Our Movement

Established in 1910, The Urban League is the nation's oldest and largest community- based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream. Today, the National Urban League, headquartered in New York City, spearheads the non-partisan efforts of its local affiliates. There are over 100 local affiliates of the National Urban League located in 35 states and the District of Columbia providing direct services to more than 2 million people nationwide through programs, advocacy and research.

Our Mission

The mission of the Urban League movement is to enable African Americans to secure economic self-reliance, parity, power and civil rights.

Our Strategy

The Urban League employs a five point strategy, tailored to local needs, in order to implement the mission of our movement.

• Education and Youth Empowerment: Ensuring that all of our children are well educated and prepared for economic self-reliance in the 21st century through college scholarships, early childhood literacy, Head Start and after care programs.
• Economic Empowerment: Empowering all people in attaining economic self-sufficiency through job training, good jobs, homeownership, entrepreneurship and wealth accumulation.
• Health and Quality of Life Empowerment: Working to build healthy and safe communities to eliminate health disparities through prevention, healthy eating, fitness, as well as ensuring access and complete access to affordable healthcare for all people.
• Civic Engagement and Leadership Empowerment: Empowering all people to take an active role in determining the direction, quality of life, public policy and leadership in their communities by full participation as citizens and voters, as well as through active community service and leadership development.
• Civil Rights and Racial Justice Empowerment: Promoting and ensuring our civil rights by actively working to eradicate all barriers to equal participation in the all aspects of American society, whether political, economic, social, educational or cultural.