Seattle Urban League

The Seattle Urban League (later the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle) is a social service organization created largely for the advocacy, community organization, and development of African Americans, other racial minorities, and the poor, but whose broader mission is to eliminate racial inequality, to create equal opportunity, and to promote self-sufficiency for these populations of Seattle citizens.

Established in 1929 and incorporated in 1936, the Seattle Urban League is an affiliate of the National Urban League that was founded in New York City in 1910. The governing body of the Seattle Urban League is a multi-racial, volunteer board of elected members, representing a broad range of people from the business and civic communities. Board responsibilities are to establish policy and programs, ensure funding, set up committees, review activities, select and annually review the executive director, elect board members, and in general oversee the progress of the League. The Executive Committee heads the Seattle Urban League staff, with Executive Director, Assistant Executive Director, Secretary and Treasurer.

At its incorporation in 1936, the Seattle Urban League board had 18 members and an all-volunteer staff. By 1946 the League had one paid professional and one clerical staff member. In 1947 and 1948 the League reorganized and expanded to respond to the needs of a growing minority population during World War II, and at this time the impetus of its mission changed from being chiefly a social service agency offering direct services, to one of civil rights, actively working to secure equal opportunities for African-Americans and other disadvantaged people.

After the 1947-48 expansion the Seattle Urban League consisted of the board of directors and its officers, plus an Industrial Secretary, a Neighborhood Secretary and an Administrative Secretary. By 1957, a second Vice President had been added to the list of officers, and nine standing committees had been created within the organization. Over time, roles of the secretaries were redefined as new programs were developed and issues addressed, and in 1958 the Executive Director position was established; from then on it was the key leadership position.

Lewis Watts, who had been serving as Executive Secretary since 1950, became the first Executive Director and served in this office until 1961. Watts took a leave of absence in 1960 to study at Brandeis University, and Edwin T. Pratt, who had been serving as Community Relations Director since 1956, became acting Executive Director. When Watts decided to stay at Brandeis to work on his doctorate, Pratt became Executive Director and went on to become one of the League's most dynamic leaders. Pratt, a committed civil rights leader, dedicated himself to breaking down barriers of segregation in all areas of life. He served as Executive Director until his death in January of 1969, when he was assassinated at his home in Shoreline by an unknown assailant.

Following this tragedy, Jerome Page became Executive Director after serving briefly as Deputy Director under Pratt. During the early years of his tenure, Page's leadership was augmented by the able assistance of former Education Director, Gerrit Kouwenhoven, who served as Assistant Director of the League until 1973.

Page served as leader during a period of tremendous growth for the Seattle Urban League, a period in which Pratt's earlier efforts to equalize opportunities for African-Americans and other minorities were pushed forward. Page brought a new perspective to the League, and worked hard to bring it more in tune with the immediate needs of the community. Page served as Executive Director until 1979, when he then transferred to Washington D.C. to become president of the Urban League's affiliate there.

In 1978, the Seattle Urban League adopted the new personnel structure (mostly titular) of the National Urban League, in which the President of the board converted to Chair, with Vice Chairs, and the Executive Director and President were combined in one officer. After a six-month search, the Seattle Urban League hired Spruiell White as President of the Seattle Urban League. White provided strong leadership during a time of reduced funding and increased need for services, but he resigned to return to his home in Chicago, Illinois in 1983.

Traditionally, the Seattle Urban League's programs and services focus on housing, education, employment, and health and welfare. The 1940s and 1950s programs delineated a long-term agenda of desegregation in housing, education, public accommodation and employment, together with family and community development. The 1960s maintained this policy, but programs were reoriented and expanded in both scope and vision in order to join with the rapidly growing civil rights movement. The League's old watchword “Improvement” was firmly replaced with “Equality.” Increased availability of federal funding for direct service agencies at this time facilitated this renewal.

To address racial discrimination in housing, the Seattle Urban League's Housing Committee worked to secure equal housing opportunities for minorities. Its responsibilities included gathering and disseminating information pertinent to minority housing needs, making recommendations to City, County, and State agencies concerning fair housing legislation, and coordinating activities with various public and private housing organizations and agencies.

The Housing Committee also worked to develop programs that focused on breaking up segregated housing patterns through establishing an open housing market. Between 1965 and 1967 it implemented the Urban League's Rental Project, assisting the Fair Housing Listing Service in locating affordable rental units for African Americans outside of Seattle's Central district. In June of 1966 the Housing Committee wrote a report detailing landlord and community attitudes on minority housing.

In 1967 the Housing Committee oversaw the formation of Operation Equality, a cooperative program of the Seattle Urban League and National Urban League funded by the Ford Foundation and the local community. Originally it served as a Fair Housing Listing Service to help minority and low-income people find adequate housing, but it quickly added the task of counseling prospective home buyers on how to receive federal housing assistance. It also pushed local, state, and federal housing agencies to improve housing conditions for the poor.

In education, the Seattle Urban League increased efforts to eliminate racial imbalance in Seattle schools, and to improve curricula. Included among these were in-service training for teachers, curriculum development that incorporated minority history and contemporary race relations, the Volunteer Transfer Program for diversifying racially-isolated schools, student counseling, scholarships and other programs. The League's work in education was carried out mainly by the Education Committee and later, the Education Department.

The Education Committee was formed in October of 1956 primarily to examine the conditions of schools in Seattle's Central District and to assess racial imbalances in all Seattle public schools. Initially its core membership was comprised of citizens and educators concerned about child welfare, teacher turnover, school boundaries, student transfers, and other related issues. These members assisted the Education Director in conducting research and presenting the results to the League's Board of Directors or to the Seattle School Board for further action. Eventually, however, the Education Committee's membership grew to include staff and board members from the League, as well as representatives of various school and community groups. Additionally, the Education Committee began to serve in more of an advisory role to the Education Director by helping to meet the annually determined goals and objectives of the Education Department.

One project of the Education Committee was the development of a desegregation plan for the Seattle Public Schools. Introduced in the fall of 1964, a “Proposal for Re-organization of the Elementary Division of the Seattle Public Schools,” more commonly known as the “Triad Plan,” served as the basis for the Seattle School District's program to desegregate middle schools in the late 1960s.

Seattle Urban League programs for vocational training and employment included direct services to individuals such as training workshops, job placement and referral, and job fairs. In addition to these services, in 1964 the “Equal Opportunity Employers” roster was established, which listed businesses that had pledged an open-door policy in hiring practices and that employed more than 40 persons.

Another significant employment program was On-The-Job Training (OJT). OJT was initially developed and administered by the National Urban League in 1966 under a grant from the Department of Labor. Its primary mission was to seek out and develop on-the-job training opportunities for unemployed or underemployed members of minority groups. Qualified applicants were referred to employers for training in jobs that had advancement potential, and the employer's training costs were defrayed through the League grant. OJT also provided counseling and support services to trainees on workplace issues, and monitored their progress.

Initially Seattle Urban League programs for health and welfare were limited to making referrals to other health and social work agencies, but over the years the League's agenda came to include the improvement of health care and public assistance services for minorities and the poor. According to former Urban League Health and Welfare Director, Kay Thode, in his last speech to the Urban League Board of Directors, Edwin Pratt stressed the need to take action to prevent poverty and inequality rather than to provide services to deal with the consequences of these ills. This led to a shift in emphasis from providing direct service to individual welfare clients to taking action to change the systems that caused these problems.

By the mid 1960s, the Seattle Urban League had added a Health and Welfare Director to their organization, and early among them was Ivan King, a major administrator for the minority adoption program. In 1968 Kay Thode became Health and Welfare Director, a position she held through March of 1983. Thode brought dynamic leadership to the League's health and welfare programs, which focused on poverty, welfare reform, inflation, childcare, hunger, nutrition, and other related concerns. Mrs. Thode worked closely with local welfare rights groups, as well as social service, education, and community groups. In addition, she also supervised students from the University of Washington's School of Social Work who had field placements at the League.

Program strategies for the Health and Welfare Department included lobbying the State Legislature and disseminating information to minorities and the poor regarding their rights in relation to various national, state, and local agencies established to serve them. The program agenda also included conducting research and analysis of health and welfare issues. Solutions to health and welfare problems were also addressed through participation in various citizens' committees and task forces. In addition, Thode and her staff spoke to churches, university classes, and other public forums.

The Seattle Urban League gave voice to the community with forums for discussion of current issues, especially during the 1960s. The Thursday Forum, a Seattle Urban League program on KCTS, Seattle's public television station, was one such opportunity. Another was the Grass Roots Forum, a monthly panel comprised of community resource workers and Central Area residents who discussed topics of concern. The League also published several research reports that studied current and ongoing problems of racial inequality, including “Seattle's Negro Population: A Statistical Profile” in 1963 and “Seattle's Racial Gap: 1968.” Other activities of the League included programs for youth, adult seminars, in-service training and speaking engagements throughout the Seattle area.

The 1970s continued many of these programs, but the racial turmoil of the late 1960s prompted the National Urban League to call for a “New Thrust” in all Urban League programs. This new protocol would gear programs even more to attack systems at the root of racial discrimination. While the Seattle Urban League continued its direct service programs, the New Thrust would underpin all current and new programs that aimed to change institutionalized systems of discrimination.

A major objective of the New Thrust was to mobilize the minority community, and to motivate individuals to become directly involved in confronting systems of discrimination. One important League program driven by these principles was a movement to educate and register minority citizens to vote. Raising the profile of the Seattle Urban League within the minority community was also an objective prompted by New Thrust, and in 1973 the League moved its offices from the Smith Tower into a newly-purchased and renovated building at the corner of Yesler and 14th Avenue in order to be closer to the people it served.

Affirmative action was a major part of the Seattle Urban League's 1970s agenda. In addition to continuing direct placement and referral and other employment programs, the League focused in large part on providing consulting services to corporations and on assisting them in meeting new federal employment guidelines.

In the mid 1970s On-The-Job Training began receiving funding indirectly through the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), which provided federal monies to states and cities for job training and work experience. The King and Snohomish Manpower Consortium (KSMC) formed to collect this funding, and the Seattle Urban League contracted with KSMC to run OJT.

The League also fostered economic development in other areas with the organization of the Model Capital Corporation, a minority small business investment company, and the Construction Industry Development program that provided support services to minority contractors.

In the League's housing department, Operation Equality continued and expanded until it outgrew its initial scope. It separated from the Seattle Urban League in 1971 and merged with the Seattle Model City Program's Housing Development League. This move avoided a duplication of services between the two entities, and the new configuration, still carrying out the mission of Operation Equality, was renamed Seattle Housing Development. After this, the League no longer maintained a housing program and dissolved the Housing Committee. It continued to support housing, however, by raising funds for Seattle Housing Development and by placing staff members on the Seattle Housing Development's board of directors.

Efforts toward quality education and desegregation in the 1970s included the League's close participation with school and citizen committees to continue to develop plans for school desegregation. The final plan adopted by the Seattle School Board contained many components of the League's 1966 Triad Plan.

The Education Department was established circa 1970, encompassing the functions of the Education Director and the Education Committee. Desegregation and quality education in Seattle public schools were the two chief concerns of the Education Department. It actively promoted integration, affirmative action policies, and greater community involvement in Seattle area schools. Beginning in 1970, the Education Department began awarding the Edwin T. Pratt Scholarship in an effort to encourage minority students to pursue higher education. Named for the late Executive Director, this scholarship paid full college or university tuition and was awarded based on a student's motivation rather than past academic performance.

Project Excel, developed by Reverend Jesse L. Jackson as part of the PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) Program for Excellence in Education, was another program adopted by the Education Department in the 1970s. This program sought to promote academic success in underachieving students, to increase school attendance and decrease the number of student suspensions, to boost parent and community participation in schools, and to provide motivational activities for students. The Seattle Urban League served as the community agency for Project Excel by providing information and referral services for the Seattle School District's Academic Enhancement Program.

Project SUL was one more of the Seattle Urban League's educational programs, and provided outreach services to help parents of kindergarten students become involved in their children's schools, primarily in central and southeast Seattle. It also sought to develop district-wide solutions to the problems of school desegregation and to ensure that Seattle public schools develop and implement a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural curriculum. Project SUL received funding annually through an Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) Title VII grant by the US Department of Education, and was supported by the Seattle Public Schools.

Directors and staff members of the Education Department were also active in numerous advisory committees and community groups, most notably the Central Area School Council. In January of 1969, the Seattle Urban League received a grant through the National Urban League's New Thrust Education Project to provide staff in supervising the establishment of a community school board in the Central District. Comprised of elected representatives, this school board, the Central Area School Council, sought to help parents influence and affect their children's education. The League's Education Director, Nan Pettit, and its Field Researcher, Carol Richman, assisted the Ad Hoc Committee for a Central Area School Council to prepare for its first elections in March of 1969. The League also informed residents about the candidates for the school council and encouraged them to vote.

In 1972 Kay Thode was named Social Worker of the Year by the Puget Sound chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, recognizing her dedication and expertise with laws and developments in the field of public assistance. In March of 1975 the Health and Welfare Department launched the Hypertension Project in cooperation with the Washington State Heart Association. This program was also assisted by several Central District churches and the Black Panther Party. Under project coordinator Marion Rivers, a Licensed Practical Nurse, and funded through a grant from the Washington/Alaska Regional Medical Program (W/ARMP), this six-month project screened a small portion of Seattle's African-American community for hypertension. Moreover, the project saw that those afflicted received proper medical care. Additionally, the Seattle Urban League's Education Committee developed an educational presentation that provided further information on hypertension and made referrals to community medical clinics. In 1978 and 1979 the Health and Welfare Department began to develop materials for another hypertension project, this time with a much stronger emphasis on follow-up care. It is not clear from the records, however, whether this new project was carried out.

For the Seattle Urban League, as well as many other social service agencies, the 1980s were marked by a decrease in federal funding for direct service programs. As a result, significant reductions took place in the League's staff and many of its programs. Meanwhile, the need for the Seattle Urban League's services were on the rise, as growing numbers of minorities and the poor were experiencing unemployment, discrimination and inflation. These conditions necessitated a reassessment of the League's vision and capabilities.

In order to maintain and maximize its effectiveness under these circumstances, the Seattle Urban League focused more sharply on advocacy, research, and community collaboration. Funding was garnered increasingly through corporate partnerships, grants and private donors. Although the Seattle Urban League has always relied on networking and partnering with various organizations and individuals, cooperative ventures were increasingly called for to continue developing and providing needed programs and services.

Through the end of the twentieth century the Seattle Urban League has continued this course of action. Since the 1930s the Seattle Urban League has aimed to change with the times and needs of the community which it serves, and it continues, as the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, to work toward the goals of its mission.

From the guide to the Seattle Urban League records, 1930-1997, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections)