Fletcher Foundation

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The Fletcher Foundation was created with a $50 million endowment in 2004 by New York financier and philanthropist Alphonse Fletcher, Jr.[1] A 1987 graduate of Harvard University, Fletcher worked in investment banking and in 1993 founded Fletcher Asset Management. A Harvard Class Marshal, Fletcher endowed a University Professorshp at his alma mater, first held by philosopher Cornel West and now held by literary critic Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Fletcher Foundation supports civil rights and environmental education. In 2004, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, the Fletcher Foundation announced the creation of the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship program, described by foundation chair Henry Louis Gates, Jr. as "Guggenheims for race issues."[2] The inaugural class of Fletcher Fellows, each awarded $50,000, was selected in 2005.

[edit] 2005 Inaugural Fletcher Fellows

[3]

Elizabeth Alexander, poet and African American studies professor, Yale University
Devon Carbado, law professor at University of California, Los Angeles
Kathleen Cleaver, author and former Black Panther Party activist
Stanley Crouch, cultural critic and author
Roland Fryer, economist and member of Harvard Society of Fellows
Anita Hill, civil rights attorney and law professor Brandeis University
Nina Jablonski, biological anthropologist and author of Skin
Glenn Ligon, artist, New York
Arthur Mitchell, founder of the Dance Theatre of Harlem
Robert Parris Moses, educator and civil rights leader
Thomas Sugrue, civil rights historian and professor at University of Pennsylvania
Deborah Willis, photographer and documentarian and professor at New York University

[edit] 2006 Fletcher Fellows

[4]

Lawrence Bobo, race relations scholar and professor at Stanford University
Fatimah L.C. Jackson, professor of anthropology, University of Maryland
Randall Kennedy, professor of law, Harvard University
Miranda Massie, civil rights attorney, Detroit, Michigan
Lorna Simpson, artist, New York
Anna Deveare Smith, performance artist, actress, and University Professor, New York University
Valerie Smith, professor of English and director African American Studies Program, Princeton University
Margaret Beale Spencer, professor of education, University of Pennsylvania
Brent Staples, award-winning journalist, New York Times
Patricia Sullivan, associate professor of history, University of South Carolina
Loic Wacquant, professor of sociology and boxer, University of California, Berkeley