Urban League planning a rebirth in Las Vegas

By Ed Koch (contact)

Sunday, April 16, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

After operating quietly for the last two years, the new local chapter of the Urban League is planning to make a big splash this summer.

The group plans to break ground on an $18 million publicly funded headquarters and community center on June 23 and then hold its first major fundraiser two days later at the Bellagio.

"It is our coming out party," said local Urban League Chairwoman Jackie Shropshire, a retired businesswoman who moved to Las Vegas six years ago and has spent 49 years supporting Urban League chapters nationwide.

Shropshire wants the group to take a strong leadership role in giving disadvantaged minorities in Las Vegas a leg up.

"There is a need here for social services that address education and helping more students pass the proficiency exam," she said. "There is a need to address health problems associated with AIDS, illegal drug use and diabetes. And, more and more, good jobs today require training that needs to be provided."

Founded in 1910, the Urban League is a community-based organization open to members of any race, with more than 100 chapters nationwide. The group helps blacks and other minorities move up the economic ladder. The local chapter has about 250 members.

A prior local chapter of the Urban League long struggled before it collapsed several years ago. The new chapter was established in March 2004, received its charter four months later and has been operating without fanfare since then.

The agency, currently operating out of the Nucleus Plaza at 1058 W. Owens Ave., played a key role in assisting victims of last summer's Gulf Coast storms in relocating to Las Vegas, collecting clothing, creating an adopt-a-family program and coordinated efforts with local nonprofits.

The organization currently operates four programs that help 200 clients and another - funded by its lone federal grant - that tutors about 100 students at the Agassi and Odyssey schools to increase their reading levels.

Its other programs are housing counseling to assist the poor in applying for rent subsidies, an entry-level computer course for job placement, a computer skills program to train injured workers for new jobs and the Read and Rise program to teach 3-year-olds how to read.

Within two years the Urban League plans to have at least 10 programs that do not duplicate efforts of other local service agencies, Shropshire said.

The rise of the new Urban League comes following a period when blacks and other minorities have not had strong organized leadership locally.

The local NAACP disbanded amid in-fighting in 2001 and was reestablished in 2003 at about the time that the new local Urban League was being formed. Today, the NAACP has about 500 members, down about 2,500 from the late 1990s.

"We are on the mend, still getting our foundations laid," said Dean Ishman, president of the NAACP's local chapter. He said the Urban League is a welcome addition to the community.

"Any time you can get other community organizations focused on issues that benefit people of color it can only be beneficial for us all," Ishman said. "I support the Urban League, and I pray for the collaborative efforts of both organizations."

The NAACP typically focuses on civil rights issues, while the Urban League focuses on job training and education.

Las Vegas filmmaker and black historian Trish Geran says it's refreshing to see something established in her community that did not take a fire or other disaster to bring about.

"It seems the only time we come up to the plate is when something has slapped us in the face - something so humiliating like what happened to Rosa Parks or Rodney King," Geran said.

The Nucleus Plaza, long the heart of the black business community, was burned to the ground during Rodney King riots in April 1992. The center was rebuilt to meet social service needs of the poor.

Community leaders say the Urban League has a lot to offer a lot of minorities.

"I grew up in the shadow of organizations like the Urban League and NAACP, where guidance and focus for African-Americans came from," said state Gaming Control Board member Bobby Siller, who will be honored at the June fundraisers.

Siller, a former FBI special agent raised in inner-city Chicago, said the Urban League's success here will be its focus on "Las Vegas and its growth. It is important that amid this period of growth no minority group gets left behind."

Charles Desiderio, spokesman for the Clark County Chapter of the Salvation Army, said he has seen the Urban League's good work in other communities.

"A strong Urban League is instrumental in helping lower-income people in a wide variety of ways," he said. "They may not shelter hundreds of men or feed 1,100 people a day like we do, but their efforts in educating youngsters goes a long way for the overall good of the community."

Desiderio said the Salvation Army also would like to consider a partnership with the Urban League to avoid duplication of services.

The 42,000 square-foot Dr. William U. Pearson Community Center will be built with county and federal funds on the southwest corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Carey Avenue. Projected to open in 2008, it will be the Urban League's headquarters and will include a community center and a park.

Shropshire said the group has plans for the community center to be open from 7 a.m. to midnight so children will have a safe place to study and participate in activities until their parents get home from work.

"Our goal will be to provide opportunity where opportunity does not currently exist," she said.

At the Urban League's June 25 fundraiser at the Bellagio, civil rights leader Vernon E. Jordan, a 70-year-old Washington, D.C., attorney and power broker who served as National Urban League president from 1971 to 1981, will be the main speaker.

Siller will receive the Vernon E. Jordan Civic Award. Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who helped the group get the headquarters, will receive the William Pearson Community Center Award. MGM Mirage will receive the local Urban League's Corporate Partner Award.

Tickets are $125 per seat. All proceeds will go to an endowment to fund the Urban League's programs at the Pearson Community Center. For ticket information call (702) 636-3949.