Letters and signatures of support are being sought to promote a commemorative stamp project honoring the late Frederick Douglass Patterson, Cornell Ph.D. '33, a noted African-American educator and philanthropist and founder of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF). Earlier this year, the UNCF archives and history committee submitted a proposal for a Frederick D. Patterson Black Heritage Commemorative Stamp to be issued on the anniversary of Patterson's birth, Oct. 10, 2001.
The Patterson stamp proposal has passed the first hurdle in the U.S. Postal Service approval process, said Winfield Curry, assistant archivist at UNCF. However, the postal service receives about 50,000 proposals each year and the process is highly competitive, even for the most deserving entries. Curry and others at UNCF are encouraging Cornell alumni and members of important institutions to take a few minutes to help promote the initiative.
"Our efforts are focused on promoting the stamp project through as many outlets as possible in hopes of acquiring letters of support and signatures for our petition drive," said Curry.
Patterson received a master of science and a doctorate of veterinary medicine at Iowa State University before receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy at Cornell in 1933. He went on to become the third president of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) and founded the UNCF in 1946. From 1958 to 1969, he served as president of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, a philanthropic foundation primarily concerned with the education of African Americans. In 1969, Patterson established the Robert R. Morton Memorial Institute, a nonprofit group that since has raised more than $60 million for historically black colleges and universities. Patterson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1987.
Letters supporting the Frederick Douglass Patterson stamp project should go to: Dr. Virginia Noelke, chair, Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee, 475 L'Enfant Plaza, S.W., Room 4474E, Washington, D.C., 20260-2437. Copies of each letter should go to Winfield Curry at UNCF, 8260 Willow Oaks Corporate Drive, Fairfax, Va., 22031-8044.
For more information, contact Curry at (703) 205-3542 or e-mail her at wcurry@uncf.org.
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