SEF President Lynn Huntley looks forward at the challenges ahead for the South and America after the 50th anniversary. “The proliferation in knowledge, the rapid changes in technology, the emergence of the global village, and the nation’s changing demographics," Huntley writes, "all point to the need for even more attentiveness to equity and excellence in education, if the nation is to maintain over time its competitive edge in the world marketplace.”

A native of Petersburg, Virginia, Ms. Huntley is the first Black female president of the Southern Education Foundation (SEF). She attended Fisk University and graduated with honors from Barnard College and from the Columbia University Law School, where she was the first Black woman to earn place as a member of the Columbia Law Review. Ms. Huntley served as an LDF attorney and in the US Justice Department before spending almost 15 years at the Ford Foundation.