A Man at the Bridge

When Whitney M. Young Jr. died in Lagos, Nigeria, last March, the already depleted ranks of national civil rights leaders suffered a seemingly irreparable blow. Militant young blacks, scornful of older, more established organizations like Young's Urban League, have not produced a man with his skill as a persuasive negotiator and as a goad to whites who wield economic power. Last week the National Urban League announced the selection of a successor to Young who may well prove to be the bridge between black leaders of the past and black demands of the future. Vernon E. Jordan Jr., a black lawyer whose career has spanned the history of the modern civil rights movement, will become executive director of the Urban League next January.

At 6 feet 4 1/2 inches, Jordan cuts a formidable figure. In 1961, while Georgia field director of the NAACP, he cleared a path through an angry white mob and led the first black coed into the University of Georgia; the image of Jordan shielding Charlayne Hunter from students screaming threats and obscenities remains among the indelible Southern memorabilia of the early 1960s.

From 72 to 564. Four years later, Jordan took up a task that was to put him in the national spotlight and reorder the politics of the South. As head of the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council, he directed a campaign that registered nearly 2,000,000 new black voters. He crisscrossed the South, setting up registration drives and urging black leaders to run for office. During his tenure at VEP, the number of black elected officials in the South increased from about 72 to 564. Jordan then moved to the United Negro College Fund; there, he revitalized one of the major fund-raising arms of the country's black colleges and universities.

Jordan comes to the Urban League during a period of crisis within the civil rights movement. Disillusionment and violence have retarded the development of a second generation of national leaders; increasingly, blacks have turned away from national organizations toward local programs and local leadership. Jordan declines to speculate about any changes he may make in Urban League policies and programs, but his belief in the importance of black political power is likely to be felt once he takes over.

Jordan observes that by education and experience he is a lawyer. President Nixon often makes the same point about himself; Jordan intends to take his case to the Lawyer-President--"and not only be heard, but get results." Jordan is a persuasive man. He once took part in a hot debate over civil rights with a conservative Southern Congressman--who was so impressed that he offered Jordan a job.

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