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But while we are all very familiar with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, many of us don’t know as much as we should about Whitney M. Young, the one-time leader of the National Urban League. Labeled a sell-out by “black power” ambassadors like Stokely Carmichael and even Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. who did not understand Young’s big picture approach.
“You don’t get Black Power by chanting it; you get it by doing what the other groups have done. The Irish kept quiet; they didn’t shout Irish Power or Jew Power or Italian Power. They kept their mouths shut and took over the police department of New York City,” he explains in the opening sequences of The Powerbroker.
Atlanta has a direct tie to Young, who served as dean of Atlanta University’s school of social work; today, the Whitney M. Young Jr., School of Social Work at Clark Atlanta honors him. Whitney M. Young never wavered on the fact that this country owed its black citizens big time and that motivated him greatly. His impact on President Johnson was enormous and is witnessed in many of Johnson’s Great Society programs. His was an effective leadership tailored to achieve fundamental change, not grab headlines.
“You don’t get Black Power by chanting it; you get it by doing what the other groups have done. The Irish kept quiet; they didn’t shout Irish Power or Jew Power or Italian Power. They kept their mouths shut and took over the police department of New York City,” he explains in the opening sequences of The Powerbroker.
Atlanta has a direct tie to Young, who served as dean of Atlanta University’s school of social work; today, the Whitney M. Young Jr., School of Social Work at Clark Atlanta honors him. Whitney M. Young never wavered on the fact that this country owed its black citizens big time and that motivated him greatly. His impact on President Johnson was enormous and is witnessed in many of Johnson’s Great Society programs. His was an effective leadership tailored to achieve fundamental change, not grab headlines.