National Urban League Delivers Word to Higher Ed

National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial said working for equality and justice is in the DNA of a majority of college students.Now in its 39th annual edition, The State of Black America has gone digital in a push to engage more people, particularly those involved in higher education.

On Wednesday, an energized and enthusiastic audience at Medgar Evers College in New York City got to hear first-hand about The State of Black America, an annual report by the National Urban League that compares the status of Blacks against Whites as well as Hispanics against Whites in statistics across a variety of indicators including education, economics, health, civic engagement and social justice.

With the subtitle “Save Our Cities: Education, Jobs + Justice,” the report’s Equality Index shows that African-Americans have about 72.2 percent of what White Americans have when looking at all categories combined. Education actually declined slightly for African-Americans from 76.7 percent to 76.1 percent and increased slightly for Hispanics from 73.2 percent to 74.6 percent.

Medgar Evers College President Dr. Rudolph F. Crew invited National Urban League President/CEO Marc H. Morial to have the New York launch at the college. Morial thought presenting it to college students would be right on message for the report. He said he hopes higher education will utilize the report as a teaching tool.

“We are strongly encouraging faculty members who teach history, economics and public policy to use the report’s broad-based statistical base to frame conversations that they’re no doubt having in the classroom about the future of the nation and the nation’s history and around racial issues,” said Morial. “We would encourage faculty members to add it to the reading list and use it as an integral part of a syllabus.

“Implicit in how we frame issues is that education is a pathway to economic empowerment,” he added. “Economic empowerment is our most important issue in the National Urban League.”

There is a college enrollment gap and a completion gap for African-Americans. There are many reasons for it, including inadequate preparation because these students are more likely to come from an underfunded school system.