May 17, 2004, this coming Monday, is a school day, a work day.

Which is appropriate because the decision the U.S. Supreme Court handed up fifty years ago on the May 17 of 1954 in the landmark school segregation case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka set out a lesson a large number of the citizens and the state and local governments of the United States of America had long refused to learn.

And, today, albeit the wonderful progress made, American society is still a considerable distance from the end of the learning curve that would make the promise of Brown a reality.

Last week I became the beneficiary of a great privilege and responsibility:  I was appointed president and chief executive of the National Urban League.

Actually, I can say without hesitation that long before last week I was a beneficiary of the Urban League, too.

For its commitment since its founding ninety years ago to expanding opportunity for African Americans is part of the bedrock of progress which made it possible for me to aspire to, to compete for, and to serve for two years as a senator in the Louisiana state legislature, and then serve two four-year terms as the mayor of that great southern metropolis, New Orleans.