By The Editors

There’s a rumor floating around the corridors of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund that Michael Bagley, the longtime director of its scholarships program, and Judith Sloan, who’s held several high-level positions in its Development Department since 1981, have retired.

But no one wants to believe it.

For both Judith Sloan and Michael Bagley are the kind of staff members and colleagues no organization can do without: the kind whose commitment, creativity, professionalism—and results—in the work they do helps anchor the entire enterprise.

Michael Bagley and Judith Sloan

Greg Worley, manager of direct mail in the Development Department, says “Judith is someone who has an incredible sense of history of not only LDF, but also of people associated with LDF. She remembers detail of ‘who, when and where” that has helped LDF to remember our friends, supporters and loyal donors.”

Vincent DiSanto, executive assistant to LDF President and Director-Counsel John Payton, says “working with Judith has always been a fun and didactic experience. Judith epitomizes style and finesse, with a dash of humility and wit. Professionally, Judith and I share a flair for writing, and sometimes we would scrutinize each other’s skills, suggesting punctuation or formatting—Judith usually prevailed”

Jacqueline Berrien, LDF’s Associate Director-Counsel, declares that Michael Bagley’s “contributions to LDF are, literally, countless because his work has focused on identifying, nurturing and remaining in contact with the recipients of LDF scholarships as they go through their undergraduate and/or graduate education and in the years afterward.

“So,” she continues, “his contribution consists in part of the things the students have already accomplished while also helping them with the financial and moral support they need to forge their future achievements. He’s been extraordinarily valuable.”

Bagley came to direct the LDF scholarship program, begun in 1963, in 1991, although he seems to have led it much longer, so deep is his knowledge of the legions of students who’ve benefited from it and so fervent is their loyalty to him.

Sloan’s commitment goes just as deep – although as she herself admits, it’s been expressed in a strikingly different way. Since coming to LDF as a temporary employee during the summer of 1981, she’s “retired” four times, only to return after a short while. “The people who’ve worked at LDF,” she says by way of explanation, “the enthusiasm, the work itself. I loved it so much!”

That first summer, Sloan had signed on merely to earn summer money while preparing to return to her job as an elementary school teacher. But, assigned to help out in Development, “I never went back to teaching.”

Over the years, she’s held just about every job in Development – from researching and writing promotional literature to coordinating direct mail fundraising and serving as a special assistant to then-President and Director-Counsel Elaine Jones. At various times during this long service, however, Sloan would be lured away by her love of the sea. Twice she took breaks of nearly two years to sail around the Caribbean. Each time LDF called for her help and she came back to more responsibilities, including two stints as Interim Director of Development.

When John Payton took over as President and Director-Counsel in late 2007, he asked Sloan to return once again to that position.

Of course she couldn’t refuse. “LDF is much more than an organization. For me, and for those who’ve been there many, many years, it’s a family,” she said. “We’re very close, caring about each other and about the mission of LDF. My relationships with everybody there are very important to me; they’re a powerful magnet.”

While Sloan’s work at LDF involved bringing money into its coffers, Bagley’s has focused on dispensing it – for the greater good of LDF and the society at large.  When Payton came aboard as President and Director-Counsel, he asked Bagley, who was ready then to retire, to stay on an extra year. During his eighteen years at the helm, the scholarship program has funded a huge group of its total of 6,000 undergraduate and law-school recipients.

For the 2008-2009 academic year the program awarded scholarships totaling $440,000 to 103 undergraduates at 67 colleges and universities and 56 law students at 27 law schools. The scholarship awards have usually been about $2,000 annually for undergraduates and $3,000 for law students. That sustained support, which Bagley says has often made the difference in a student’s being able to attend school for the year, has helped stock the larger society with more civically-minded citizens.

The scholarships department’s research has thus far turned up nearly 80 scholarship alumni who are municipal, state or federal judges. Nearly 18 percent of the latter are scholarship department alumni, as are five current or former members of Congress and eleven current or former state legislators. Add to this the “dozens upon dozens,” as Bagley says, of scholarship alumni who are involved either full-time or part-time in various kinds of public service.

Victor Bolden, former LDF General Counsel and now Corporation Counsel for the city of New Haven, describes Bagley as “old school” for his “uncommon and unwavering commitment to ensuring that as many young people as possible have access to higher education, regardless of race.

“Mike understands,” Bolden went on “that young people cannot dream about becoming doctors, lawyers, educators or anything that requires more than a high school diploma, if they cannot afford the cost of college and graduate school.  So, he has worked to secure funding for and distribute scholarships to young people, some of whom would likely not have gone on to higher education without LDF’s support.

Bagley’s work did not stop with the handing over of the check, however. Instead, Berrien said, Bagley “was always enthusiastic about introducing his students to people associated with LDF and happy to spread that what they’re doing is making LDF proud.” Several of those scholarship recipients have worked directly for LDF over the years, and the admiration they have for Bagley is evident in the words of Ryan Haygood, Assistant Counsel and Co-Director of the Political Practices Group.”

“He was a rock, a source of strength for me and I know for many others,” Haygood says of Bagley’s support during his law school days. “But he was also always clear that you had to perform, you had to give your best. Nothing else was acceptable. That’s why I still call him ‘Mr. Bagley.’”