(FORTUNE Magazine) – Bristol-Myers, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Exxon, Ford Motor, Citicorp, J.P. Morgan, and many other corporations have signed up as partners of the National Black MBA Association in a drive to persuade young blacks to look for executive jobs in corporate America. The group, which has about 2,000 members, hopes to build a scholarship fund ultimately climbing to some $400,000 a year by the end of the 1990s. Says Derryl Reed, president-elect of the group: ''The goal is to get more blacks enrolled in MBA programs. Then we can produce more graduates and better- qualified professionals.'' Reed, an assistant vice president at Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association, is a 1976 graduate of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Blacks remain severely underrepresented among executives at U.S. corporations. While blacks represent almost 12% of the population, their percentage among those earning MBAs has stayed at 4% for several years. Outgoing President Leroy Nunery (Washington University, Class of '79), a vice president at Swiss Bank in New York, believes business school recruiters need to look for future students in different kinds of places, such as the military and the civil service, as a way to correct that imbalance. To catch even younger people, members of the group visit inner-city schools and talk about opportunities in business. Says Nunery: ''The kids know about doctors and lawyers, but they don't know much about business.''