Jamaal O. Bailey grew up in Warsaw, Virginia, a small, predominantly White town. Then he went to Virginia State University.
The historically Black college hadn’t been his first choice, but his aunt – the only college graduate in his family at the time – had gone there. Years later, he described it as “the best four years” of his life.
“I’d never seen Black people from so many different places,” he said. “College was great for me. It opened my eyes. I met so many different people, learned about so many different cultures in the Black community.”
He ended up dedicating 12 years of his career working for the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) to elevate the visibility of HBCUs. He started off as director of events in 2008, took over as vice president of marketing in 2012, jumped to chief marketing officer four years later and ultimately became chief marketing and administrative officer in 2018.
Bailey hadn’t heard of TMCF when he was in school. If he had, he thinks he probably “wouldn’t have had that much student loan debt,” he laughed.
But during his time there, he wanted to make sure HBCU students knew “there is an organization out there for you that can help you,” he said. “A lot of students struggle and drop out because of money or [struggle] because they didn’t have internship opportunities, because they just didn’t know that organizations like Thurgood Marshall College Fund existed. They have money to give. The organization has opportunities for internships. The organization has opportunities for you to network with Fortune 500 company executives. The plethora of opportunities is just amazing.”
Bailey always sought to have a career that would help young people. Growing up, some of his friends went to juvenile detention, and he accompanied them to court, only to watch seemingly disinterested public defenders take on their cases. At Virginia State, he decided to study political science to become a lawyer and ultimately went on to get a master’s in criminal justice from the University of Baltimore.
