Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations - 10. The Urban League
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 839
tion in the vicinity of Negro homes, schools and churches. Much of this
welfare work involves considerable ^^case work.” Though not desiring to
duplicate the work of the regular welfare agencies, the Leagues, neverthe-
less, Snd themselves involved in individual problems such as illness, old age,
delinquency, unemployment, mental disorders, legal entanglement, drug
addiction, illegitimacy and dependency.
None of the local Leagues can afford to become active in all these fields,
but a primary task of all Leagues is to find jobs, more jobs, and better jobs
for Negroes. They all function as employment agencies. The attempt is to
run these agencies in an active way, opening up new jobs and preventing
loss of jobs already held by Negroes. They have to get into contact with
employers and trade union officers and try to ‘^sell” Negro labor—impress-
ing upon the employers that Negro labor is efficient and satisfactory, and
upon the unionists that the Negro is a good and faithful fellow worker.
A careful check-up has to be made on references, and a reputation
must be gained and defended for the type of labor offered. The possibilities
of vocational training have to be kept open to Negro youth, and the youths
themselves have to be encouraged to be ambitious, ’i’he civil service boards
have to be watched so that they do not discriminate against Negroes, and
Negroes must be encouraged to take civil service examinations.
Not only in job placement activity, but also in attempting to get play-
grounds, housing projects, schools, and other pulliv, facilities, the local
Leagues work as pressure groups—with a tactic moderated by local cir-
cumstances and by their financial dependence on the white community. They
engage in educational propaganda among whites as well as among Negroes.
Sometimes regular campaigns are staged. Some Leagues have—openly or
under cover—sponsored boycotts on the formula, ^^Don^t buy where you
can’t work.”
The National Urban League is the general staff for all this work. It
directs and inspires it, coordinates and evaluates the experiments made in
one place or another. It conducts community surveys and other research
work. It educates and sometimes agitates: among the Negroes to improve
themselves and among the whites to reduce prejudices and to give the
Negroes a fair chance. Sometimes it concentrates on a pressure campaign
to reach a particular goal. It uses its own publication, Offortunityy pam-
phlets and books, the radio, the pulpit and the lecture platform. It initiates
conferences and investigations and furnishes government agencies with
expert advice.
What the Urban League means to the Negro community can best be
understood by observing the dire need of its activity in cities where there is
no local branch. The League fills such an unquestionable and eminently use-
ful community need that—were it not for the peculiar American danger
of corruption and undue influence when something becomes "political”
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
