The UNCF and NAACP and words "reminiscent of a bygone era"

Revising a Name, but Not a Familiar Slogan

Excerpts:

MORE than 35 years after its debut, the slogan for the United Negro College Fund, “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste,” remains one of the most recognized in American advertising history.

The years, however, have not been as kind to the organization’s name, which has gradually become a source of alienation to the very people the group aims to serve. And while the fund is not prepared to drop the word “Negro” from its name, it plans to try to shift attention away from it.

...

“Forty-plus years ago, when I started at Morehouse, I thought of myself as a Negro,” said Michael L. Lomax, U.N.C.F.’s president and chief executive, referring to the historically black college. “By the time I graduated in 1968, I was black. And then in the last 15 to 20 years I’ve become an African-American.”


Comment: I never think of myself as a "caucasian" or even "white". I understand that someone created quite a stir by creating the NAAWP. Were he alive today, I suspect that MLK would eschew these labels!