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Urban League of Pittsburgh formed to assist black migrant workers
Tuesday, February 27, 2001
Soon after its creation in 1915, the Pittsburgh Council for Social Services wrote to the National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes for advice on providing services to African-American migrant workers coming to the city. The league, which became the National Urban League, sent John T. Clark to develop recommendations.
Black migrant workers were confronted with crowded and unsanitary living conditions, hostility and suspicion from white people who knew little about them, and enormous culture shock in adjusting from the agricultural South to the urban North. University of Pittsburgh student Abraham Epstein documented their problems in a study that paved the way for the establishment of an Urban League.
On Feb. 12, 1918, with Clark as executive secretary, the Urban League of Pittsburgh opened for business in a storefront on Wylie Avenue in the Hill District. Clark's first priority was helping African-Americans find jobs. He urged local steel mills to hire African-American social workers to help the migrant workers adjust to the industrial workplace.
During his years here, Clark fought against racism and discrimination. He criticized newspapers for calling African-American women "negresses" and failing to employ African-American reporters. He worked to integrate railway cars, end discriminatory practices at Yellow Cab Co. and secure admission of African-Americans into trade unions.
Clark left Pittsburgh to start a new Urban League in St. Louis.
-- Excerpted from History Center's "Beyond Adversity" textbook by Patricia Pugh Mitchell
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