Whitney Young, Jr.

Whitney M. Young, Jr. was born on July 31, 1921, in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky. His mother was a teacher and his father the principal of the Lincoln Institute, an African American college prep school. Young attended the Lincoln Institute and graduated as his class valedictorian. In 1941, he graduated from Kentucky State Industrial College (now Kentucky State University) with his bachelor of science in social work. During this time at Kentucky State, Young was a forward on the university's basketball team; a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, where he served as the vice president; and the president of his senior class.

During World War II, Young was trained in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was then assigned to a road construction crew of black soldiers supervised by Southern white officers. After just three weeks, he was promoted from private to first sergeant, creating hostility on both sides. Young was able to mediate effectively between his white officers and black soldiers angry at their poor treatment. This situation propelled him into a career in race relations.

Young married his college sweetheart, Margaret Buckner, in 1944. After the war, he joined Margaret at the University of Minnesota, where he earned a master's degree in social work in 1947 and volunteered for the St. Paul branch of the National Urban League. With the organization making strides in placing African Americans in previously whites-only employee positions, he was then appointed as the industrial relations secretary in 1949.

Young became president of the League's Omaha branch in 1950 and was at the forefront of racial integration in the region. Under his leadership, the chapter tripled its number of paying members. While he was president of the Omaha Urban League, Young taught at the University of Nebraska from 1950 to 1954, and Creighton University from 1951 to 1952. Then in 1954, he took a position as dean of Atlanta University's School of Social Work, remaining actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement and becoming the president of state branch of the NAACP.

Young was appointed executive director of the National Urban League in 1961. He was unanimously selected by the National Urban League's Board of Director. With a talent for enlisting the support of prominent white businessmen, he was instrumental in saving the league from financial ruin as well as handling major overhauls of the organization's structure, grandly increasing its budget and staff size. Within four years he expanded the organization from 38 employees to 1,600 employees; and from an annual budget of $325,000 to one of $6,100,000. Young served as President of the Urban League until his death in 1971.

The Urban League had traditionally been a cautious and moderate organization with many white members. During Young's ten-year tenure at the League, he brought the organization to the forefront of the American Civil Rights Movement. He both greatly expanded its mission and kept the support of influential white business and political leaders. Young expressed the mission of the Urban League not as ground-level activism in itself but as “the supplement and complement of the activities of all other organizations” “We are the social engineers, we are the strategists, we are the planners, we are the people who work at the level of policy-making, policy implementation, the highest echelons of the corporate community, the highest echelons of the governmental community – both at the federal, state and local level – the highest echelons of the labor movement.” As part of the League's new mission, Young initiated programs like "Street Academy", an alternative education system to prepare high school dropouts for college, and "New Thrust", an effort to help local black leaders identify and solve community problems. He also pushed for federal aid to cities, proposing a domestic "Marshall Plan". This plan, which called for $145 billion in spending over 10 years, was partially incorporated into President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.

As executive director of the League, Young pushed major corporations to hire more African Americans. In doing so, he fostered close relationships with CEOs. He stressed the importance of working within the system to effect change. Still, he was not afraid to take a bold stand in favor of civil rights. In 1963, as one of the “Big Six”, Young was one of the organizers of the March on Washington despite the opposition of many white business leaders. The League, at Young's request, became a co-sponsor of the March on Washington.

Young was an important advisor to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. In 1968, representatives of President-elect Richard Nixon tried to interest him in a Cabinet post, but Young refused, believing that he could accomplish more through the Urban League. Young had a particularly close relationship with President Johnson, and in 1969, Johnson honored him with the highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

After visiting troops in the Vietnam War, Young established a veteran affairs department for the League. With the advent of the Black Power movement, he was often seen as too conservative and pacifying in his views. Yet he did adopt the New Thrust program in the late '60s, which focused on the direct economic empowerment and actualization of urban communities.

Young served as President of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), from 1969 to 1971. He took office at a time of fiscal instability in the association and uncertainty about President Nixon's continuing commitment to the "War on Poverty" and to ending the war in Vietnam. Young spent his tenure as President of NASW ensuring that the profession kept pace with the troubling social and human challenges it was facing. NASW News articles document his call to action for social workers to address social welfare through poverty reduction, race reconciliation, and putting an end to the War in Vietnam.

Whitney Young, Jr. died on March 11, 1971, at the age of 49, while attending a conference in Lagos, Nigeria. While swimming at a beach, he had a heart attack and drowned. President Nixon sent a plane to Nigeria to collect his body and traveled to Kentucky to deliver the eulogy at the funeral. In his eulogy, President Nixon said this of Young:

“And so today Whitney Young's message to America---the country that he loved with all of its faults, loved it because he realized that this was a country in which we had the power to change what was wrong and change it peacefully--Whitney Young's message is this: "What can I do? What can I do to make this a better country? What can I do through helping others, through recognizing their equality, their dignity, their individuality, to realize the American dream?"

His dream, if I may paraphrase, was one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice and opportunity for all. To fulfill his dream is the responsibility of each of us. It is the commitment that each of us makes in his heart on this day.”