During its 2015 Gala in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on Aug. 1, the National Urban League announced it has selected St. Louis as the host city for its 2017 Annual Conference.
Kathleen “Kitty” Ratcliffe, president of the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission, said the event will bring more than 3,800 attendees to St. Louis. Its Youth Leadership Summit, which will take place concurrently at Washington University, will include approximately 350 young people.
She said the conference and summit are projected to use more than 6,000 hotel room nights, generating an economic impact of $3.2 million in direct spending for the St. Louis region.
She said that a handful of local people had been central to bringing the convention here, particularly, Michael Neidorff, CEO of Centene Corporation and chairman of the National Urban League, and Michael McMillan, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis. She credited Mayor Francis Slay and Washington University for their support of the Youth Leadership Summit.
McMillan said that organizers locally had been working with the National Urban League on a convention bid for the past six months.
“At our national convention, the National Urban League announced that in 2016 the convention would go to Baltimore and in 2017 it would go to St. Louis,” McMillan said, knowing that Baltimore and the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson had major urban unrest in 2014.
“We’re not running away from any problems, we are running at our problems and, as an agency and a national movement, trying to make a difference and trying to make things better.”
Neidorff, chairman of the national board, said he was delighted to host their convention in St. Louis in 2017.
“The National Urban League remains strategically positioned to play a major role in building bridges for stronger, more economically viable and healthier communities across this nation,” Neidorff said.
“No organization is better positioned to bridge the gap from where we are today to where we want to be or should be. American communities and cities continue to need bi-partisan solutions to persistent and emerging problems, especially in the areas of jobs, economic empowerment, and social justice.”
Ratcliffe agreed.
“We appreciate the Urban League’s commitment to address the challenges faced by African-American communities across the country, including here in St. Louis,” Ratcliffe said. “This is a unique opportunity for our region to further participate in these important discussions, and we appreciate the confidence they’ve shown by selecting us as their convention home in 2017.”
McMillan said that “confidence” implies a confidence that St. Louis as a region will begin to address its now infamous disparities.
“For everything that has been exposed of our region – such as the racial inequities, problems in police-community relations, lack of job opportunities, racial profiling, bad housing conditions for poor and low-income people, educational inequity – we hope to have made some significant, demonstrable evidence of change to show the National Urban League movement comes here in 2017.”
Neidorff is on that same page.
“These are our shared challenges, and our shared opportunities,” Neidorff said. “We must continue to be diligent and resourceful in creating economic opportunities in our communities and lifting individuals and families out of poverty, making our nation stronger and creating a brighter future for generations to come.”
