Whitney Young Jr. served as president of the National Urban League from 1961 to 1965. He was in charge of both increasing the organization's size and racial integration. Young, chastised for his methods, may have drowned on March 11, 1971. Whitney M. Young Jr. was born in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky, on July 31, 1921. His parents ran the Lincoln Institute, an African American prep school, and his mother taught. Then a teacher, he served in WWII as a bridge between black and white troops overseas. Margaret Buckner, Young's college sweetheart, married him in 1944. Young was a close adviser to Lyndon B. Johnson and had access to the White House. In 1968, Young was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his Domestic Marshall Plan, which influenced the president's policy. Young died on March 11, 1971, in Lagos, Nigeria, while attending a conference. He may have drowned while swimming at a beach. (At first, the Nigerian coroner's office claimed Young died of a cerebral hemorrhage.) A biography of the leader by Nancy Weiss and another by Dennis C. Dickerson, Whitney M. Young Jr. and the Struggle for Civil Rights (1989). In 2013, PBS aired The Powerbroker: Whitney Young's Civil Rights Fight. #365DaysOfBlackHistory #BlackHistoryFacts #WhitneyYoung #CivilRightsLeader #ShowThyselfApproved #KnowledgeIsPower #EachOneTeachOne #BLM (at Rise Up Financial Freedom Solutions LLC) https://www.instagram.com/p/CR2D5b4Bw7u/?utm_medium=tumblr
