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                     Whitney M. Young

   Born July 31, 1921 in Lincoln Ridge, KY, Whitney Moore Young, Jr. would go on to become one of America's most memorable civil rights leaders during the 1960's. Before all of that, he'd recieve his Bachelor's of Science degree from Kentucky State College, in 1941. Earn his Master's of the Arts from Univ of Minnesota in 1947. Upon completion of his education, he served the Urban Leagues of St. Paul, MN and Omaha, NE in several different ways. By 1954, Mr Young became Dean of the School of Social Work at Atlanta University.

After 1960-1961, when Whitney was studying at Harvard, he was named executive director of the National Urban League. Though, mostly a welfare agency concerned with assimilating migrant African Americans from the South, it was Whitney Moore Young, Jr. who'd transform the National Urban League into the major civil rights organization it became. Around 1963, Young suggested a system of preferential treatment for African Americans be implemented, rather than equalizing of oppotunities, to make up for centuries of  the deliberate deprivation of African Americans. This would become his "Domestic Marshall Plan", named after the Marshall Plan of WWII to rehabilitate war-torn Europe. Of interesting note, Young's "Domestic Marshall Plan" could quite possibly be the foundation upon which "affirmative action" aka 1965's Executive Order 11246 was built. No concrete evidence to support this notion was found, during research of this memorial writing, but the dates and ideas add up.

With Young's leadership, the National Urban League recieved numerous pbulic/gov't grants and private donations for prjects like job training, open housing, minority executive recruitment, and "street academies" to help high school drop outs earn thier GED's or high school diplomas.

1967, Young was appointed to an American team to oversee elections in Vietnam, by President Johnson. 1969, he'd recieve the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Nixon. His books "To Be Equal" (1964) and "Beyond Racism"(1969) both outline his plans for integration of African Americans into white society. Whitney Moore Young, Jr. died March 11, in Lagos, Nigeria.