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7/26/94
PHOTOCOPY
PRESERVATION
P.01
7111-25-1994 15:31
N!II CONFERENCE
1994
National Urban League
file: 7/26/94
Conference
MOBILIZING
FOR
COMMUNITY
EMPOW RMENT
Indiana Convention Center
Indianapolis, Indiana
July 24-27
TELECOPY/FACSIMILE COVER LETTER
FAX NUMBER (317)262-1974
TO (FAX #): (202) 456-2239
DEI 'VER TO: L12 BOWYER
FROM:
MARIA Mc FARLANE-1 NAIL URBAN LEAGUE
BUDGET CODE:
DATE: 7/25/94
TIME: 3 30 pm
NUMBER OF PAGES (INCLUDING COVER PAGE)
NOTE:
Per your request
Contributions to the National Urban League are tax deductible.
TIII - 25-1994 15:31
NII CONFERENCE
P.02
Hugh B.Price
President and CEO
Keynote Address
National Urban League Convention
Indianapolis, Indiana
July 24, 1994
This is a thrilling moment for me, as you can well imagine.
Seeing the Urban League movement arrayed before me, several
thousand strong, spanning four generations and primed for action, is a
stunning sight to behold.
To the veterans who have built and sustained the movement through
decades of adversity and triumph, to our allies of all complexions and
religious faiths who have coalesced with us, and to the next generation
of Urban League leaders - especially the NULITES students who
have journeyed here from Bloomington -- I salute each of you for
making the Urban League the venerable and revered movement that it
is. And I salute you for your collective determination to carry our
cause of social, economic and legal justice for all into the 21st century.
The thrill I feel is tempered, I must admit, by a profound sense of
humility. For I am following in the awesome footsteps of the likes of
George Edmund Hayes; Eugene Kinckle Jones; Lester Granger, who
led the movement with such a steady hand for so many years; Whitney
Young, who expanded it and ushered it into the civil rights arena;
Vernon Jordan, who positioned the League as a forceful advocate for
justice; and John Jacob, who sustained it through excruciatingly
difficult times with dignity and compassion.
Assuming the helm of the National Urban League is also humbling
because the movement SO much resembles family, with all the love,
support and lofty expectations typically associated with that term.
1
THII - 25-1994 15:32
NIII CONFERENCE
P.03
Though I admittedly am a stranger to many of you, rest assured that
the Urban League is no stranger to me. In fact, I've been part of your
extended family my entire life.
As a child growing up in Washington. D.C., I often heard my uncle,
Dr. R. Frank Jones, speak of the League in reverent tones. Early in my
career as head of the Black Coalition of New Haven, Connecticut, Bob
Bowles, director of the Urban League chapter there, served on my
board and as a trusted mentor.
June Branche, another dear friend in Westchester County, is the
niece of Lester Granger. And I learned just the other day that Eugene
Kinckle Jones was the godfather of my cousin, Winifred Norman.
Now that I'm graduating from the extended family to the immediate
Urban League family, let me introduce you to several members of my
own who are here this evening. First and foremost my wife, Marilyn
Lloyd Price, who I love even more today than the day we married,
which we're both reluctant to admit was almost 31 years ago. Those
physicians and dentists here who attended Howard may remember
"Mama" Lloyd from the anatomy department. She's Marilyn's mother.
Our youngest daughter, Lauren, is here. She graduated from college
a year ago and now works at the Washington-based Center for Youth
Development, a field that's dear to many of us. Our two other daughters
are globe-trotting today and thus couldn't join us. Traer, a designer and
choreographer of water fountains, is on assignment in Taiwan. Janeen,
a second-year law student, has just wrapped up a summer internship in
Washington and arrived earlier today in Mexico City to begin a second
internship there.
My own mother, Charlotte Schuster Price, has come from Cape
Cod to share this moment with me. She and my late father, Dr. Kline
A. Price, lived in Washington for nearly 40 years.
My brother, Dr. Kline Price, Jr., and his wife, Bebe Drew Price, are
with us. Bebe, by the way, stands for "Blood Bank". Yes, she's the
daughter of the late Dr. Charles Drew, an authentic African-American
and American hero. My cousins, Al and Sandi Brothers, have
2
JUL-25-1994 15:33
NUL CONFERENCE
P.04
journeyed here from Ft. Wayne, where Sandi is active in the Urban
League.
Occasionally I am asked by friends and colleagues how long I
agonized over whether to accept the board's offer to become president
of the National Urban League. I usually pause for a moment or three,
and then reply that it took about that long. The decision was easy for
several reasons.
For starters, service runs in my family. Like many physicians of his
era who graduated from Howard and stayed in D.C., my father tithed
with his time by volunteering many weekday mornings in the clinic for
poor folk at Freedman's Hospital.
My mother was active in the movement to win Washingtonians the
right to vote. Also, my parents were among the families who helped
finance Charles Houston's early litigation efforts for the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund that laid the legal foundation for Brown VS. Board of
Education.
Reared in this tradition of service, Tve devoted virtually my entire
professional career to the cause of social and economic justice for our
people. While it's true that T'm not an alumnus of the traditional civil
rights movement, I have served our folk, effectively I would like to
think, in other ways.
Indeed, I feel as though I have been apprenticing for the presidency
of the League my entire professional life.
Another reason the decision was easy is because this isn't just a
terrific job, it's a calling. By that I mean that we -- you and I -- who
are this movement have little choice but to be in it.
Seven years ago, I yearned to become president of the public
television station where I worked. It, didn't happen and I was
crestfallen for months. I possessed all the right credentials, or so I
thought, and had run the key divisions of the station. Yet I smacked
my head squarely against that glass ceiling before I'd even heard of the
term.
3
P.05
TUII - 25-1994 15:34
NIII CONFERENCE
It took my daughter Traer, who is rather spiritual, to pull me out of
the funk. One day that I'll never forget, she said, "Dad, don't worry
about not getting that job. You're being saved for something more
important." This, obviously, is what she'd foreseen that I could not.
Thank heavens that daughter always knows best.
Before charting the course for the Urban League through the
remainder of this century and into the next, let me briefly describe the
changing and challenging seas that we'll bc navigating together. We
who are African-American live, alongside all other Americans, in a
world which bears little resemblance to that of a mere half-decade ago,
much less a generation ago.
Communism has crumbled, falling victim to its own oppressiveness
and inefficiency. Market economies now reign supreme. Nations are
redefining themselves with stunning rapidity. Immigrants and refugees
stream almost unchecked across borders, radically and rapidly altering
the ethnic make-up of nations.
This ruthlessly competitive world waits for no nation, no ethnic
group and no individual. Should any competitor falter, there is always
an emerging country, an enterprising people or an eager immigrant
waiting in the wings or, more likely, already seizing the opportunity to
fill the void.
Technological change, "rightsizing", industrial outmigration and
structural unemployment are now familiar phrases throughout the
developed world. Statistically speaking, the unemployment problems
of Canada, the U.K., France and Germany are twice as bad as ours.
Closer to home, America is enduring its own economic upheavals,
with cities and the urban poor feeling the severest aftershocks. For
millions of black folk who, thanks to the civil rights movement, have
flooded into higher education, big corporations and their own
mainstream businesses, these clearly are the best of times.
4
P.06
THII - 25-1994 15:34
NIII CONFERENCE
But for millions more of us stranded in violent, hopeless, poverty-
stricken inner cities, only slavery and the half century that followed it
could have been worse.
When the landmark Brown VS. Board of Education decision was
handed down forty years ago this spring, I think it's fair to say we all
assumed that the defeat of Jim Crow laws would fling open the doors
of opportunity to the robust, post-World War II mainstream economy
from which we'd by and large been excluded.
What no one foresaw back in '54 and even through the '70s was that
urban economies would slowly yet steadily erode. The manufacturing
jobs that once enabled blue collar workers to purchase their own
homes and occasional new cars have all but vanished from the inner
city.
Take my uncle Edgar Royster. Though not a college man, he was a
provider in the noblest sense of the term Ile worked for years at the
Winchester arms plant in New Haven and held a second job at Yale
University. Both were within walking distance of his home in the
Dixwell neighborhood.
Uncle Edgar's earnings enabled his family to save enough money to
move out of public housing into a new home that they built in nearby
West Haven They actually lived out the American dream almost
exactly as the script was written back then.
Now, the Winchester plant is history, along with the decent-paying
jobs that provided access for people like my uncle Edgar to the
economic mainstream. Those service jobs that have replaced them
often pay SO miserably that the full-time employees who hold them still
cannot work their way out of poverty.
I recite these global and domestic trends because it's essential that
we place our circumstances in a larger context. Yes, racism is still
abroad in the land. Though subtler and somewhat less pervasive now,
it's still a well-documented and undeniable reality in employment,
housing, lending and the like.
5
P.07
TIII - 25-1994 15:35
NH CONFERENCE
Even so, we must not let ourselves and, especially, our children fall
into the paranoid trap of thinking that racism accounts for all that
plagues us. The global realignment of work and wealth is, if anything,
the higger culprit. We who scrve must be clear-eyed about these color-
blind economic trends if we're to be genuinely helpful to our folk.
Lest we and our children forget, the civil rights movement was a
huge success in many respects. It unquestionably placed those of us
with solid educations, ample family support, personal drive and a
healthy dose of luck on the up escalator economically.
Yet millions of our people remain stuck on the down escalator,
headed nowhere or worse. Their dire circumstances must dwell in our
consciences because of the tragic loss of human potential and the
mounting drain on societal resources and compassion.
It is their fate, then, that must be the primary focus of the Urban
League movement. This renewed emphasis on our sisters and brothers
and children in greatest need honors our original mission, which was to
serve those of us in meager circumstances who are seeking access to
mainstream society.
How will we pursue this ambitious goal? Given our limited
resources, we must concentrate with laser-like focus on those critical
areas where we can leverage our unique strengths for greatest impact.
I see three areas of concentration for the Urban League:
--The first is the education and development of our children growing
up in the inner city so that they have the academic and social
skills to be successful.
--The second is to enable their families to become cconomically
self-sufficient.
--Finally, we should encourage racial inclusion so that our folk can
participate fully in the mainstream economy.
Let me elaborate on each priority. First, and foremost, our children,
for all the obvious reasons. How easy it is to forget, in the flood of
6
P.08
TI II 1-25-1994 15:35
NIII CONFERENCE
awful articles and newscasts about youth violence, that they are our
future.
Look around you at the 500 smart and committed NULITES
students. They, too, are our future, though we seldom read or sce
anything about them in the media. Let's make certain these young
leaders know how much we love and appreciate them by giving them a
rousing round of applause.
Children growing up in the inner city are being cheated of many
supports that are crucial for their success. The Urban League intends
to do something about two of them -- education and social
development.
There's little mystery about how to do a better job of educating poor
children. School reformers, like James Comer, Jeff Howard, Bob
Slavin and Ted Sizer, and dedicated teachers across the country have
shown convincingly that it can be done. Among the key ingredients are
high expectations, challenging academic material and flexible
instructional techniques.
Unfortunately, effective teaching and learning for poor children
occurs mostly in isolated classrooms led by motivated teachers. It
seldom permeates entire schools and school districts. That's largely
because districts still aren't genuinely committed to reform or prepared
to invest adequately in retooling teachers and principals to take it on in
earnest.
What's missing, therefore, is not the way to change, but the will.
It'll take concerted outside pressure from parents and community
groups to prevail upon school systems to improve the education of
inner-city children.
That's precisely where the Urban League comes in. I see us
mobilizing and equipping parents and community leaders to become
sophisticated and insistent consumers of education for their children.
Let's go housc-by-house, living room-by-living room in the inner-
city neighborhoods we serve. Let's help parents understand, in
7
P.09
Till -25-1994 15:36
NII CONFERENCE
layman's terms, exactly what their children must know and be able to
do in order to meet 21 st century standards of competency
If their kids are off course, then encourage them to inquire,
constructively yet insistently, exactly what the teachers intend to do
about it, by when, and what they, the parents, can do concretely to be
supportive.
I repeat. Concerted pressure from sophisticated consumers --
namely parents -- is a major missing ingredient in urban school reform.
That's the Urban League's natural niche, our unique contribution to
improving the education of our children.
But we cannot stop there. What happens after class is equally
important since children spend most of their waking hours outside of
school. In the home, of course. But also in extracurricular programs,
settlement houses and boys clubs, and organized sports.
Ideally, this is where social development of children occurs.
Where their values are shaped. Where they learn to collaborate with
others in teams. Where they learn social graces. Where they are
exposed to new horizons through visits to museums and such.
That's the theory anyway. The trouble is that in all too many inner-
city neighborhoods, this so-called developmental infrastructure has
virtually vanished. Many parents these days, especially single moms,
are stringing together several low wage jobs just to get by. They
simply aren't home in mid-afternoon when their children arrive from
school.
Most urban school systems are too strapped financially to provide
the rich array of extracurricular clubs that many of us enjoyed as
teenagers. Many inner-city settlement houses, assuming they're even
still on the scene, are too underfunded and dilapidated physically to
provide safe havens and constructive activities for all the children who
need them. Municipal park and recreation departments are but a
shadow programmatically of their former selves.
8
P.10
JUL-25-1994 15:37
NUL CONFERENCE
But I'll tell you who is well-financed and omnipresent, however.
The gangs that are growing everywhere. They've filled the void left by
we supposedly responsible adults and have built their own anti-social
developmental infrastructure which ensnarcs youngsters in search of
identity and companionship.
Just listen to this chillingly perceptive analysis by a Los Angles
gang leader, one Tee Rogers, of why adolescents join gangs:
What I think is formulating here is that human nature wants to be
accepted. A human being gives less of a damn what he is
accepted into. At that age -- eleven to seventeen -- all kids want
to belong. They are unpeople.
Politicians talk incessantly these days about taking back the streets
from criminals. I say we take back our children from the streets and
from the gangs, and the streets will take care of themselves.
It's high time that society at large and, especially, we of the African-
American, community muster the will and the wherewithal to ensure
that each inner-city child who necds attention, support and direction
has a caring adult in his or her life every day.
We African Americans who have made it must tithe with our time
and, more importantly, our money to see to it that those of our children
whom the civil rights movement hasn't yet touched also have a real
chance to succeed. Volunteer mentors are wonderful. But given their
often unpredictable schedules, even the most well-meaning of them
aren't reliable enough to provide the continuity of caring needed by
these kids.
Let's get right down to cases. I propose that each Urban League
affiliate establish a Youth Development Fund and formulate, in
conjunction with others in the community, a master plan for delivering
youth services after school and over the summer in churches, schools,
settlement houses, community centers, safe homes, museums, even
National Guard armories.
9
P.11
TI II -25-1994 15:37
NI Il CONFERENCE
Mind you, the idea isn't to run our own programs with this money.
That would undercut our credibility because people might think it's
merely a money grab by us. For the same reason, we probably need a
credible, representive panel of community people to disburse the funds.
Our goal is to be of service in the broadest sense of the term.
I also see us monitoring the performance of those who receive the
funds and connecting contributors with the kids. Wc should be flexible
so that donor groups, like sororities, can retain their identity while
giving to the fund.
Where would the money come from? From our young, well-heeled
professionals who don't yet have family obligations. From older folk
like me whose children are now out of college. From everyone else --
of all races, I hasten to add -- who can afford to give. From those who
cannot but are willing to stage fundraisers instead. From groups like
the Elks, the frats, and so forth.
How much have I in mind? I belong to a black men's organization,
called the Westchester Clubmen. We partner with the White Plains
YMCA in providing an after-school program for adolescent African-
American boys from the local middle school.
A few Sundays ago, the twenty-five of us put up $17,000, yes
$17,000, for this year's program. Our grant pays the salaries of the
three part-time youth workers who are there with the 17 or so
youngsters every weekday afternoon during the school year.
In other words, for a mere $1,000 annually per child, we can put a
caring adult in the daily life of a youngster throughout the school year.
Given the frightening realities facing our kids today, how can we afford
not to make certain this happens? How can we in good conscience buy
that luxury car when a less expensive model would serve our needs
plus those of an inner-city youngster as well? Think about it, sisters
and brothers.
Our mission, then, is to raise $500 to $1000 each year from every
African American who can possibly afford it so we can put a caring
adult regularly in the life of every child who needs one. If we're
10
P.12
JUL-25-1994 15:38
NUL CONFERENCE
successful, we can then turn the tables on the majority community --
business, government and foundations -- and challenge it to
match us for a change.
If we personally buy into this prevention strategy, we'll then bc in a
better position to say to our elected officials who are obsessed with
crime, and legitimately so, that there's a smarter way to spend tax
dollars to combat it.
Those 100,000 cops we're about to add under the federal anti-crime
bill are the rough equivalent, cost-wise, of 300,000 part-time youth
workers. Working at a ratio of one of them to every six or seven
youngsters, we could, with the same money, put a caring youth worker
in the daily lives of 2 million inner-city youngsters.
Which anti-crime strategy -- 100,000 cops or 2 million inner-city
kids tended by a caring adult every day -- do you think would work
best? I know which bet I'm prepared to place as a taxpayer.
Back now to our own youth development fund. We obviously need
an army of fundraisers to extract this money from our folks. My
friends, we've actually got one already enlisted in our cause. We
simply need to give them new marching orders with the instruction that
there is no more important mission for the Urban League. If need be,
tell them: "Uncle Hugh wants you -- now."
And who's that standing army, you might ask? It's the 3000 local
Urban League board members, the 3000 members of our local guilds,
the thousands of other volunteers who pitch in from time to time, the
2000-plus executives in BEEP (the Black Executive Exchange
Program), the 500-strong NULITES students and, yes, the thousands
of clients we've helped locally over the years through our training and
other programs.
My friends, this mobilization campaign to take back our children
from the streets is the manifest destiny of the Urban League movement.
Who else has the credibility and the capacity and the connections to
pull it off all across the country? If not us, then who? If not now,
when? Our children urgently await our answer.
11
P.13
TIII -25-1994 15:39
NII CONFERENCE
Let me turn now to our second focus area -- economic self-
sufficiency for poor families. As I said earlier, the economies of cities
have undergone profound changes which have undermined the ability
of marginally skilled and low skilled workers of all races adequately to
support their families.
Just a generation ago, these blue collar workers were the backbone
of the American economy, and celebrated in the media as such. With
the destruction of their livelihoods has come the rapid deterioration of
their neighborhoods, the onset of despair, the break-up of families
whose fathers can no longer be proud providers like my Uncle Edgar,
the escalation of violent crime, and the ascendancy of the code
of the streets.
Make no mistake, it's all of a piece. Each breakdown begets or
exacerbates another. To break the cycle, we must go back to the
source of the problem, namely the growing inability of inner-city adults
to find legitimate jobs that enable their families to live in dignity with a
decent standard of living.
Marvelous as the market economy works for most Americans, it has
all but collapsed for inner-city folk. There are fewer and fewer jobs for
low skilled workers, especially males. And the wages for those jobs
that exist are just plain lousy, all too often at or below the poverty line.
In my view, many politicians and economists are in denial about the
depth of this problem. Some blame its victims, saying they don't want
to work anyway, despite convincing evidence to the contrary.
Others say high unemployment and low wages for low skilled
workers are the natural order of things in modern market economies
and that government ought not interfere. Still others argue,
optimistically, that there will be a happy ending when technology
eventually replaces the lost jobs with more highly skilled and highly
paid new ones.
12
P.14
TI II -25-1994 15:39
NIII CONFERENCE
The trouble is that none of these scenarios holds out much hope for
inner-city people trapped in poverty today. It's unrealistic to expect all
of them to upgrade themselves overnight from laborers and welfare
recipients to office workers and small entrepreneurs.
Yet society these days expects everyone to support themselves.
And the poor, not unreasonably, expect work to be worthwhile
economically. Otherwise, why bother? Only the independently
wealthy toil for therapeutic reasons alone.
Government invests lots of money in job training, but largely
avoids the ideologically uncomfortable question of whether the market
economy is actually creating enough jobs for everyone in the inner city
who wants to or is expected to work.
The Urban League will join this crucial issue at several levels. Our
bottom line goal, as Brother Herman Ewing of Memphis puts it, is to
help dependent people become independently productive. Obviously
we must continue our successful job training and placement programs.
We'll also encourage entrepreneurship education for our young people
and economic development for African-American firms. In this vein,
we welcome our partnership with the U.S. Small Business
Admininstration, which has the Small Business Resource Center here.
We will pressure private and public employers to cut poor people in
on the local job action, so that everyone has a shared stake in the
overall community's quality of life. For instance, what if employers
reserved training slots and real jobs for residents of neighborhoods or
census tracts with high unemployment rates.
The way I see it, this wouldn't be a politically contentious race-
based approach. Instead, it's a more palatable alternative which
recognizes that poor people of all races need decent jobs.
But even these local measures may not be enough to employ
everyone. There simply may be no alternative to government action if
legitimate work is to be reintroduced as the prevailing way of life in
poor neighborhoods.
13
P.15
TIII -25-1994 15:40
NI II CONFERENCE
I call upon government to create a new labor-intensive public
enterprise to perform services valued by taxpayers. We taxpayers all
know there's plenty of infrastructure work to do. Schools are
crumbling. Subway and bus stations are strcwn with graffiti and
railroad rights-of-way are littered with trash. Public parks in cities and
suburbs alike are poorly maintained.
Critics of governments jobs programs usually say it's the private
sector's responsibility to create jobs. I agree in principle. But when
the private labor market comes up woefully short, as it does today in
the inner city, then government must step in if people are to work.
How quickly we forget in this post-Perestroika era that the military
once was what I've just proposed -- a labor-intensive public enterprise
employing thousands of marginally skilled workers who helped
produce goods and services -- namely the national defense -- that
taxpayers really wanted.
Let's elevate America's infrastructure to the same valued status and
alleviate urban unemployment in the bargain. What's several billion in
new public dollars invested in schools, parks and people when
compared with the billions more now spent much less productively on
public assistance for the able-bodied and extra policemen and prisons?
That brings me to my third and final focus area -- helping our
racially diverse society work more harmoniously. Belief in racial
inclusion goes to the marrow of my bones. My great, grcat grandfather
was a slave named George Latimer. He escaped from his master in
Virginia. Latimer fled to Massachusetts, where white abolitionists
rallied around him and prevented his recapture.
The incident inspired John Greenleaf Whittier to write a poem
about it, entitled "From Massachusetts to Virginia." By the way,
Latimer was the father of the celebrated inventer, Lewis Latimer, and
the grandfather of the cousin I mentioned earlier, Winifred Norman,
who is the goddaughter of Eugene Kinckle Jones.
14
P.16
JUL-25-1994 15:41
NUL CONFERENCE
I fully understand the instinct to separate when we are incessantly
under economic siege. When we're still discriminated against some
forty years after the Brown decision. And when, thanks to those
recurring images on evening newscasts of black youngsters being
hauled off to jail, even our honor students are trailed like common
thieves when they enter stores.
Even so, it's suicidal economically to become so bitter that we
isolate ourselves from others. America is a robustly multicultural
society. So is its labor market. For example, I read recently of a small
manufacturing firm in Southern California which has 200 workers
representing 30 nationalities. That's the new U.S. labor market. We
deny this reality at our -- and our children's -- peril.
For all our suffering, we cannot become so fixated on our problems
that we ignore our commonality of interest with others. All of the
problems I've addressed this evening --inadequate schooling, idle and
alienated youngsters, and chronic unemployment -- cut across racial
lines. If we're ever to deal with them on a scale remotely equal to their
size, we must coalesce with people of other complexions who feel the
same pain, even if it isn't yet as acute.
For instance, the expanded Earned Income Tax Credit and, soon I
hope, universal health would never happen were they seen solely as our
issues. Yet both are of enormous benefit to our people.
Whites of all religions have oppressed us at one time or another.
Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Episcopalians, Baptists. We've even been
oppressed by our own on occasion. It's a form of reverse racism to
single out any specific group of whites for vilification.
Many whites of good will have accompanied us on our long journey
for racial, social and economic justice. None has matched the Jewish
community as long distance runners in the civil rights movement.
Just as we denounce misleading media stereotypes of African-
Americans, it is morally repugrant as well to impugn an entire people,
especially long-standing allies, like Jews, because of the
unconscionable behavior of some of them.
15
P.17
TIII - 25-1994 15:41
NII CONFERENCE
What constructive purpose is served by driving deeper wedges
between races? Of course we must root out any vestiges of racism.
But let's not wallow forever in real or perceived grievances lest we
become Bosnia some day.
I say, let's get on with making our gloriously multicultural society
work. If Nelson Mandela and F.W. DeKlerk can bury the hatchets of
hatred and oppression in the sand, instead of one another's heads, and
get on with South Africa's future, then surely so can we.
At the same time, our allies should understand that serious-minded
African Americans must be free to discuss the acute pain afflicting our
community Even if that means conferring with those with whom we
vehemently disagree on other issues.
Dialoguing, even arguing, with those who hold abhorrent views
is difficult yet sometimes necessary. Otherwise, opposing sides remain
at loggerheads to the detriment of progress. How would U.S. relations
with arch-enemy China ever have been normalized had Richard Nixon
never met with Mao Tse Tong?
Would there ever have been a Camp David accord had Begin
refused to dialogue with Sadat? Did Yitzhak Rabin compromise his
moral integrity by meeting with Yassar Arafat as a prelude to today's
Middle East peace? Would apartheid ever have ended had Mandela
adamantly refused to negotiate with his people's brutal and hated
oppressors?
As Churchill once said, "it's better to jaw, jaw, than to war, war."
The time-honored role of the Urban League is to build bridges, not just
between poverty and plenty, but between peoples of all races and
persuasions.
The challenges I've outlined tonight are formidable. But seeing the
thousands of Urban League faithful out there and feeling the energy
emanating from you, I'm even more confident than when I took office
that we're equal to them.
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Why am I optimistic? Because Americans are beginning to see the
connection between the nation's economic competitiveness and their
own quality of life, on the one hand, and the decline of cities and the
persistence of urban poverty, on the other.
They're finally connecting the dots between these phenomena.
That's due in no small part to a President and First Lady who really
understand and genuinely care about these issues, about our issues.
That's a rare and welcome combination in elected officials these days.
I see a greater sense of shared risk, which is the necessary prelude
to shared responsibility for finding solutions to our problems. And
there's a growing sense that the social compact between society and the
individual needs strengthening on both sides.
One side defines what people owe society -- personal responsibility,
nurturing their children, supporting themselves and their families, and
abiding by society's laws. The other side defines what society owes its
citizens -- the opportunity to be self-reliant and protection from
anarchy at home and invasion from abroad.
In recent decades, important elements of both sides of the social
compact have eroded due to the profound economic changes sweeping
the developed world, including our own country.
Many individuals are shirking responsibility and wreaking havoc on
fellow citizens. Meanwhile, society has reneged on its obligation of
providing reasonable access to opportunity for all. The result is the
chaos we now see in cities.
We of the Urban League must work with our own in restoring
personal responsibility -- taking family obligations, child-rearing,
education, self-reliance and citizenship seriously.
But society must update and then uphold its end of the bargain.
What use is talk of opportunity when poor people see so little of it?
The social compact must be revised so that self-reliance, with dignity
and a decent standard of living, is an everyday reality instead of empty
rhetoric.
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To pursue the ambitious agenda I've outlined tonight, the Urban
League must become a force to be reckoned with, not merely another
minority face at the table.
That means reinvigorating and focusing our movement for maximum
effectiveness. That means creating a state-of-the-art organization
that's equipped today for the 21 st century.
That means speaking once again with the authority that derives from
our own research, our own innovative yet realistic ideas, and our own
thorough critiques of the policies and approaches of others.
And that means backing our intellectual credibility with the clout of
a vast network of influential and effective affiliates which are deeply
rooted in their communities.
This is a tall order, but I'm absolutely confident that we're equal to
it. Why? Because of the firm foundation that you in this vast audience
have built over 84 years of service to our folk. Because of our
unparalled strengths -- a proud history, a treasured household name, a
terrific track record, a vast army of volunteers, and an affiliate network
that delivers the goods every day for our people.
I'm often asked in interviews whether the Urban League has lost
touch, whether we're relevant any longer to the needs of ordinary, as
opposed to affluent, African Americans. What's my reply?
Just come with me, I say, to Africa Square Park in Liberty City and
listen to T. Willard Fair tell you how the Miami Urban League
recaptured that park from drug dealers and transformed it into a safe
haven for children, complete with constructive programs after school
and over the summer.
Come to Memphis and talk, as I did, to the public housing mother
of five who told me how she's on her way to economic self-sufficiency
thanks to the Urban League's Skill Center training.
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Come with me to the Chicago Urban League to see Jim Compton's
impressive research department which prepared the definitive state-
wide study of school finance inequities that cheat poor children of
better educations.
That's the impressive and relevant work that skeptics would see in
the field today were they actually to take a look.
Still, to those of us in this remarkable and respected movement, I
say, that's great, but not yet good enough. Together we must take the
Urban League to an entirely new platcau of effectiveness and impact
for our people.
That's "the something more important" that my daughter predicted I
was being saved for. That is your charge to me as I take office, And
that is my challenge to you tonight. That is the manifest destiny of this
great movement.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's time we get on with our calling. Let this
84th Annual Conference of the Urban League begin.
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