Former Mayor Raises Political Profile of the National Urban League

In choosing Marc H. Morial as its president, the National Urban League — long known for its programs around the country that offer African-Americans job training, housing services, business advice, and other help — has made a bid to become more of a political force.

Mr. Morial, 45, was elected mayor of New Orleans in 1994, after two years as a Lousiania state senator and before that working as a lawyer whose victories included a Supreme Court voting-rights case that benefited minority judges. His mayoralty lasted two terms, including a stint as president of the United States Conference of Mayors. Mr. Morial’s bid to change the city charter so he could run for a third term failed, and he returned to his law practice before being recruited last month to head the league, whose headquarters are in New York.

Mr. Morial never applied for the job, once held by two of his heroes: civil-rights leaders Whitney M. Young Jr. and Vernon E. Jordan Jr. “You don’t seek the presidency of the National Urban League,” he says. “You don’t run for it. You don’t covet it. It has to covet you.”

The son of New Orleans’s first black mayor, the late Ernest N. Morial, and Sybil H. Morial, an administrator at Xavier University of Louisiana, in New Orleans, Mr. Morial grew up attending political rallies, voter-registration drives, and meetings of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mr. Morial, a Democrat, says he and his four siblings were instilled with a passion to improve the lots of others. He says he was taught, “If you’re not living life with a purpose, you’re not living life.”

While mayor, Mr. Morial received praise for reorganizing the city’s Police Department, a decline in crime, and improvements made to the city’s infrastructure, including updating the airport and refurbishing playgrounds. He is also credited with starting many new programs for young people. At the same time, critics have lambasted Mr. Morial for awarding too many city contracts to close associates, a charge he dismisses as “an attack on affirmative action.”

In November, Hugh B. Price, a former vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, stepped down from the National Urban League presidency after nine years. With the organization in the last year of a five-year strategic plan, the board will work closely with Mr. Morial to outline new goals. On an annual budget of $40-million, the national office provides leadership to 105 affiliates that carry out programs in civil rights, economic opportunity, education, and technology.

Mr. Morial was chosen in part because the board wants the group to stake out a more visible role in setting a policy agenda for the nation, says Charles J. Hamilton Jr., a New York lawyer who chaired the search committee. Policies on education, health, housing and community development, and racism are among those that Mr. Morial says he might weigh in on.

“He knows how to go to Washington, he knows how to walk the halls, he knows how to work with major agencies as well as the legislative branch,” Mr. Hamilton says. “We’ve got someone who really understands how to both be an advocate and to deliver on the advocacy.”

In an interview, Mr. Morial discussed his new position.

What was it about this job that appealed to you, and what do you hope to accomplish?

This provides me with an opportunity that I have passion for, and that is working for people, working on behalf of cities, working to deal with the issues of opportunity, equality, and disadvantage in American life. That is what my passion has always been, and this is my chance to continue it.

What I hope to do is build our Washington presence and our advocacy presence on public-policy issues. We have a presence in Washington through our Institute for Opportunity and Equality. We think we have a unique role to play in research, in cultivating the scholarship of public-policy issues as they affect African-Americans, as they affect people of economic disadvantage, as they affect American cities, and I’m really excited about the opportunity to do that.

What are you doing to interest young people in the league?

It’s a question of connecting with the issues that young people are concerned about. They’re concerned about economic issues. They’re concerned about their careers. They’re concerned about improving themselves. They’re concerned about issues of equality and economic opportunity in urban life, and justice issues.

We have a new generation that has been the beneficiary of civil rights and affirmative action. Things we take for granted weren’t always there, and so we have a great thirst among young people to be involved civically, to be involved in bettering things for themselves and their posterity.

We have a veteran membership that’s waged many, many battles. And because we’ve had significant changes in American life, it presents challenges to any organization like ours that played such a pivotal role in these changes that you find a way to honor tradition, but not become wrapped in nostalgia.

How has the mandate for groups that help African-Americans changed since the civil-rights battles of the last century?

We remain guardians and we also remain, on many issues, the conscience of this nation. But secondly, it is more obvious than ever before that the defining issues of opportunity, disadvantage, and equality in America are economic. They are issues like access to health care, the affordability of housing, one’s ability to be able to afford to educate their children and themselves, access to quality schools. Those are to me the issues of the 21st century. It’s the continuing gap.

I view equality as — and we’re going to advance this notion — a core American value, not just a fleeting issue of the 1960s and ‘70s, but a core American value like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to privacy. If you’re committed to equality as a core American value, that means that you continue to work for more equity and more equality and more opportunity for all people.

What did you learn as mayor that you can apply to your new job?

There’s no end to the problems that we can solve when you have people of good will putting their best forward. And to address problems requires a multifaceted approach. You have to be savvy about public policy, you have to know how to run good programs, you have to organize effectively to raise money.

I don’t believe that government has all the answers. But then I don’t believe the nonprofit sector has all the answers. If you could pull them together almost like an orchestra or like a good jazz combo, you could make some beautiful music and make a difference.

How do you think government views nonprofit organizations?

Sometimes old-time bureaucrats may look at community-based groups as being incapable or fledgling. I think the newer way of being is to see community-based groups as a way to do a lot of good work more efficiently and in a less costly fashion.

Some observers wonder whether your political ambitions may make for a short tenure at the league.

I have no plans to run for political office again at this time. I made a conscious decision to adjust my career plan. I’m not saying I’ll never run again, but I’m saying I have no plans at the present. Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve given my all. When I was mayor, I worked long hours, many days and nights, and I made that commitment to the National Urban League. It’s a labor of love.

ABOUT MARC H. MORIAL, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE

Education: Earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and African-American studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1980. Earned a law degree from Georgetown University in 1983.

Previous employment: Joined the law firm of Adams and Reese in 2002; served as mayor of New Orleans for two terms, from 1994 to 2002. President of the United States Conference of Mayors in 2001 and 2002; served as Louisiana state senator in 1992 and 1993. Mr. Morial worked as a lawyer before going into politics, including playing a key role in the 1991 United States Supreme Court case Chisom v. Roemer, which established that the Voting Rights Act can be applied to the election of judges.

Hobbies: An athlete and avid sports spectator, Mr. Morial especially enjoys boxing, football, horse racing, and tennis. He is a fan of every style of music except country.

What he is currently reading: We as Freemen: Plessy v. Ferguson, by Keith Weldon Medley, about the 1896 Supreme Court case upholding segregation.