The keynote to the opening plenary of the National Urban League’s 2017 national conference was struck by Allan C. Golston, who leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts to advance educational opportunity.
“We have to protect our progress, because – maybe more than at any other time – we are at risk,” Golston said to a large crowd at America’s Center in downtown St. Louis on Thursday, July 27.
After all, the National Urban League is named for a nation presently governed by Donald Trump.
Angela Rye, a political strategist and commentator, said the new president and his “cabinet of imps” are deliberately trying to undo reforms in criminal justice, health care and environmental stewardship ordered or enacted during President Barack Obama’s tenure.
“Progress is on the line,” Rye said.
The brightest name on the plenary marquee, scholar Michael Eric Dyson, infamously has argued over the Obama administration with other black public intellectuals (who have been heard from much less since the election of Trump).
“There were legitimate criticisms of President Obama,” Dyson said, “but, lord, we miss him now.”
The plenary panel included one local voice, St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones. She inspired one of a placid morning crowd’s few spontaneous bursts of enthusiasm when she discussed the child college savings accounts she set up for St. Louis Public School kids with the parking revenues her office administers. Nearly 9,000 city children are now enrolled, Jones said, which was the spontaneous applause line.
Michael Grant, president of the National Bankers Association, advocated for economic self-sufficiency, quoting Paul Robeson about doing for oneself and citing unsourced data that the black community fails to benefit from a fair share of the money it spends. Grant did not dismiss criticisms of outside parties, but said he wants to focus on “what we can do for us.”
Tamika D. Mallory provided the activist voice on a National Urban League opening plenary panel being hosted in the metropolitan area that spawned Ferguson. Mallory said, “You need to love, protect and defend your protestors,” but sparked not one clap or cry from the crowd.
When moderator Judge Glenda Hatchett – perhaps having noted the lack of a crowd response – restated the sentiment and openly rallied the crowd, a small ripple of applause passed through the exhibit hall, which was carpeted for the occasion.
In fact, it was Hatchett who sounded the loudest cry on what was a fairly mild opening plenary on a rainy Thursday morning in St. Louis.
Hatchett talked herself into getting upset over people and institutions who profit from poverty programs, moving from grant to grant, administering salaries but not having much impact on poverty.
Hatchett shrieked, “We’ve got to call out poverty pimps!”
National Urban League President Marc Morial and St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson spoke before the panel, but the warmest reception among the opening speakers was given spontaneously to Rmani Crawford, who was presented as a success story for Project Ready, an Urban League after-school enrichment program.
Crawford said he grew up on the edge in Rochester, New York, but Project Ready steadied him and helped him to find a voice. Now he is completing a Master’s of Divinity and a law degree from Pepperdine University.
He brought the quiet house to his feet when he said, “Someone like me is more likely to be told ‘you have the right to remain silent’ than ‘you have the right to speak.'”
