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The 2019 National Urban League Conference
By Paul Hubbard
Special to The Truth
The annual National Urban League Conference was held in
Indianapolis, IN, July 24-27, at the Indiana Convention
Center and featured a variety of forums dealing with
equality, America’s moral challenge, the racial wealth gap,
voting rights, entrepreneurship, technology and the power of
unity, among other issues.
The Convention brought together over 4,000, many of whom were
young adults.
I attended a private corporations solutions meeting that the
National Urban League President Marc Morial held with about
20 corporate leaders. In that meeting Morial spoke about how
the Democrats are going after the black vote because we made
such a difference in the last three elections when we voted
and when we did not vote.
Morial talked about how housing, health care and education should
be black voters’ main agenda items. He also spoke about how
Russia suppressed the black vote thru 58,000,000 fake social
media postings. Russia has 300,000,000 followers that they
send daily fake information to. Voter registration and the
2020 Census will be the main agenda topics of the Urban
League for the next year.
Anthony Hamilton conducted a work shop on parts of his life and
back ground for some of his songs; Dapper Dan had a work
shop on why it is important to always dress well; Slutty
Vegan owner Pinky Cole spoke about how she uses social media
to build business for her restaurant and presidential
candidates held two forums to discuss equality and leveling
the playing field for all citizens.
Candidates in attendance were Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Mayor Bill de
Blasio, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, writer
Ami Horowitz, Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. John Delaney, Sen. Amy
Klobuchar, former Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Tim
Ryan.
During the candidates presentations Kamala Harris raised the
points that kids who have two or more black teachers are 38
percent more likely to attend college and that home
ownership is the key to building a middle class. She also
discussed how Russia has used racism to divide our country.
She feels that our country is so divided that things are
going to get very nasty around the 2020 election
There was a Shark Tank event for young adults to present their
business or business plan using social media. The businesses
presented were prison mail from families, entertainment,
construction virtual soft ware, transportation of goods,
cultural events, travel guide, social affairs, and women
programs, emergency loans, food server. The business that
won the $11,500 grand prize was a web site that gave
information about after school programs and latch key kids.
Coke Cola also sponsored a shark tank type event were there were
three prizes totaling $10,000. Isiah Thomas, former all-star
basketball player, was one of the judges and gave a
presentation about his new business, Isiah International,
LLC.
The four days of the convention were packed with panel
discussions on subjects such as school choice, disparities
in health care, the 2020 census, the power of the
black/brown vote, the racial wealth gap, among others.
The Urban League Convention ended with a Family and Community Day
where several thousand local families came to the convention
center for fun, games, prizes, and gifts. Thousand of kids
got free back packs filled with school supplies. There were
exercise contests with bikes as prizes, hustle contest,
wobble contest, etc. The crowd was mostly black but there
were a visible number of white and Hispanic families. |
