by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
The president and CEO of the National Urban League comes to town Wednesday for the local chapter’s annual meeting and he says the work being done here is a model for the nation.
“I talked about Jacksonville at our national meeting and I want to see the progress,” said Marc Morial by telephone from his New York City office. “We’ve selected Jacksonville as one of five test sites for our small business center, and we know we’ll see results.”
The former New Orleans mayor, who became president of the organization a year ago, said the goals here mirror the national goals.
“We want to encourage business development and home ownership,” he said. “That’s the only way to get people on the way to closing the wealth gap.”
The business center, to be called the Economic Empowerment Center, will serve as a “one-stop shop to counsel people on owning and operating a small business, with a focus on the minority community.”
It’s all part of the national economic agenda, he said, and he’ll speak about it Wednesday at the Jacksonville chapter’s luncheon at the Adam’s Mark Hotel.
Morial said his “Empowerment Agenda” covers such fundamental issues of importance to African-Americans and people of color as Education and Youth, Economic Empowerment, Health and Quality of Life, Civic Engagement, and Civil Rights and Racial Justice.
Morial served two terms as New Orleans mayor (1994-2002) and briefly practiced law before taking the National Urban League post. He was president of the United States Conference of Mayors in 2001-02.
The son of New Orleans’ first black mayor, Morial served in the Louisiana legislature before being elected mayor.
He earned his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center and also earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics and African American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
A self-described “sports nut” who in 2002 lured a National Basketball League to jump from Charlotte to New Orleans, he got a ticket to one of the Boston-New York baseball playoff games and said “I thought I had seen intensity in sports, but not until I saw that. Up here, people from Boston and New York hate each other during baseball season.”
And, he said, he hoped to visit with Jaguars Coach Jack Del Rio during his visit — Del Rio was an assistant coach in New Orleans while he was mayor.
Morial lauded the work of the local UL executive, Richard Danford, and singled out the League’s operation of the Jacksonville Head Start program, which he called “running a mini-school system.”
The two share more than Urban League posts — both are married to television anchors. Morial is married to Michelle Miller of New Orleans; Danford’s wife is Ch. 4’s Joyce Morgan.
Tickets for the luncheon are $75 with Patron tables at $750 and Sponsor tables at $1,500.
In addition to Morial’s speech, there will be the annual announcement of winners of the Whitney M. Young National Leadership Award and the Clanzel T. Brown Award.
More information is available at 366-3461.