The Milwaukee Urban League (MUL), an affiliate of the National Urban League, was founded in 1919 and is devoted to empowering African Americans and other people of color to be more self-reliant. The nonprofit organization offers youth and adult programs designed to help Milwaukeeans achieve civil rights and social and economic equality. Ralph Hollmon, president and CEO of MUL, will retire at the end of 2016. He spoke with Off the Cuff about the Urban League’s accomplishments during his tenure and future goals for the organization.
In your 14 of years running the Milwaukee Urban League, how have you seen the lives of African Americans in Milwaukee change?
It’s really sort of a mixed situation. On the one hand, over my tenure, I have seen the lives of some African Americans improve rather significantly. Whether you’re talking about young people realizing their dream to go to college, that other people have been helped to find gainful, family supporting employment, or entrepreneurs and business people that have been helped and greatly stabilized and improved their businesses. When I look at those things, I can say there’s been some fairly significant improvement for those individuals. However my frustration is that we do have a significant number of people in our community that have not had improvements in the quality of their life … In spite of our progress, we still have too much poverty, too much crime; we still have too much unemployment, especially with African American males. So in spite of our accomplishments, there’s still a lot of work yet to be done.
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What are some of the Urban League’s proudest accomplishments during your tenure?
This has been a team effort. Everything that we have accomplished, it’s been because of outstanding board members, a great staff and the generosity of the philanthropic business and corporate community. With that being said, I’m pleased that we’ve been able to improve the overall financial conditions of the Urban League. We’re very, very pleased with our efforts to help thousands of young people realize their dream of attending college. And lastly, I’m extremely proud that we were able to partner with the real estate development company Gorman & Co. Inc. to develop the Dr. Wesley L. Scott Senior Living Community Center.
What is on the agenda for the Urban League of Milwaukee for the next five or 10 years?
We’re going to be focusing on our financial stability, which will give us the foundation to work on some of our most pressing issues, those being poverty, crime and unemployment, just to name a few top priorities. That’s absolutely critical. The other thing that we’re going to be doing is looking at how we can partner with other organizations and local units of government to deal with some of the thorny, difficult issues that continue to plague this community.
Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. What do you feel the city or the state could do to help desegregate Milwaukee?
That’s not an easy question to answer. As I said before, nothing we’ve been able to accomplish has been done by one person or by ourselves. It’s been done in partnership and we’re grateful for it. We need to support state government, local government and the private sector if we are going to be successful in dealing with some of the tough issues.
If we can close the income gap, it’s going to give people an opportunity to be more mobile and have more options for housing and where they live. The other thing that I think is very important is to improve our transportation system. Right now a lot of the good-paying jobs are in outlying or suburban areas. They are not in the core, in the heart of the city where a lot of the people who are unemployed live. Without having a good, efficient transportation system, it’s very difficult, if not impossible, for people to get to those jobs. If people can get to those jobs and have incomes to not only take care of their families but to afford quality housing, you may have some people deciding that they want to locate in the outlying areas or the suburban areas. That’s going to be a big factor in terms of reducing segregation.
Can you tell our readers about the Urban League’s major event, the Black & White Ball?
On Saturday, June 11, we’re having our 31st annual Black & White Ball. A champagne reception starts off the evening along with some great hors d’oeuvres. We have a silent auction with some wonderful items this year. Then we’re going to have a very fabulous dinner and a short program. During the program, one of the things I want to do is have a “Mortgage Burning Ceremony.” As I retire, one of my goals was to retire the debt on the building. I want to pay off our building so that when the new president/CEO comes in, this will be one less thing that he or she will have to worry about. Then we’re going to have the national recording artist Tony Tono Tone’ perform. After the entertainment, we will have a post-ball reception where people can dance, mingle and hang out.
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The Ball is important for two primary reasons. It is Milwaukee Urban League’s largest annual fundraiser and even though we get grants and great corporate support, we still need to do fundraisers to help support our overall operation and our mission. The second thing is the Ball brings a very diverse cross section of the community together—people that ordinarily would not come in contact with each other. You will see the rich diversity that lives in this community. We’ve found over the years that bringing people together in a social, non-threatening event where they can be relaxed and relate to each other has been tremendous in terms of people networking, connecting with each other, and breaking down walls and barriers.
What will you miss most when you retire from the Urban League?
I think I’m going to miss community service. Service is in my blood. Service is in my DNA. Throughout my career, in one form or another, I have been serving individuals or serving the broader community, so that is one thing that I am definitely going to miss as I move into retirement. But as I’ve said to a number of people, I am going to be retiring from the Urban League, but I’m not going to be retiring from community service. So my wife and I are not going to relocate. This is our home; we’re going to stay in Milwaukee.
Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I want to leave our young people with two messages. I want all of our young people to understand that we’re in a global, very competitive society now. So it is important for them to listen to their parents, teachers and significant adults. It’s important for them to learn as much as they possibly can. The second thing is just as important, if not more important. I want to urge young people to be very careful about the decisions that they make. Young people should not make decisions when they’re angry or when they’re emotionally upset. Young people have to understand that the decisions they make today, good or bad, can have an impact on the rest of their life.
To learn about the Milwaukee Urban League, call 414-374-5850 or visit tmul.org.
