Consistent with the mission of the National Urban League, the aim of the Urban League of Champaign County is to enhance the quality of life in our community.  As an interracial, human rights, non-profit organization, this affiliate is committed to the elimination of racial discrimination and to the increase of the social, economic, and political empowerment of African-Americans.  The utilization of professional methods in the fields of social work, economics, law, business management, social sciences, and other disciplines is encouraged to bring about the design of programs and the altering of conditions to secure equal opportunities for our constituents.  The role of the Urban League is to speak out on issues of public policy and the systematic development of programs to meet the needs of people who are unequally represented in the American mainstream and provides a focus for this affiliate’s goals and services. 

The formative stages of the Urban League of Champaign County began in 1961 when Don Moyer, Sr. and other members of the Champaign Human Relations Commission noted that local conditions and citizen concern were such that the opening of an Urban League affiliate here would be an asset to the community.

 With the help of a cross-section of community leaders – black and white – contact was made with the National Urban League and the necessary steps were taken which eventually led to affiliation with the National Urban League.  There is some confusion as to the early origins of the League which, hopefully, will be cleared up by a thorough search of our early records and through the News Gazette’s file on the Urban League.

 At any rate, the League hired its first executive director, Robert O. Bowles, in 1962.  By June of 1963 the League had charted its programmatic course which guided its activities over the next three years until Bowles’ departure in late 1965.  The League programs in this era centered heavily around jobs and education, and advocacy efforts to eliminate prejudice and discrimination in all spheres of community life.

 In June, 1966, Vernon L. Barkstall became the second executive director of this affiliate.  For the next two and one-half years Mr. Barkstall and the League board and staff were actively involved in the many changes which were largely fired by the national long, hot summers, and the fiery demands for the end of segregation and discrimination. 

 In the above period the League was in the center of the Urban Renewal debate (heretofore, the League avoided direct housing integration issues except to the extent of voluntary action re Fair Housing which was housed in the League office), school desegregation in Champaign and Urbana, police-community relations, and the equal employment opportunity efforts across the country. 

 The League staff and guild were heavily involved in the founding and early operation of the Frances Nelson Health Center.  The Center became a reality as a direct response to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It served its first two patients on July 2, 1968.

 Mr. Barkstall took an assignment as executive director of the Lake County (Illinois) Urban League on January 1, 1969, and was succeeded by Paul R. Keys who served most of 1969.  Mr. Barkstall returned to this affiliate on November 16, 1969.

 Almost from the first days of the 1970s the League had the unenviable task – in the face of repeated recessions – of trying to hold onto hard-won concessions in the employment arena.  The University of Illinois and other major local employers has relaxed “irrelevant’ requirements – such as high school graduation to be a custodian.  Black unemployment had been markedly reduced, job opportunities were enhanced, and a feeling of economic progress was felt.  Repeated recession brought on reality; blacks were still LIFOs (last in, first out).

 The period from 1976 to the present has seen the League staff dramatically increase due to elderly and energy programs.  There programs are vital to the life’s chances of the poor but should be seen as therapeutic, not preventive.  Increased advocacy efforts offer our best hope to bring about systems change.