NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- When Arva Rice joined the New York Urban League soon after former President Barack Obama took office in 2009, some questioned her career choice, given the historic nature of his victory.
“Individuals said to me, ‘Arva, you seem like a bright, talented person. Why would you go to the New York Urban League?’” Rice, the organization’s president and CEO, recalled in an interview with 1010 WINS’ Sharon Barnes-Waters.
“‘Pretty soon, oh, in maybe a year or two, we won’t even need places like the Urban League, or the NAACP, or even any of the women’s organizations, because we have received full and complete equality.'" she recalled them saying "'And it is manifested in the election of our first Black president.'"
The racism Obama faced throughout his two terms, however, highlighted the “racial inequality and the disparities that are unfortunately rampant in our city, in our state and in our nation,” Rice said.
With last year’s killing of George Floyd, meanwhile, the “entire world saw what racial inequality looks like,” she said. The insurrection at the Capitol building in January, meanwhile, only served to reinforce that, she said.
Now, the New York Urban League’s work is as vital as ever.
“The work that we do at the New York Urban League, we are providing opportunities for young people to go to college — through our Whitney M. Young scholarship — and supporting them in doing so. We’re providing individuals with living-wage jobs and supporting them and doing that. We’re advocating for different issues, whether it’s around police brutality, whether it’s around educational outcomes,” Rice said.
“Our core mission is to provide equality for all New Yorkers. And that is about educational equality and access, it is about economic viability and access,” she added. “And so our mission has always been to empower communities and to change lives.”
Learn more about the New York Urban League by listening to Rice’s interview above. To download the group's new report, "The State of Black New York," go to https://www.nyul.org/sobnyreport.