The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis has been helping turn tragedy into triumph for more than a century.
Its roots are planted in the soil where one of America’s worst racially inspired riots and massacres happened, East St. Louis Illinois.
“Today is a historic homecoming for the Urban League to be back in the city of East St. Louis, where we were founded.”-President of the Urban League, Michael McMillan, on the opening of the new East St. Louis “Save Our Sons” headquarters.
On Saturday, Feb. 18, the organization returned to the city by opening a new Save Our Sons office.
“Today is a historic homecoming for the Urban League to be back in the city of East St. Louis, where we were founded,” said Mike McMillan, Urban League president and CEO.
“Thanks to state Sen. Christopher Belt, Rep. LaToya Greenwood, Mayor Robert Eastern, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Bishop Geoffrey V. Dudley and the many clergy, community leaders. residents and corporate partners.
“A special thanks to our own Michael K. Holmes, Tydrell Stevens & their staff for working to make this a reality.
Belt thanked McMillan and the Urban League “for returning to its home.”
“Welcome back to East St. Louis as we celebrate the grand opening of Save Our Sons.”
Between 10,000 and 12,000 African American people left the South for East St. Louis, Illinois in 1916 and 1917 as part of the Great Migration. Racial tensions were brewing during the spring and summer of 1917.
In 1916, 2,500 white employees of the meatpacking industry near East St. Louis went on strike for higher wages. In response, companies hired Black workers as strikebreakers to replace them. Then in the spring of 1917, after white workers of the Aluminum Ore Company in East St. Louis voted to strike, that company also recruited hundreds of Black workers to replace them.
At a labor meeting held in City Hall in July of 1917 rumors circulated of Black men fraternizing with white women. This led to a reported 1,000 to 3,000 white men marching into downtown East St. Louis attacking African Americans on the street, in streetcars and burning buildings.
In the end, reportedly 39 to 150 African Americans were murdered, another 6,000 were left homeless and the city suffered $400,000 (more than $8 million in today’s dollars) in property damage.
Many residents impacted by the riots fled to St. Louis. There, a small group of Black and white St. Louisans came together in 1918 and founded the Urban League of St. Louis. The agency was there to serve hundreds of others who were migrating from the South to northern cities including East St. Louis.
“The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis was actually born out of the riots of East St. Louis.
“As Black and whites came together to build a better community, they formed an organization which later became the Urban League,” Pat Washington, Urban League director of communications said..
The Urban League’s “Save Our Sons” (SOS) program seeks to help economically disadvantaged African American men find jobs and have the opportunity to earn livable wages. The program assists participants in obtaining post-secondary education and job training and teaching the imperative career life skills and work ethic necessary to become successful employees in today’s workforce.
The St. Louis Urban League is the largest League in the nation and the first to earn a five-star rating and one of two in the country to provide services in two states, Illinois and Missouri. It serves over 100,000 individuals annually, from its 16 facilities and 45 different programs in the region.
