To Be Equal: Celebrating 20 years of upholding a as "The Voice of Black America" tradition

It was 20 years ago this week that I humbly assumed the responsibilities of leadership of the National Urban League -- one of which is the honor to author this very column, To Be Equal, established by the esteemed Whitney M. Young, Jr.

- Marc H. Morial, President and CEO National Urban League

“Show me a person who is full of prejudice, and I will show you a sick, unhappy, fearful individual who is not going anywhere and who is not growing. People don’t shut other people out; they fence themselves in.” – Whitney M. Young, Jr.

The column shares its name and takes its inspiration from Young’s first full-length book, published on New Year’s Day, 1964, in the wake of what Young called “the year of the Negro Revolution,” a year that saw thousands of children, marching through Birmingham, Alabama, attacked by police dogs and blasted with firehoses; the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in in Jackson, Mississippi; Gov. George W. Wallace’s Stand in the Schoolhouse Door at the University of Alabama, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the March on Washington for Jobs and Justice, and the deadly bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church.