta Cole, who is president of Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., was on the search committee that picked Lomax from more than 50 candidates for UNCF's top job.

"One of the reasons we are so unabashedly enthusiastic about Michael Lomax is that he is chiseled out of the United Negro College Fund Ñ a Morehouse graduate who has taught at Spelman College and leads Dillard University," Cole said. "We are just convinced that he will take these 39 institutions even higher, if that is conceivable, than Bill Gray did."

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, who has known Lomax for 35 years, called his appointment "wonderful."

"Higher education is his love," she said. "He's done such a good job at Dillard. He will be able to promote higher education for HBCUs because he believes in it. He's been a professor, an administrator, a college president. He knows from the ground up what the needs are and what some of the solutions are."

Staff writer Mae Gentry contributed to this article. Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. Further reproduction, retransmission or distribution of these materials without the prior written consent of The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, and any copyright holder identified in the material's copyright notice, is prohibited.