Despite daunting statistics and decades upon decades of struggles, Teddy McDaniel sees cause for optimism in his nonprofit’s continuing campaign for economic empowerment for Black people and other underserved minority groups.

McDaniel is President and CEO of the Urban League of Central Carolinas (Charlotte, NC). The local organization is one of 90 affiliates of the National Urban League, headquartered in New York. Charlotte’s branch opened in 1978.

As for those statistics: Unemployment remains significantly higher across the board for Black and Hispanic people, before and during the pandemic. According to federal labor statistics, in 2020 unemployment among white residents in North Carolina was 6.4%. It was 8.6% for Hispanic residents and 9.6% among Black residents.

Candy Johnson grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Clarksville, Tennessee, where she thought she would always live and one day become mayor.

By age 25, Johnson was elected to the Clarksville City Council in 2008 as the youngest council member ever elected in the city after working as a City Hall intern while at Austin Peay State University and defending her hometown neighborhood from attempts to take over what the city deemed a "blighted neighborhood" by eminent domain.

"I learned a lot about advocacy, activism and the fight to preserve neighborhoods that were gentrified and how you could grow together," she said.

Those traits remain with Candy Johnson in her new role as President and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga (Chattanooga, TN).

On Monday, Lourdes Hospital, in partnership with the Broome County Urban League (Binghamton, NY) and the Southern Tier Cancer Services Program held mobile cancer screenings in honor of Black History Month.

The Mammogram mobile was parked at Vision Federal Credit Union's parking lot in Johnson City across from Walmart. 

Representatives from Lourdes said they wanted to make mammograms available for anyone, especially at a time where patients may be putting off getting screened due to covid.

They stress the significance of hosting outreach events and the mammogram mobile.

"Having these mobile resources serves the community in a really unique way -- so many members of the community have difficulty in transportation and that's one of the key reasons people don't get the help that they need. By going to them, we take that problem out of the way," explained Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Sterns of Lourdes.

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