Detroit Urban League

Detroit, Michigan, branch of the National Urban League.

From the description of Detroit Urban League records, 1916-[ongoing]. (University of Michigan). WorldCat record id: 34421268

The Detroit Urban League (hereafter referred to as the D.U.L.), an affiliate of the National Urban League (N.U.L.), was founded in 1916 to address the needs of the growing population of African-Americans in Detroit. The N.U.L. had been founded in 1910 in New York as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes as an agency responsive to the needs of Black emigrants from the south who were then coming in great numbers to the urban north.

The establishment of the D.U.L. was a joint effort of the N.U.L. and the Associated Charities of Detroit . The D.U.L. was and is a problem oriented agency, creating programs and services to meet the most pressing educational, employment, health, and social needs of the Detroit African American community.

The D.U.L. was at first funded by the Associated Charities of Detroit (which later evolved into the Community Fund). It has also, in the past, received allocations from the N.U.L. In 1992, the D.U.L. received funding from the Community Fund's successor, United Community Services of Detroit, the local United Way Foundation; from local, federal and state grants; and from N.U.L. grants and individual D.U.L. memberships.

The D.U.L., although it operates as an independent agency, is linked to the national organization through the N.U.L.'s "Terms of Affiliation." Policy is set by a board of directors and a strong executive director/president. The D.U.L. chief executive officers since its founding have been:

• 1916 - 1918 : Forrester B. Washington, Executive Director
• 1918 - 1960 : John C. Dancy, Executive Director
• 1960 - 1978 : Francis A. Kornegay, Executive Director
• 1978 - 1984 : Roy Levy Williams, President
• 1984 - 1985 : Sue Hamilton-Smith, Interim President
• 1985 - 1987 : Donald W. Woods, President
• 1987 - : N. Charles Anderson, President

For further information on the D.U.L. records, the researcher should consult A Brief History of the Detroit Urban League and Description of the League's Papers in the Michigan Historical Collections(Michigan Historical Collections Bulletin No. 20) and the MHC's Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Detroit Urban League Papers. These bulletins also contain references to other sources of information about the D.U.L. at the Michigan Historical Collections and elsewhere. The researcher should additionally consult the papers of John C. Dancy and Francis A. Kornegay and the records of the Children's Fund of Michigan also located at the Michigan Historical Collections. For a perspective on the D.U.L.'s Green Pastures Camp, Keri Bancroft's "Green Pastures Camp: Scene II" (Michigan History Magazine, 69, no. 5, September/October 1985, pp. 32-39) is a useful source.

A separate collection of D.U.L. materials is located at the Burton Historical Collections of the Detroit Public Library; while the records of United Community Services of Detroit are at the Wayne State University Labor Archives.

From the guide to the Detroit Urban League records, 1916-1992, (Bentley Historical Library University of Michigan)