A history of the Urban League that places it within the mainstream of African-American thought, this book shows the League as a major force for civil rights. Understanding the roots of the African-American search for equality, as the author demonstrates, is essential both to students of black history and to participants in the ongoing struggle for universal human rights. Correcting previous interpretations, Professor Moore contends that a number of individuals involved in forming the Urban League rose above the Washington-DuBois controversy, attending to the needs and aspirations of blacks already acculturated to urban life as well as those who arrived in cities without the skills to prosper in a modern, industrial, and increasingly complex society.

The book starts by reviewing the changes--psychological, educational, political, social, and geographic --which American Negroes experienced between 1830 and 1910 in the context of similar (if less dramatic) changes affecting American whites.

The record presented here shows that cooperation between the NUL and the NAACP has been the norm, despite occasional differences, and that the two organizations remain vibrant forces in the search for equality.