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May 6, 2019
National Urban League focusing on minority voting for 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voter suppression and Russian interference are some of the greatest barriers to minority voting in 2020, the National Urban League said Monday.

This year’s State of Black America report focuses on voting rights, and National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial is calling attention to voter suppression and social media interference from foreign governments.

“These attacks, from within our nation and from without, are a desecration to the memory of the martyrs who bled and died in defense of our rights,” Morial said.

According to the National Urban League, 14 states have more restrictive voter ID laws in place, 12 have laws making it harder for citizens to register, seven cut back on early voting opportunities, and three made it harder to restore voting rights for people with past criminal convictions.

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May 7, 2018
National Urban League leader: Silicon Valley should follow Comcast's lead on diversity

National Urban League CEO Marc Morial said Silicon Valley giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter should lay out their diversity goals in writing in public documents that clearly outline strategies – creating accountability measures and benchmarks for themselves like Comcast did in late 2010 when it signed an agreement with three national civil rights groups.

Comcast reached an agreement with the National Urban League (NUL), the National Action Network and the NAACP in December 2010, as the Philadelphia-based company was waiting on regulatory approval of its merger with NBC Universal, that vowed to increase diversity among its workforce, programming and other areas of the business.

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May 7, 2018
A digital divide for black Americans?

The National Urban League is set to release 'The State of Black America 2018,' a comprehensive assessment of where black and Latino Americans are in the current moment. League President Marc Morial and writer Anand Giridharadas discuss.

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May 7, 2018
This Digital Inclusion Index Surveys Silicon Valley’s Whiteness

Over 41,000 people work at Google, Facebook, and Twitter but less than 2% of that workforce—only about 750 employees—is black. The rest of the tech industry mirrors that trend with African-American representation at 5% overall.

The National Urban League has taken that employment disparity, along with many other easily comparative social and economic variables to create its Digital Inclusion Index, which finds that black America has 74.1% of white America’s benefits from the digital economy. It shows how often people of color are getting a fair chance at upward mobility within the tech sector compared to their white counterparts.

The best way to think about that metric is as a pie chart: It represents that people of color are afforded access and opportunity to attain only three-quarters of the total pie in terms of knowledge growth, empowerment, and financial reward. 

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May 7, 2018
The digital revolution is leaving black people behind

A new report says Silicon Valley’s lack of diversity is hurting black America.

Black Americans are frequent users of technology, and have helped build social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram into the giants they are today. But they aren’t reaping the same economic benefits of the tech boom as white Americans, and low rates of black employment in the tech industry are a large part of the reason why. 

A new study released Friday sheds light on this issue. The State of Black America 2018, a report published annually by the National Urban League, compares how black and white people fare in a number of areas, including housing, economics, education, social justice, and civic engagement.

This year’s report pays particular attention to black Americans’ access to jobs in the tech industry and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. The study reveals that while black people are one of the racial groups most likely to use smartphones and have created thriving communities on platforms like Twitter, those high rates of usage haven’t translated into employment. 

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May 7, 2018
National Urban League’s 2018 ‘State of Black America’: Tech Companies Don’t Care About Employing Black People

After listing wage inequality, housing discrimination and the education gap, feel free to add “digital inequality” to the long checklist of disparities in America.

The National Urban League’s 2018 “State of Black America” report reveals that there is still some work to be done in the country’s technological sector. This year’s report uses its patented “Digital Inclusion Index” (pdf) to highlight the disparities in the tech industry, along with its usual research measuring how well people of color are doing in comparison with their white counterparts.

The Urban League’s report details how people of color are doing across every category from education to social justice, but the startling data on computer, tech and social media companies reveals an industry that loves to sell its products to black people. But when it comes to offering jobs to qualified African Americans, these corporations have constructed an impenetrable firewall.

“The digital and technological revolution is the axis on which the economy is spinning now,” Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the NUL, told The Root. “It is a transformation of epic proportions.”

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May 7, 2018
We need to re-skill our workforce: Morial

Marc Morial, National Urban League, discusses today's employment numbers and the labor force participation rate.

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May 7, 2018
African-American hiring in tech lags: National Urban League report

The National Urban League is set to release 'The State of Black America 2018,' a comprehensive assessment of where black and Latino Americans are in the current moment. League President Marc Morial and writer Anand Giridharadas discuss.

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May 7, 2018
Unequal in America

ONE OF THE MOST JARRING and painful numbers in America's history on race relations is three-fifths. That, according to the U.S. Constitution written in 1789, was how African-American slaves were counted – as three-fifths of a person – determining population for the purpose of calculating states' representation in Congress.

More than two centuries after the Constitution was penned, a century and a half since the 14th Amendment undid the so-called "three fifths compromise," and 50 years since the height of the modern civil rights movement, African-Americans still fall short when it comes to equality, according to a sweeping report by the Urban League. To put a number on it, African-Americans are at 72.5 percent – less than three-fourths – when it comes to achieving equality with white Americans, according to the study, which addressed economics, health, education, civic engagement and social justice.

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May 7, 2018
Tech, social media companies lagging in hiring blacks

WASHINGTON (AP) — African-Americans are among the top owners of mobile devices — but when it comes time to hire, tech companies aren’t looking to them.

The National Urban League is highlighting this tech gap in its 2018 State of Black America report.

The new report points out blacks are only 5 percent of the social media and technology workforce while being the one of the largest groups for mobile device ownership. National Urban League President Marc Morial says tech companies need to make sure minorities are included in their work forces.

The report also unveils this year’s Equality Index, with 100 percent being full equality with whites.

The index for blacks was unchanged at 72.5 percent. Things improved for Hispanics, with the index reaching 79.3 percent from last year’s 78.5 percent.

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