InFocus DN

By Aswad Walker

According to Marc Morial, the National Urban League (NUL) is one of the nation’s historic civil rights and urban advocacy organizations, and arguably the best and strongest. However, he may be a bit biased as Morial is president and CEO of the NUL, a position he has manned for 20 years.

“We’re unique amongst those who do this work in that we do advocacy and direct services,” said Morial, the former mayor of New Orleans. “Our direct services involve serving people literally from cradle all the way until they’re seasoned citizens, through job training, afterschool programs, homebuyer education, workforce development, entrepreneurship initiatives, and the like.”

The NUL does that work through a network of 93 affiliates across the nation. Morial counts the Houston Area Urban League (HAUL) as “one of the best,” and is partnering with this local affiliate, the City of Houston and the Houston community to bring the NUL’s annual conference in Houston July 26 - 29.

The Defender spoke with Morial, who is also a best-selling author and former Louisiana state legislator, about the upcoming conference.

DEFENDER: Why is the ongoing assault on our civil rights one of the main themes of the 2023 NUL conference?

MARC MORIAL: Because much of what’s happening now strikes directly at the heart of the work that the civil rights generation did to bend the arc in this country. They wiped out legal segregation. They finally secured the right to vote in a meaningful way. They created programs to address poverty, to educate the poor. They opened America