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by Bernard E. Anderson, Ph.D.

Senior Economic Advisor, National Urban League, and  Whitney M Young, Jr. Professor Emeritus, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

By Jarrad Henderson, USA TodayNew Jersey leaders try to address the inequities that allowed COVID-19 to hit parts of Essex County harder than communities that have more whites.

The arc of Timuel Black Jr.’s life is long, covering most of the 20th century and all we've seen of the 21st. Along the way, the 102-year-old labor organizer, educator, author and freedom fighter has witnessed pivotal events in American and African American history.

As an infant, he survived the 1918 influenza pandemic. He was part of the Great Migration, which brought his family north from Alabama to Chicago. As an Army soldier in World War II, he battled both Hitler abroad and segregation at home. During the civil rights movement, he led a contingent to the 1963 March on Washington.

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About a quarter of participants in Operation Fresh Start end up with a career in the trades after learning construction skills in a program that also leads to a high school diploma.

The rest use the experience to take other career directions.

Operation Fresh Start serves disconnected, low-income young people ages 16 to 24 in Dane County and guides them toward self-sufficiency through mentoring, education and employment training. Operation Fresh Start graduates earn their high school diploma and driver’s license and go on to continue their education or find self-sustaining employment.

About 75 percent of Operation Fresh Start students are people of color.

David Wright, 17, said he is one of the program participants who plans to continue in construction.

“I was never big on sitting in a classroom all day and looking at a board,” he said. “This job fits perfectly into what I want to go into.”

More than 3,500 families in the St. Louis, Missouri, area received food, toiletries and personal protective equipment on Martin Luther King Jr. Day thanks to a partnership of Latter-day Saint Charities and the Urban League of Metropolitan Saint Louis, Inc. (St. Louis, MO).

During the three-hour event in Florissant, Missouri, cars moved from station to station as volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the community and the National Guard helped load trunks with the supplies. Latter-day Saint Charities provided 40,000 pounds of food that was repackaged and distributed by the volunteers.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Urban League has redoubled its commitment to providing the basic needs of food and toiletries, utilities, rent and mortgage assistance and employment services to its clients. 

Urban League of Greater Chattanooga (Chattanooga, TN) and community partners launched the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, an annual initiative that provides free tax preparation for qualifying individuals and families throughout the greater Chattanooga region.

 “The VITA program is critical for individuals and families who would otherwise face significant difficulties navigating the tax process,” said Urban League President and CEO, Candy Johnson. “We know tax preparation can be very confusing to navigate, particularly for our disadvantaged residents. We deeply appreciate our community partners and dedicated volunteers for assisting thousands of individuals and families through what can be a daunting process.”