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Marc H. Morial

    President and CEO, National Urban League

 It is with great pleasure that I introduce our friend, the Hon. Marc Morial, as the new President and CEO of the National Urban League.

Marc, 45, is the former two-term mayor of New Orleans and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

 Marc is a dynamic leader who has made indisputable accomplishment in civil rights, programs for youth, revitalizing urban neighborhoods and building urban economies.

 As the New Orleans chief executive, he was one of the most popular and effective mayors in the city's history, leaving office with a 70 percent approval rating. 

 After being elected as one of the youngest mayors in the city's history, crime plummeted by 60 percent, a corrupt police department was reformed, new programs for youth were started, and a stagnant economy was re-energized. 

 Under Morial's watch, 7,000 new hotel rooms were added, and 15,000 new homeowners resulted from his progressive and innovative programs. 

In his final months in office, he orchestrated the return of the NBA to New Orleans, with the relocation of the Hornets from Charlotte to New Orleans.

Prior to first being elected Mayor in 1994, Morial also served two-years in the Louisiana State Senate where he was recognized as ‘Conservationist Senator of the Year,’ ‘Education Senator of the Year’ and ‘Legislative Rookie of the Year.’

Earlier, Marc Morial was a lawyer in private practice. He was  involved in many high profile cases, for which the Louisiana Bar Association honored him in 1988 with its Pro Bono Publico Award. 

Among these was the U.S. Supreme Court case of Chisom vs. Roemer, that established that the Voting Rights Act applied to the election of judges.  This decision led to the election of the first African-American judge in Louisiana history.

He earned a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1983 and a Bachelor's degree in Economics and African-American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1980.  In 2002, Xavier University awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. 

Marc Morial is the son of the late Ernest N. "Dutch" Morial, New Orleans' first Black Mayor, and Sybil Morial, a teacher and university administrator.  He is the father of a 21-year old daughter, Kemah, who is a junior at Tufts University.  He is married to news anchor Michelle Miller and together they have a son, Mason, who was born in April, 2002.

Some years ago, I had the privilege of working with Marc and the National Urban League in Louisiana, and I am proud to say that he made me an honorary citizen of New Orleans.  

-- Max

Guest Columnist, To Be Equal

Reviving America’s Spirit of Optimism      

By Marc H. Morial

          President and CEO, National Urban League

            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.

Of course, I wasn’t the first African-American to hold that position.  My late father, Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial, was Mayor of New Orleans for two terms from 1977 to 1986.

Yes, thankfully, there were many factors during the decades of the twentieth century which helped make it possible for my father and me to hold such positions, and for my mother, Sybil Morial, an educator, to have been so involved in the broad civic life of our home city and state. 

 But there’s no question that I owe a great deal to the long, diligent work of the National Urban League in readying African Americans for full citizenship—and in readying White Majority America for the full participation of African Americans in our nation’s stewardship.

 And there’s no question, either, that now the full participation of all Americans in our country’s civic life is more critical than ever.

 The United States faces a crisis on several fronts that was unimaginable just a few short years ago. 

 This week we’ve had fresh, tragic evidence that the murderous intent of some to plunge the world into a whirlwind of violence has not abated, and thus, the global war against terrorism, and the anxiety and uncertainties that attend it, will  continue.

 We’ve also had fresh evidence that the economic downturn in this country is threatening to grow sharper and widen the gaps that exist in access to capital for business development, and in access to quality education, decent housing, and affordable health care, to name just a few pressing needs. 

 Even though the alarming statistics on the number of jobs the economy has lost, the number of Americans who are out of work and the number of Americans who are so frustrated they’ve stopped looking for work have been submerged by war news, those realities remain, sapping the economic and spiritual strength of the nation. 

 And we’ve also had fresh evidence recently that the struggle for equal opportunity for all Americans continues. 

 The University of Michigan affirmative action case now before the U.S. Supreme Court is a fundamental barometer of whether the nation will continue without interruption its just expansion of the boundaries of opportunity. 

 As Americans from all walks of life—from university students to Fortune 500 chief executives to retired top military brass—have said in unprecedented fashion recently, the nation cannot afford to try to halt the racial progress that’s been made. 

 To pretend that affirmative action has not been a vital cause of that progress is just that—pretense. 

 I sought to become head of the National Urban League for the same reasons I entered politics in Louisiana:  Because I believe we can make life better for all Americans.  I believe we must make life better for all Americans.

 That belief hardly originated with me, or with my parents.  Indeed, the original slogan the founders of the Urban League devised in 1910—“Not Alms, but Opportunity”—spoke volumes. 

 It declared that a hand up, not a hand-out was what African-American migrants then flooding the cities from the rural South needed in order to adapt to the ways of modern urban life and contribute their fair share to America’s greatness. 

 The founders of the National Urban League had the foresight, and the faith in their fellow human beings, to see that that was the route to progress. 

 And they understood what the great scientist Albert Einstein once noted—that in every crisis there is opportunity. 

 They were confident then that African Americans could overcome the profound barriers that held them from full participation in American life; they were determined that they would.

 Now, as then, the National Urban League will be part of the mosaic of people and organizations that will improve the quality of life in the United States. 

 We are as confident as our predecessors were of America’s ability to overcome the multiple challenges that confront us today, and we fully intend to use our energies to help corral the expertise that exists within America and revive the characteristic American spirit of optimism to reinvigorate for the 21^st century the national commitment to expanding opportunity.

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Editor's Note: The Urban League is the nation's oldest and largest community-based movement empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream. The National Urban League, headquartered in New York City, spearheads the nonprofit, nonpartisan movement, while Urban League affiliates operate in more than 100 cities in 34 states and the District of Columbia.