National Urban League Leadership Series: Whitney Moore Young Jr.

Introduction
Born to a professional family in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky that worked to protect him from the harshest forms of racism, Whitney M. Young Jr. grew up in a world that was much different than the America he came to know in the 1960s.

Before becoming executive director of the National Urban League, Young had plans to become a medical doctor after graduating from Kentucky State College with a degree in science. Those plans shifted after he served in the U.S. military in World War II.

After returning home, Young completed a graduate program at the University of Minnesota in social work and joined the Urban League of St. Paul as the secretary of industrial relations and vocational guidance. From there, he became the head of the Urban League of Nebraska. His time in Nebraska provided Young with a view into how social work and civil rights overlapped

He went on to accept a role as the dean of the Atlanta University School of Social Work. It was during an academic break, that Young was recruited as the executive director of the National Urban League.

Young's Tenure
In his first year, Young nearly doubled the organization’s annual income from $340,000 to $670,000. He worked to secure corporate contributions and support, while simultaneously creating a streamlined structure of the national affiliate network.

The early 1960's was a turning point for the National Urban League under Young's leadership. The organization established it's Washington Bureau as its first office in the nation's capital and the league became a major partner in the 1963 March on Washington.

The Washington Bureau leveraged its proximity to Capitol Hill to lobby Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act.

1964 was also the year young published his first book, To Be Equal, which has been carried on as a column addressing Black America from Urban League leaders through the present.

Young's Legacy
Long after his death in 1971, Young’s greatest contributions to the Urban League lived on through programs like the Labor Education Advancement Program (LEAP), which preparing Black youth for skills and trades jobs and created a pipeline into unions and the National Skills Bank, which matched under-employed Blacks with jobs equal to their skillset across the country.

LEAP prepares black youth for skills trades jobs and created a pipeline into unions, and the National Skills Bank, which matched under-employed blacks with jobs equal to their skillset across the country.