Chicago Urban League Opens Entrepreneurship and Workforce Center

When Chicago Urban League (Chicago, IL) President and CEO Karen Freeman-Wilson’s colleague told her the organization should respond to Walmart’s request for proposals to redevelop its Chatham site, Freeman-Wilson remembers balking at the idea.

“I’m like, ‘That big superstore?’” Freeman-Wilson said.

But what her colleague, Chicago Urban League Vice President Andrew Wells, was referring to was the smaller building next door: The 15,000-square-foot Walmart Academy the big-box retailer used as a training center.

“He went on and on about it,” Freeman-Wilson said. “And then we came and toured the building, and I said, ‘We have to reactivate this building for the community.’”

That’s what the Urban League did Friday (November 21st), hosting a ribbon-cutting for the organization’s new Empowerment Center that provides workforce development, entrepreneurship and youth programs. It also gives the Urban League another location, joining its main office in Bronzeville.

The Urban League’s mission is to ensure Black Chicagoans have equitable opportunities across education, employment, homeownership and more, in an effort to create vibrant neighborhoods and generational wealth.

The organization’s “State of Black Chicago” report, released in June 2023, highlighted several disparities between Black and white residents in the city. For example, white residents’ median household income is more than double that of Black residents on average.

Chicago Urban Leauge board chair Suzet McKinney said the Empowerment Center is a new chapter of its mission, serving an area where more than 83% of residents are of low- to moderate-income. The center will allow the organization to expand its reach beyond the 15,000 residents it serves annually.

The Urban League served more than 6,300 job seekers and business owners in 2023 through its workforce and entrepreneurship programs. In Chatham, more than 600 residents have used the Urban League’s services over the last five years, according to the organization.

Walmart’s donation of the former training center to the group was announced in June 2024. The retailer led a “competitive and thorough” selection process for the building.

Walmart’s donation — one of the largest in the Urban League’s history — includes classroom and meeting facilities, administrative furniture and training equipment for industries such as HVAC.

The center offers workforce training in new areas, including dental hygiene, artificial intelligence, electric vehicle infrastructure and electrification technology.

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