Award-winning Philanthropist Channing H. Tobias Broke Barriers at YMCA

Channing H. Tobias, an award-winning philanthropist, served as senior secretary of the YMCA’s Colored Work Department from 1924 to 1946.

He was a delegate and a speaker at the 1926 World Conference in Finland and traveled to YMCAs throughout the world during his career. After leaving the YMCA in 1946, he became the firs director of the Phelps-Stokes Fund, a foundation devoted to the improvement of educational opportunities for African Americans.

He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the NAACP and elected its chairman in 1953. Also in 1953, he was alternate representative to the United Nations for the United States. He served on boards of the Marshall Field and Jessie Smith Noyes Foundations, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, the American Bible Society, Hampton Institute, and Palmer Memorial Institute.

He received numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Spingarn Medal, awarded annually to an African American for distinguished achievement.