Whitney Young, "The Powerbroker"

Wednesday night at KPCC public radio forum we watched a documentary on Whitney Young called "The Powerbroker:  Whitney Young's Fight for Civil Rights."  Whitney's niece, Bonnie Boswell Hamilton was at the event and talked about her interviews with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ossie Davis, Julian Bond, Roy Innis, Vernon Jordan, Donald Rumsfeld and Dorothy Height for this documentary.  They talked about Mr. Young's life and his role as a power broker during the civil rights movement of the 1960's. 

I was privileged to have met Whitney Young in Iowa City in 1970, a year before he died.  He died while swimming with friends in Lagos, Nigeria.  President Nixon sent a plane to retrieve his body and delivered the eulogy at his funeral in Kentucky.

As president of the Urban League and as a man with his Masters in Social Work from the University of Minnesota, he bridged the African American activist, America's corporate leaders, and political leaders to make strides to bring full civil rights to all Americans.  He was an important advisor to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon.  He was criticized for not being confrontive enough and for working inside the board rooms to improve the lives of African Americans.  He pushed and praised Johnson for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts.  He tried to moderate with Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X.  He worked along side and supported Martin Luther King Jr.

I was impressed with his eloquent speech, personable manner, and wisdom.  I was stunned by his death at age 49 in March of 1971.  Another great leader lost in a decade of major losses....Kennedys, King and Young.  I recommend the movie and understand it will be shown on PBS next Monday and will be available to purchase.  It should be a must see for all high school students....to remember the civil rights movement of the '60's and the leaders who brought us giant steps of progress.

"Every man is our brother, and every man's burden is our own.  Where poverty exists, all are poorer.  Where hate flourishes, all are corrupted.  Where injustice reins, all are unequal."  (Seems I heard our president say something like this on Tuesday night.)

""You can holler, protest, march picket and demonstrate, but somebody must be able to sit in on the strategy conferences and plot a course.  There must be strategies, the researchers, the professionals to carry out the program.  That's our role."  (Sounds like a good social worker to me)