By Marc H. Morial
(Trice Edney Wire) – Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain.
These are the words of our brother Frankie Beverly, who sadly passed away this year. And they are the words that come to mind when reflecting on the past year’s work of the National Urban League and our network of 92 affiliates across the country.
The joy is that the Urban League Movement is stronger than we have ever been. We are serving more people than ever before, nearly four million people a year.
The combined operating budgets of our affiliate movement are the largest in history.
Our Reclaim Your Vote initiative, which we just have completed for the 2024 election season, reached millions of people through the media and personal contact.
Voters in every state were brought into the democratic process who might otherwise have been disenfranchised or discouraged by racially discriminatory voting laws and misinformation campaigns.
Our advocacy helped pass the largest road and bridge building program in American history.
Our advocacy helped pass the largest investment in broadband connectivity in American history.
Our advocacy helped pass the largest investment in manufacturing in American history.
Our advocacy helped elevate, expand, and make permanent the Minority Business Development Agency.
Our advocacy urged the Justice Department to launch dozens of investigations into brutal and corrupt law enforcement that brought the killers of Ahmaud Arbery and Brionna Taylor to justice.
Our empowerment programs have helped people become homeowners. Helped people find good-paying jobs. Helped young people find a pathway to college. And helped returning citizens regain dignity and a good job.
I’m so proud of what we have been able to accomplish, and we have accomplished it together. This is the triumph of collective power, collective will, determination, and commitment.
Most joyful of all is the near-completion of our future home, the National Urban League Urban Empowerment Center in Harlem. We are about to launch the Mountaintop Campaign, the final push to raise $15 million that will get us to the mountaintop of completing the most significant economic development project in recent Harlem history.
It’s significant because of its size – 18 stories, 414,000 square feet – and because of the homecoming it represents – we’re returning to the community that gave birth to our movement 115 years ago.
But its greatest significance – the greatest joy – is that it embodies the very heart of our mission. It is an investment into a culturally vibrant community, historically neglected by city, state, and national leaders, that already is paying enormous dividends.
The Urban Empowerment Center represents the joy of home for the 170 families and individuals who now have a safe and affordable apartment. It represents the joy of fair employment for the thousands who were involved in the construction and finishing of the building and the hundreds who have found permanent employment with our retail partners.
It represents the joy of history and heritage, as the first-of-its-kind Urban Civil Rights Museum in Harlem begins to take shape. It will be New York City’s first museum dedicated to the American Civil Rights Movement and one of the only museums in the entire country to explore the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the North.
This year, of course, has also brought pain. The presidential election feels like a painful setback for the issues we in the Urban League Movement hold sacrosanct: An inclusive democracy. Reproductive freedom. Economic opportunity.
The first Trump administration began with an inhumane act of religious discrimination, banning immigrants from majority-Muslim nations. It ended with white supremacists parading the Confederate flag through the U.S. Capitol as part of a plot to overturn an election.
Many of us are puzzled, angry, and upset by the results of the election – distraught at the prospect of having to fight the same battles over and over again.
The National Urban League has never backed down from a battle. We will not ever give up our values or our principles. We will defend democracy at any cost. We will demand diversity, equity, and inclusion because all have a right to the American dream. And we will defeat poverty because a great nation must be committed to shared prosperity.
As Frankie Beverly sang, there will be sorrow, but you will endure. Joy and pain are like sunshine and rain. We have seen both in 2024. As we face the challenges of 2025 and beyond, we know that together we will endure.
