Building Alliances

This chapter traces the history of the National Urban League with a specific focus on Eugene Kinckle Jones's leadership. It covers the decade of the 1920s and the many issues that Jones and his contemporaries confronted, as social workers faced the dual challenge of adjusting their tactics to meet the growing needs of a black migrant population and establishing themselves as professionals. Ultimately, the duties of black social workers and the aims of the NUL included evaluating and reviewing settlement houses, in addition to other specific concerns of migrating blacks. Here, Jones made headway for the social-work movement by establishing professional training for black social workers, tackling the problem of housing to cope with the influx of black migrants from the South—among many other efforts on behalf of black social workers, which eventually made him one of the prominent social workers in America..