St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1960-04-22
History Of NationaI
Urban League
Shows Cooperation
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extend the employment of Negr'
workers. Union executives werC
also contacted, persuaded to speec
up the indignation of Negro work
ers to the full rights of member
ship.
A SIS, 100000 housing project fol
Negroes was started in New Or
leans, inspired by a local League
survey. Officials of the nationa
Housing Department meet witt
government officials, bankers anc
builders to persuade them to re-
move restrictions and to plan in
terracial projects. At the League S
urging, President Eisenhower
called industry leaders to Wash
ington to discuss the problem of
housing for minorities.
Research is vital to all these
activities. The Leagues tactics are
cooperation, persuasion, education
based on facts.
It is rewarding to compare these
accomplishments with the goals set
by the handful of social workers
whose efforts led to the formation
of the League Movement in 1910.
They faced the conflicts that
came with a rising tide Of migra-
ton from southern farmlands to
northern manufacturing cities The
newcomers, iI-prepared. came pur-
suing the promise of a bright fu-
ture based on a steady payCheCk
and were funnelled into squalid
slums and exploited
Mrs. Ruth Standish Baldwin
Two to three thousand strange,
frendless persons were dumped at
railroad terminals and wharves in
the New York area each year. The
women became the prey of I'M
scrupulous employment agents"
But they also became the special
interest Of a young social worker
named Frances Kellor Miss Kellor
and a small but dynamic New
Highlander. Mrs. Ruth Standish
Baldwin founded the League for
the Protection Of ColOred Women
in 1905. CThirty-five years later
her son. William H. Baldwin. be-
came President of the National
Urban League
A year later the Committee for
Improving the Industrial COndi-
tions of Negroes in New York was
started to give industrial training
and Job opportunities to both men
and women. The Negro and white
leaders included DR.. Eugene P.
Roberts, distinguished physician;
Fred r. Moore, publisher; William
L. Buckley and Abraham LefkOw-
itz. both educators. and William
]. Schiefflin. civic leader, who be-
came chairman.
DIR. George Haynes Founder
But, George Edmund Haynes, a
Fisk University graduate, writing
his Pho. thesis in social econ
OmiCs at Columbia University, be-
lieved that the problem Of adapt
ing the rural, southern Negro to
his new industrial. northern en-
vironment was broader than find
ing jobs and saving colored women
from black slavery"
There is a place for these men
and women in the American sOCie-
ty and economy" he declared
He was sure that place could best
be attained by broad social actor
including education and adjustment
of the Negro to his new environ
ment.
Young Haynes took his idea!
to Mrs. Baldwin who listened sym
patheticauy. In 1910, they organ
lied the Committee on Urban Con
ditiOns Among Negroes.
Booker T. Washington Support
They had influential support
Booker T. Washington endorsed il
Among its sponsors were Fell,
Adler. Columbia Professors Edwil
r. A. Seligman; its first chair
man, and Edwin T. Devine, Ney
York University Professor Edwar
f. Pratt, and L. Hollingswort
Wood. member of Fisk University
board.
The first thing Haynes did wa
to start a survey of conditions
Harlem, designed to document II
social factors that called for r,
medal action.
Soon the inevitable happene
The three agencies helping Negro,
find a place in their new city el
Wronments merged into what WI
called the National League {
Urban Conditions Among NegrOt
DR. Haynes was the director.
Eugene Kinckle Jones
A young Louisville high schC
teacher joined the staff. He W
Eugene KinCkle Jones, who /
came the sparkplug of the Orb
League, and it's chief execute
and guiding genius for more tn