The Roots of the Urban League
The turn of the 20th century marked a new chapter in the history of African Americans. Struggling to find footing in the rural south after the abolition of Slavery, millions of Black Americans moved to the north to escape the terror of Jim Crow and pursue greater economic opportunities. To their dismay, the North proved not to be the bastion of opportunity as institutional racism darkened the promise of the American Dream.
In response to the racial tensions in cities across the country and exploitation of black workers who migrated to the North for a better way of life, two organizations, the National League for the Protection of Colored Women (NLPCW) and the Committee for Improving the Industrial Condition of Negroes in New York (CIICNNY), came together September 10, 1910 to create the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes (CUCAN).
Ruth Standish BaldwinNational Urban League
Progressive Influence
In the late 19th century throughout the early 1900’s, groups of progressive Americans across the country began working together to bring about a society where all Americans had access to basic needs and human rights. One group that was left out of the conversation for many years was African Americans. (Ruth Standish Baldwin, a founded of CUCAN)
Progressives who fought for women’s rights in the South often advocated against the rights of Black Americans to secure their own interests. However, there were groups of Progressives in New England who carried on the traditions of abolitionists and advocated for the rights of African Americans. The four most prominent in the movement were Moorfield Story and Mary White Ovington, who helped founded the NAACP, and Ruth Standish Baldwin and Oswald Garrison Villard, who alongside George Edmund Haynes and Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, helped form CUCAN. (Ruth Standish Baldwin, a founded of CUCAN)
Edwin R.A. SeligmanNational Urban League
After the death of her husband William H. Baldwin, Ruth Standish Baldwin, a founder of CUCAN, requested that Edwin R.A. Seligman, a professor at Columbia University and organizer of multiple social reform causes, (pictured here) chair the board of the burgeoning social work group. On January 20, 1910, Baldwin held the first meeting at her home for three black and white social welfare activists to organize what became CUCAN in October of that year. On October 16, 1911, a year after the formation of CUCAN, delegates from NLPCW and CIICNNY met to establish the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, and in 1920, the named was shortened to the National Urban League.
The 1920's: The Interwar Period
As the violent racism of the Jim Crow era and Reconstruction period faded away, African Americans were challenged with new forms of institutional racism.
Los Angeles Urban LeagueNational Urban League
Some of the most influential intellectuals of the day, used the notions of "scientific racism" and genetic inferiority to push for the sterilization and limited immigration of non-white people. This thought was countered by the work of the Chicago School of Sociology, which believed that there was a symbiotic relationship between sociology and social work. The school also viewed racism as a symptom of cultural interaction and group behaviors. Their research influenced many of the policies and programs of Urban League affiliates. While the Ku Klux Klan and religious fundamentalists worked to roll back the progressive changes that were sweeping the country, new black migrants to the North found solace and support throughout the Urban League affiliate network.
Langston Hughs by Robert W KelleyLIFE Photo Collection
In New York, prominent figures of Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, and Countee Cullen, who became a notable writer with the help of the New York Urban League, had their work published in the Opportunity Journal.
The Opportunity JournalNational Urban League
This period marked the rise of the National Urban League and set the course for the organization for the next 50 years.
The 1930's: The Great Depression
The Great Crash of 1929 swept the country into a deep economic depression. Millions of Americans lost their savings, homes, and were out of work and struggling to survive.
Franklin D Roosevelt (1935-01-01) by Hulton ArchiveGetty Images
African Americans were impacted particularly hard during this period as the policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal fell short of meeting the needs of Black America. Although Roosevelt didn't directly champion civil rights legislation out of fear of losing support from southern whites, he did appoint a number of African Americans to political office.
Eugene Kinckle JonesNational Urban League
National Urban League executive director Eugene Kinkcle Jones was appointed to head the U.S. Department of Commerce's "Negro Problems" unit, which studied the economic struggles of Black America. Jones was part of what government officials called the "Black Cabinet."
FEPC Call to ActionNational Urban League
During the 1930's, the League formed Negro Workers Councils to raise trade union awareness among black workers and affiliates across the country had their members participate in "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" movements designed to shift American labor policies.
T. Arnold Hill BriefingNational Urban League
The League published Negro Membership in American Labor Unions to expose the racist practices of the AFL in 1930, and endorsed the new unions under the Congress of Industrial Organizations for their progressive views.
For more than 100 years, the National Urban League has been a force in American politics and communities across the country. Building on the work of past Presidents and the affiliate network, today the organization is focused on empowering families through programming and policies.
Curated by Michael Tomlin-Crutchfield
