American Institute of Architects

In response to Whitney M. Young’s keynote address to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1968, the AIA formed a task force on equal opportunity composed of five white and five black members. The task force created an advisory committee of representatives from thirteen community design centers who argued that the Institute needed to move away from self-serving programs to become more embedded within the public. Despite support from the Ford Foundation, the AIA initiative to support community design centers failed to raise enough funding to be successful. The AIA Advisory Committee morphed into the Community Design Directors Association, which later formally incorporated in 1977 as the Association of Community Design (ACD).