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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations - 10. The Urban League
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840 An American Dilemma
—it is obvious that the activity should be financed, and financed much more
generously, from the public purse: by the city, the state and the federal
government. The League’s activity among maladjusted Negroes in the
industrial cities of America has national importance. It is concerned with the
effects of such nation-wide American phenomena as the migration from rural
areas—partly caused by national agricultural policy—and the Almost univer-
sal economic discrimination against Negroes by whites.®
There are few informed persons in America, among either whites or
Negroes, who do not appreciate the social service work done by the League.
In many communities, however, white people often look upon the League
as “dangerous,” “radical” and too “friendly to labor.” Among the younger
Negro intellectuals, on the contrary, the League is commonly accused of
being too “timid.” The League has “made no serious effort to define its
program in any fundamental way,” it is said.^^ Because of its dependence
upon white philanthropy, it advocates “a policy of racial expediency and
conciliation, which is characterized by extreme opportunism.”"^®
Against these charges the League retorts that “it is a social service organi-
zation attempting to perform a helpful task in a limited field.”^® Indeed:
... the League could not be considered as a Negro movement, but an organization
of American citizens who are convinced that an important development in our
democratic institution’’, is that of according to the large Negro minority in America
their economic rights. . . .
The League is truly an interracial movement and cooperatively interracial at that.
It would be expected, therefore, that the League should advocate conciliation in its
highest sense. Any movement of this character which advocates understanding through
conference and discussion must necessarily refrain from advocating mass action of one
race calculated to force the other group to make concessions.®®
The dispute has come to center about the League’s attitude toward trade
unionism. The National Urban League stated long ago that its official
policy is in favor of collective bargaining and against strike-breaking, pro-
vided the unions are kept open to Negro workers.®^ There have been some
incidents in which the League is alleged to have condoned strike-breaking.®“
More important is the general accusation that the League has not whole-
heartedly worked to integrate Negro workers into the labor movement.®®
I have found: (i) that almost everywhere the functionaries of the local
Leagues are definitely in favor of trade unionism 5 (2) that in many cities,
particularly in the South, local opinion—as represented by the Community
Chests and the boards of the Leagues—^hinders them from taking the action
they would like to take to integrate Negro workers into labor unions;
(3) that in still more cities, including many Northern cities, the unions do
not take a very responsive attitude but are even more difficult to court than
• See Part IV, especially Chapter xa.
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