Urban League Chattanooga

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Celebrate BHM facts with us!

Whitney M. Young Jr. was born in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky in 1921. Young earned a degree in social work from Kentucky State University in 1941. During World War II, he served as a first sergeant working on road construction and electrical engineering and in that position was able to mediate effectively between his white officers and black soldiers who were angry with their poor treatment. In 1949 Young earned a master’s degree from the University of Minnesota in social work, and in 1950 he went on to become president of the Urban League chapter in Omaha, Nebraska. Young would later move to Atlanta, where he became state president of the NAACP’s Georgia branch. While visiting Harvard as a scholar in 1961, he was named executive director of the National Urban League.
Within four years Young expanded the NUL from 38 employees to 1,600 employees; and from an annual budget of $325,000 to one of $6,100,000. Young worked closely with Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and brought with him an acute ability to forge relationships and seek partnerships with civic and business leaders that would aid the NUL’s work to help African-Americans and others in underserved communities achieve their highest true social parity, economic self- reliance, power, and civil rights. Young passed away while still serving as president of the NUL in 1971. He drowned while swimming with friends in Lagos, Nigeria, where he was attending a conference sponsored by the African-American Institute. President Nixon sent a plane to Nigeria to collect Young's body then traveled to Kentucky to deliver the eulogy at Young's funeral.

Celebrate BHM facts with us!

GW Franklin:
John P. Franklin Sr.’s father, G.W., was the first African American funeral director and embalmer in Chattanooga when he established the G.W. Franklin Mortuary in 1894, when funeral homes used horse-drawn hearses and family coaches. John Sr, along with his brother, Ben Franklin and sister, Mabel Franklin Taylor succeeded G.W., operating the firm until 1952.
G. W. Franklin was a member of the National Negro Business League, president of the local Negro Business League chapter, and president of the National Negro Funeral Directors Association. He was also a close friend of Booker T. Washington and an honorary pallbearer at his funeral. Having come to Chattanooga in 1894, Franklin was widely active in civic and community life. He was an integral part of the early attempts to start an Urban League in Chattanooga in the 1910s as the Central Community Betterment League, and after the organization faltered he continued to work with the Chattanooga In*******al Committee to try and better the economic and health conditions of Black Chattanoogans.

Our next REI session is only a few days away! This is our first in-person session and is for CEOs and executive team members only! Sign up now using the QR code or link:
https://igfn.us/form/cKHNLQ

Celebrate BHM facts with us!
George Edmund Haynes:

George Edmund Haynes was born in 1880 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Haynes’s incredible educational achievements allowed him to go to the Agriculture and Mechanical University in Alabama, then to Fisk University in Tennessee in 1899. He then went to Yale in 1903 where he earned his masters and finally to Columbia University, where in 1912 he earned a PhD in sociology. While at Columbia, Haynes worked with the wealthy socialite Ruth S. Baldwin and together the two founded the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes in 1910, which would later be renamed to the National Urban League.
Haynes would go on to serve as the executive director of the National Urban League from 1910-1918, while also founding and directing the Department of Social Sciences at Fisk University. Due to his work at Fisk, Haynes was invited by the Negro Business League of Chattanooga to speak in 1916, resulting in the founding of the Central Community Betterment League by local leaders like G. W. Franklin, W. C. Hixson, Dr. L. L. Patton and more. This organization was loosely affiliated with the Urban League, but only lasted two years before disbanding. Other tried to bring an Urban League to Chattanooga, but it was not until 1982 that those attempts came to fruition.
Haynes would spend the next forty years of his life as executive secretary of the Department of Race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches and after his retirement as a professor of sociology at City College of New York, and his lifelong commitment to the YMCA brought him occasionally to South Africa, where he aided their work as a regional consultant. From becoming the first African-American to earn a doctorate from Columbia University, to his wide reaching work as an advocate for the YMCA and the executive director of the National Urban League, Haynes stood as a constant example and proponent of the NUL’s original mission to “remove barriers to racial equality and achieve economic empowerment for the country’s Negro citizens.”

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Jackie Robinson:
In April of 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play on a Major League Baseball team. Born in Cairo, Georgia in 1919, Robinson briefly attended UCLA. He was drafted into the army where he served until 1944. In 1945, he joined a feeder team for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Montreal Royals. Robinson’s ability to succeed in the face of overwhelming opposition and adversity earned him wide-spread recognition as Rookie of the Year and in 1949 the league’s Most Valuable Player. His rewards and achievements were initially rewarded with continued hatred from his own team and fans. In spite of the adversity, he led the Dodgers to six league championships and one World Series victory.
In 1958 he became a spokesman and fundraiser for the NAACP, and he would go on to protest with Martin Luther King in Birmingham, Alabama and was present at King’s famous march on Washington in 1963. In 1962 Robinson became the first Black person to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.. In 1964, Robinson joined with other local Black businessmen to start Freedom National Bank in response to the riots that broke out in New York and elsewhere in the summer of 1964.

It's time to start working ON your business and not IN it!

This 7-month virtual accelerator will renew your mindset, give you a fresh perspective, and a three year strategic growth plan to help scale your business.

Application deadline is Feb 28th.

Apply at https://bit.ly/NextLevelChatt

Have questions? Email Program Manager Lya Kimbrough, [email protected]

This week’s ULCG Young Professionals Linked In & Linked Up event brought out some great new and familiar faces for networking, conversations on branding and professionals headshots!

Thanks to and for sharing your story and knowledge with YP!

You don’t want to miss the YP Movement join now at: https://www.ulchatt.net/young-professionals

The next YP event is this Saturday
Catch you there!

Join us this Black History Month for a Racial Equity Institute Groundwater training on February 16th from 9-12 EST! This free workshop is an interactive opportunity to better understand the nature and impact of structural racism and how it shows up in our institutions. Use the link or QR code to sign up to learn with us!

https://igfn.us/form/BNF-Gw

Meet NAPPERIA, our Membership chair. We're looking forward to finding out how she plans on continuing to promote this year and her membership initiatives nationally and locally!

The Young Professionals of Urban League of Greater Chattanooga develop leaders, create meaningful impact to our community, upskill our members and provides a strong network for young professionals.

Click to register for our Join Week events!
https://lnkd.in/gXPgNn79

How we’re starting at the League … Elevating Black Excellence in Leadership! Welcome to the movement Lya Kimbrough ✊🏽

Serving as the Senior Director of Operations & Client Experience in our Center for Economic & Black Business Success, Lya will serve on ULGC’s senior leadership team and oversee the day-to-day operations and successful implementation of programs and initiatives for economic & entrepreneurial endeavors.

The CEAABS aims to provide a culturally responsive ecosystem of supports for African Americans and other racially ethnic minority- owned businesses to accelerate growth, expand networks, access, and knowledge for sustained business success.

We know that her reputation, knowledge, impact and expertise in this space — and the overall community will help us move forward the vision of this center with quality and fidelity! As we continue on our journey to “Reframe Our Future,” you will be hearing more announcements! 👀🤩

💪🏽👏🏽👏🏽