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Whitney M. Young, Jr., Executive Director of the National Urban League, dies in Nigeria.
1971 (Mar 11)
Whitney M. Young, Jr., Executive Director of the National Urban League, died in Nigeria. Young and a group of other Americans, white and Black, were in Lagos attending a Black American conference designed to bridge the gap between Africans and Americans. Young drowned while swimming with a party that included former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Young left his position as Dean of the School of Social Work at Atlanta University in 1961 to become head of the nation's leading Black economic and social reform agency. He made the organization more effective and increased its influence. During the height of the civil rights era, Young became, with Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy Wilkins, and James Farmer, one of the movement's "Big Four" leaders. President Nixon expressed personal sorrow at the news of Young's death, commenting, "I have lost a friend, Black America has lost a gifted and commanding champion of its just cause."
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.