Columbia Urban League celebrates 50 years

When the Columbia Urban League was founded 50 years ago, it was only three years since the Civil Rights Act had passed into law.

It proved to be good timing for the organization dedicated to alleviating urban conditions for African Americans.

“They were the go-to place for compliance with the Civil Rights Act,” said J.T. McLawhorn, the Urban League’s president. “Employers looked to the Urban League to find quality employees.” The Urban League has also been involved in political activism from the beginning, from engaging with elected officials to taking part in the annual march on the S.C. State House.

Thursday, the Urban League will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a luncheon at the University of South Carolina Alumni Center.

In the half-century since it started serving South Carolina’s capital city, the league has continued to not only provide services to the community but to be an avenue for people to launch their careers.

“It opened the doors for me to get a trade,” said Willie Whaley, who learned how to do HVAC work as a 19-year-old working in the league’s apprenticeship program in 1970.

Now Whaley runs his own business at WAW’s Heating and AC, something he credits to the Urban League’s Lou Johnson, who got him his first job after a short stint as a millworker.

“Then they went out (afterwards) to make sure you were able to do it,” Whaley said. “They did follow up on you.”

Ashleigh Wilson got started on the path to being a lawyer when she the Urban League’s summer job program placed her in a law office at the age of 14.

“I think it was the first time I’d ever visited a law office,” Wilson remembers. “It was the first time I got to see how a business ran.”

The clerical position was also her first time earning a pay check.

“It was a good introduction to the workforce,” she said.

Other programs run by the Urban League focus on putting young people back to work in the community. As a student at the University of South Carolina, Kenny Jackson tutored underprivileged kids at Latimer Manor in Columbia. It was a job he thinks let him teach his students more than their math lessons.

“I grew up in public housing,” said Jackson, now a senior vice president at SCANA. “I told them if they work hard and study, they can really believe they can succeed.”

The program probably also gave Jackson a leg up when he went looking for his first job at Bankers Trust, a business that partnered with the Urban League.

“They called the Urban League, and that probably made the difference in my getting the job,” he said.

This story was originally published May 22, 2017 at 2:34 PM.