Arthur Fletcher

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Arthur Fletcher (born December 22, 1924 in Phoenix, Arizona, died July 12, 2005 in Washington DC) was an American government official, widely referred to as the "father of affirmative action" as he was largely responsible for the Revised Philadelphia Plan. An African American and a Republican, he served in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. In 1995, he briefly pursued a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Numbers of his fellow Republicans were often at odds with the affirmative action policies which Fletcher initiated.

As head of the United Negro College Fund, he coined their famous slogan, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

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