Let us work not as colored people nor as white people for the narrow benefit of any group alone, but together, as American citizens, for the common good of our common city, our common country.” –- Ruth Standish Baldwin
On Tuesday October 29th The Urban League of Greater Chattanooga is hosting its annual Equal Opportunity Day Breakfast from 7am until 9am in the Chattanooga Civic Center. As well as an opportunity for the League to recognize corporate and individual leadership in the community, the breakfast is The Urban League of Greater Chattanooga’s annual fundraiser. More information is on their website, www.ulchatt.net.
The original Urban League was established in New York in 1910 by Mrs. Ruth Standish Baldwin and George Edmund Haynes.
A graduate of Smith College, Ruth Standish Baldwin and her husband, William Henry Baldwin, Jr., were deeply concerned about the health and welfare of the African-American migrants. In 1896, Mr. Baldwin helped form the Committee for Improving the Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York. Mrs. Baldwin was active in the National League for the Protection of Colored Women. When William Baldwin died in 1905, Ruth Standish Baldwin committed herself to continuing their work.
George Edmund Haynes’ father was a laborer, and his mother was a domestic servant with great ambitions for her son. He received his bachelor’s degree from Fisk University, a master’s degree from Yale, and was the first Negro to receive a PhD. degree from Columbia University.
Together, George Edmund Haynes and Ruth Standish Baldwin founded the Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes (CUAN). Within a year, three organizations merged to form the National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes (NLUCAN). George Edmund Haynes became the Executive Director. In 1920, the name of the organization was shortened to the National Urban League (human-spirit-initiative.org).
For more than a hundred years the Urban league has been an integral part of the initiative to improve the lives of African Americans in America. The local chapter of the Urban League was established in Chattanooga in 1980. Warren Logan has been the President and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga in 1996.