My friend Earl Hayes — a native of Baltimore and a tireless advocate for the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities, an avid boater and a good friend to many across this great country — left us early on the morning of August 29, 2006 following a brief battle with throat and neck cancer. Those of us who knew Earl, whether personally or professionally, loved his dry sense of humor, warm friendship and ever ready smile, as well as his deep commitment to expanding educational opportunities for African-American youth and enhancing the HBCUs.
For almost two decades, Earl labored at the U.S. Department of Education, where he served as senior program manager, deputy director and special assistant with the White House Initiative on HBCUs. Earl’s personality was well-suited to the job, and his preference was to work behind the scenes. He helped generate millions of dollars in federal grant awards and corporate gifts for the HBCUs. As program manager for the Science and Technology Cluster for the White House Initiative, he linked the HBCUs to 12 federal departments and agencies, which between 2001 and 2003 provided 36 percent of the research dollars to America’s Black colleges and universities. More recently, he worked with key Siemens Corporation executives to forge a partnership between the HBCU engineering schools and the company.
Earl’s love for HBCUs was natural and developed as a result of personal experience. A graduate of Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, he enrolled and ran track at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Ky., and later graduated from Morgan State (College) University, following a tour of duty in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. Earl used his Bachelor of Science degree from Morgan to help prepare Black youth for the educational and life challenges in their futures as a geography and history teacher with the Baltimore City Public Schools at Cherry Hill Junior High. Both of his children, following in their father’s footsteps, attended HBCUs — Donna at Morgan State and James at Grambling State University.
Prior to his service with the White House Initiative, Earl spent the 1970s and early 1980s as corporate vice president with ARA Food Service, Inc. in Philadelphia; as director of federal relations with the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education; and as outreach and corporate community relations officer for Good Foods Services, Inc., a comprehensive food service provider to the HBCUs. He took time during his days in Philadelphia to earn a Masters of Science Degree in political and urban studies from Penn State.
