Jerome H. Holland was the first African American to: be appointed to the MIT Corporation; play football at Cornell University, where he was chosen as an All American in 1937 and 1938; chair the American Red Cross Board of Governors, which named its Laboratory for the Biomedical Sciences in his honor; and sit on the board of the New York Stock Exchange (1972). Holland was also the second African American assigned as ambassador to a European nation, a post he held until 1972.