Hi and welcome to Week 2 of this year's Black History Spotlight! I hope you've enjoyed our entrants so far; most of these names weren't new to me but their accomplishments were. Also, I strongly recommend checking out my Further Reading links at the bottom of each entrant's page so that you can learn more about them. I try to include the majority of the person's accolades and notable bits so that there's a bit of meat in each entry but I always leave some things out so that I can give you some reading material to explore on your own. The people who create and run the sites I use to help me put these pages together work very hard to gather their information, and if I can assist in showing them that their work is appreciated and being consumed, then I will. If that means they get an extra two clicks or that people walk away from this blog with new knowledge and a new site to visit, even better. So if you have the time, please check out those links if you want more information about any of the entrants in this or any other BHS lineup. Anyway, on to today's entrant!
Name: National Urban League (originally named National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes)
Date of establishment and founders: 1910 by a group of individuals that included Dr. George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin
Purpose of organization: To enable African Americans and other underserved urban residents to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights
Why is the Spotlight on it today? For its work to maintain its purpose and mission to help the Black community find success and its longstanding position in the community
Notables and accolades:
--Served as a full partner during the civil rights movement and helped host the meetings civil rights leaders held to plan their next steps
--Has nearly 100 affiliates serving three times the amount of communities in 36 states across the country
--Did their part to resist the societal norms of the 20s-40s by boycotting places that discriminated, pressuring schools to provide more educational opportunities to students, and trying to get more of the Black opinion in the government in order to make it better for everyone
--Helped to train Black youth and young adults to successfully find gainful employment
--Serves over 2 million people worldwide on an array of topics needing attention, from education to healthcare and finding employment
--Helped the federal government to expand its social service efforts to include urban communities as recipients of new programs and other assistance
--Was part of the creation behind the Marshall Plan thanks to then-League president Whitney M. Young, which was geared to help close the economic gap between Blacks and Whites
--In recent years, has turned to current media platforms to continue discussing social issues affecting the Black community by hosting a TV Town Hall on a Black-geared network and hosting a podcast to discuss policy and civil rights issues plaguing minority communities
--Works to increase the Black vote in elections and bring new programs to the Black community
--Created a program specifically directed at Black youth to help curb teen pregnancies and crime in local communities, and provide assistance to single mother households
--Created the Institute of Opportunity and Equality, which helped to study and analyze issues in the urban community
--Now focuses its issues on closing the various gaps between Black/other ethnic communities and White communities in a number of areas such as education, social justice, civil rights and quality of life improvement/empowerment
--Has 10 signature programs geared at four different categories in order to assist Black and other ethnic communities in achieving said gap closures
--Has a revamped social media initiative called "I Am Empowered," which breaks down their goals into specific areas and offers information and resources
Further reading links:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Quote of the Day:
"It's important that people understand we have to fight to protect the progress that has been made, and at the same time, resist any rollbacks. Black America is strong and resilient."
--Marc Morial, current NUL President and CEO
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