The John F. Slater Fund was organized in April 1882 as an educational fund to assist African Americans after Emancipation and the Civil War. Through grants, the Slater Fund helped to develop private black colleges and four-year high schools for blacks, stimulated vocational and industrial training, and originated the idea of county training schools. In 1937, the fund merged with the Negro Rural School Fund, Inc. (also known as the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation) to form the Southern Education Foundation.
James Hardy Dillard (1856-1940) was an educator and author who served in a variety of positions in the field of education. After a seventeen-year tenure at Tulane University where he taught Latin, he resigned to become president and manager of the John F. Slater Fund and the Negro Rural School Fund. He was a member of the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation and a member of the Board of Administrators of Tulane University.
The John F. Slater Fund was organized in April 1882 as an educational fund to assist African Americans after Emancipation and the Civil War. Through grants, the Slater Fund helped to develop private black colleges and four-year high schools for blacks, stimulated vocational and industrial training, and originated the idea of county training schools. In 1937, the Fund merged with the Negro Rural School Fund, Inc. (also known as the Anna T. Jeanes Foundation) to form the Southern Education Foundation.