In 1989, Dr. Michael Lomax made an unsuccessful attempt to run as a mayoral candidate in Atlanta.
At that point, he had to make a decision about whether to pursue elected office again or determine if what he was attempting to accomplish as a politician could be achieved elsewhere. Motivated by a strong desire to effect change in the African-American community through education, along with an innate ability to lead, he redirected his professional conquests.
“I felt that politics, while important, is not as important as giving students the academic and educational tools to drive their own futures, so I decided to abandon politics and lead an academic institution,” he says.
After a successful seven-year stint as president at Dillard, Lomax decided that he wanted to make a larger impact, and in 2004, he became president of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).
“There is no institution in American education that has a greater impact than UNCF,” he says of the organization, which serves more than 60,000 minority students on an annual basis by partnering with 38 member-colleges and providing scholarships to low-to-medium income students.
Lomax’s affinity for academic success can be traced back early in life to influences such as his grandmother, who was the first to graduate college in his family.
