The award is named for a co-founder of the United Negro College Fund and former president of what is now Tuskegee University in Alabama.
The Oscar-winning Washington recently starred in and directed "The Great Debaters." The movie was inspired by a historically black college debate team that debated an all-white team at an Ivy League university during legal segregation in the 1930s.
The UNCF dinner will be held March 7 at a Manhattan hotel.
