THE BETTER WE KNOW US
A desire to make abailable to all
families to bare essentials of life
has perhaps been the underlined
motivation and source of strength
of Mrs. Evelyn Williams Mc-
Kissick as she performs her duties
as Chairman of The Soul City
Sanitary District. Assisting the
residents in her district to have
adequate clean water, proper
sewage and garbage disposal,
adequate fire protection, and
sound accounting and fiscal poHcy
has been a dream realized by
Commissioner McKissick.
At Soul City, the Sanitary
District is the first unit of local
government and is charged with
the responsibility of providing
municipal services. At the present
time, the Sanitary District is
engaged in the installation of
water and sewer in Soul City's
first residential subdivision at a
cost of over $140,000.00. In the
past under the dedicated and tire
less leadership of Mrs. McKissick,
the Sanitary District has establish
ed a solid waste collection system,
erected an elevated water and
storage tank with a holding capa
city of 250,000 gallons, installed
initial water and sewer lines.
established an accounting and
fiscal policy, and completed con
struction of the Industrial Fire
Protection System.
The citizens of Henderson and
Oxford have bothe profited from
the planning, initiative, pro
gramming, and leadership exerted
by The Soul City Sanitary District
insecuring a $12 million govern
mental grant for the construction
of the Kerr Lake Regional Water
System. The Mayor of Oxford
expressed the following to Soul
City on the occasion of Soul City's
official groundbreaking.
"Looking back over the past two
years at the untiring efforts which
I have seen you and your associat
es give to bring about the Regional
Water System for the City of
Henderson, Soul City, and the City
of Oxford, I can truly appreciate
the great sense of satisfaction
which will be yours on this
momentous occasion. On behalf of
the people of the City of Oxford, I
congratulate you on the culmina
tion of a magnificent idea into a
reality.
With these congratulations, I
would again like to express our
sincere appreciation and gratitude
to you for your relentless endea
vors toward our common goal in
the development of the Regional
Water System, which system has
terminated an acute problem
plaguing Oxford and Henderson
for the past many years. Without
your guidance and support this
joint venture would never have
reached maturity."
Mrs. McKissick is a native of
Asheville and in 1942 married
Attorney Floyd B. McKissick, and
they are the parents of four child
ren; Joycelyn M. Myers, Andree
M. Julian, Floyd B. McKissick, Jr.
and Charmaine McKissick. Mrs.
McKissick became concerned
about the living conditions of
people in the early part of her life
and for over 25 years she has been
involved in the struggle for civil
rights, better living conditions,
education and guidance for the
youth, and many other programs
that are designed to assit un
educated, unskilled, unemployed,
underemployed, and underprivi-
ledge people.
Prior to coming to Soul City,
Mrs. McKissick was intimately in
volved in the Community pro
grams in Durham, where she
worked with the Durham Com
mittee on Negro Affairs; The
Durham Recreational Department;
The Union Baptist Church Youth
Program; The NAACP-Core
Chapter and with the Durham Pre-
School Educational Program which
resulted in the present Operation
Breakthrough Program in Durham
For about six years Mrs. McKiss
ick and the family lived in New
York, and gave valuable assis
tance to her husband who was
then National Director of CORE.
During the summers of 1970,
1971, and 1972, Mrs. McKissick
headed a summer Educational
Enrichment Program for children
4-14 in the Soul city area. This
project assisted by The American
Friends Society was funded by the
Economic Development Corpora
tion and was designed to provided
recreation, tours, arts, crafts,
drama, dancing, and counseling
for about 100 children. The pro
grams have been labeled very
successful and beneficial to the
long range planning of Soul City.
Mrs. McKissick, an inspiration
to an aspiring community, is this
kind of leader with whom we all
should be familar---for the better
we know her, THE BETTER WE
KIVOW US.
TRIBUNAL AID
VOLUME rv, NO. 8 WEDNESDAY, JULY 28,1976
$6.00 PER YEAR
2f> CENTS
MEMBER: "Ijorth Carolina Black Publishers Assooiation
North (iarolina Press Association. Inc.
A VIABLE, VALID REQUIREMENT
RESPONDING TO
BLACK NORTH CAROLINA
The 1976 Kditions of THE TRIBUNAL AID will
b(‘ lo America’s bicentennial Cele
bration. with emphasis on contributions our Race
has made in the making of America, from
birth to the present.
In 1976 there should not be a need to lift these
contributions from isolated sources. Our past
should ne interwoven into the fabric of our ci
vilization. bt'cause we are, except for the Indian,
America's oldest ethnic minority.
e have help‘d make America what it was.
and >\hat it i.^. since the founding of Virginia.
have been a factor in many major issues in
our history. There have been many misdeeds
against us. yet \\v have been able to live through
lh(‘ni and fight back. This is living proof of our
history.
Our role in the making of America is neither
Wi ll kno\uj or correctly known. Many positive
contributions have escaped historians and have
not found their wav into lh‘ pages of many
historv books.
\X e >\ill strive to giv- read‘rs. Klack and
\\hit‘. many littl(*-kno\\n fa(*ts about our past
and it is hopiMi that a propt-r perspective ot our
lilstor\ will be of valu* t» persons uho may
b’li‘\e that as Black peopU* w«‘ have an un-
\^orthy past: and ht*nce, no strong claims li»
all rights of oth'r Americans.
Faye Ashe. Black History Editor
WHITNEY YOUNG JR.; JULY 31, 1931-MARCH !1, 1971
WHITNEY YOUNG, JR. was unjust
ly called "WHITNEY YOUNG" on
occasion, because of his approach to
the problems of of racial injustice.
But Whitney Young carved out a
major role for himself and his agency
in the civil rights struggle despite the
fact that he never appeared on a pic
ket line, never was arrested, and
never served a jail sentence. His
growing influence in the Black strug
gle for equality is owing in no small
measure to the new look he gave the
NATIONAL URBANE LEAGUE. A
venerable social work agency that
some Blacks have accused in the past
of being "White-controlled" and "too
slow in producing results".
Under Whitney Young's aggres
sive adminstration, the League broad
ened its approach, expanded its
services, and launched new programs
aimed at providing equal opportunity
for Blacks in employment, education,
housing, health, and welfare.
Whitney Young, Jr. was born July
31, 1921 in Lincoln Ridge Kentucky.
His father was President of Lincoln
Institute, a boarding high school for
Blacks. Young was inspired by his
mother, a former teacher. In a secure
environment, removed from the racial
trauma that most of his Black con
temporaries suffered, with his two
sisters, Young was raised in Lincoln
Ridge and at the age of fourteen he
graduated from the school his father
headed. He attended Kentucky State
College and achieved many accom
plishments. He was president of the
senior class and a member of the
basketball team, and graduated at the
age of nineteen. His desire to become
a physician was not to become a real
ity after he became ill with a case of
double pneumonia which consumed
his savings. He had no choice but to
fall back on teaching. When the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the
idea of medical school and a medical
career burned briefly for a second
time. The United States had estab
lished the Army Specialized Training
Program (ASTP), which afforded an
opportunity to study medicine.
Young gladly vlunteered for service.
He applied for entry into the nation's
two Black medical schools. Both were
full and would be until 1946.
Instead of medical school. Young
went to study engineering at Mass
achusetts Institute of Technology.
Two years later he was sent to Europe
as a private with the 369th Regiment,
Anti-Aircraft Artillery Group, a Black
Company with a white Southern
Captain. He was assigned to road
building rather than combat, but he
did fight in the Battle of the Bulge.
Because of his experiences in the
Army, Young decided to get into the
field of Race Relations because of the
problems he saw there.
He enrolled in the University of
Minnesota for graduate study and
was awarded his M.A. degree in
Social Work in 1947. The subject of
his thesis had been the history of St.
Paul Urban League and in 1947 he
joined the league as director of Indus
trial Relations and Vocational Gui
dance. He supervised the field work
of Atlanta University and the Univer
sity of Minnesota Social Work
students.
In 1950, Young moved to Omaha,
Nebraska to accept the position of
Executive Secretary of the Omaha
Urban League. His responsibilities
included teaching group and commu
nity organization as an instructor at
the School of Social Work of the
University of Nebraska from 1950 to
1954.
Feeling an obligation to be in the
South during a difficult stage in the
struggle for integreation he went to
Georgia in 1954 to become Dean of
the School of Social Work of Atlanta
University. He served there until he
accepted his office in the NATIONAL
URBAN LEAGUE on August 1, 1961.
As executive director of the Nation
al Urban League, Young headed a
professional biracial Social Work
Agency founded in 1910, with a pro
fessional staff of 500 that is supported
mainly by community chest in the
seventy cities in which it has offices.
The budget was $300,000 upon
Young's arrival. Within his first year
as national director that figure
doubled. Young's army experience
had taught him two vital lessons. One
was that if you wanted to deal with
big organizations you get to the top
men as quickly as possible. The other
was that when you had something the
top man wanted, you were in the posi
tion to bargin for what you wanted in
return.
Whitney Young moved in on big
industry. Time, Inc., International
Business Machines, Ford, American
Telephone and Telegraph, and Kaiser
Industries were ranking targets. He
persuaded their head men that it was
in the best interests of their organi
zations to join together with him in
forming his Corporate Support
Committee. Getting the nation's top
industrial leaders interested in the
Black, urban, employable (but
unemployed) Americans was a worthy
move in a postive direction. He won
friends for the League, friends with
money and power. Six years after he
became the League's number one
man TIME in recognition of his
achievements in the business commu
nity, invited him to join in a twelve-
day tour of Eastern Europe with
twenty-five business executives. He
thought at first that he was invited
merely as a "showpiece" abroad. But
before the tour ended he had been
offered several corporation Vice-
Presidencies. What pleased Young
most, however, was that from those
twenty-five executives he was able to
secure fifty thousand jobs for Black
workers. And just to ice the cake he
received a check from Henry Ford II
for $100,000. Young used the money
and similarly given monies to enlarge
the League's National program.
The goal of the League is "to
elimate racial segregation and discri
mination in American life; and to give
guidance and help to Blacks so that
they may share equally the responsi
bilities and rewards of citizenship".
Young's leadership is credited with
accelerating League programs to
open up opportunities in new fields
for Blacks. One of his most con
troversial proposals was for a
"DOMESTIC MARSHALL PLAN" for
Black Americans, to make up for the
long years of deprivation they suffer
ed. In an article for the NEW YORK
TIMES MAGAZINE (October 6, 1963)
Mr. Young spelled out his programs
and cited statistics indicating the
need for a "crash program" to close
the economic, social, and educational
gap between white and Black citizens.
Young's program called for a mass
attack on educational,
providing for special job training and
placement programs, elimating
ghettoes, and offering increased
services "to help Negro families deve
lop a deeper sense of parental and
community responsibility". Assert
ing that "for more than 300 years the
White American has received special
consideration or preferential treat
ment over the Negro", Young
Continued on Page 2
1776 Honoring America s Bicentennial 1976
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