In Black America; The Austin Area Urban League with Herman Lessard Jr.

Bye! From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. I would like to see us be a beacon in a community where individuals can come and get the services that they're looking for, whether it's just job training, employment, if they're just

coming to the Urban League and using a computer to get information off the Internet about jobs, and also linking other non-profit organizations agencies to service as a one-stop entity in our community so that we can be able to have the type of training, the type of support, the type of information that individuals need, comprehend, and use for everyday life. Herman Osar, Jr., President and CEO of the Austin, Texas area, Urban League. As the 20th century draws to a close, the National Urban League will celebrate 89 years of service to African-Americans and this nation. The National Urban League offers insight into critical issues which affect the African-American community, such as education, affirmative action, economic empowerment, and social economic development, community revitalization, and government and corporate policies. The mission of the Austin, Texas area, Urban League is to assist African-Americans and disadvantaged citizens in the achievement of social and economic equality.

I'm John L. Hansen, Jr., and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, the Austin, Texas area, Urban League with Herman Osar, Jr., in Black America. I think as we move into the 21st century, we're going to see a larger segment of our population who are going to look for non-profit organizations in an untraditional role of serving this community. As we look at the high tech arena, I think the Urban League and other non-profit organizations are going to have to link their resources to make sure that we establish a bridge for those who have and those who have not. That we can collaborate more, that we can work with state, local, and federal governments so that we can bring in the resources necessary to make sure we become self-sufficient, self-reliant, and not look at the crumbs that's being out there and fighting over it. We must be able to establish collaboration and establish a cohesive drive to making sure

that all individuals are being dealt with in a fair and ample manner. It will make sure that a level playing field is not just here for now, but also for our youth that they become our future leaders of tomorrow. Founded in 1910 as a National League on Urban Condition among Negroes, the organization was established to help black immigrants in the larger cities of the North find suitable jobs and housing and to acquire more education and adjust to the rigors of an urban environment. The scope of the Urban League has widened considerably since its inception, mirroring a change in America. In 1976, the Austin Area Urban League was founded and was incorporated on August 12, 1977. The Austin Area Urban League is one of 114 local affiliates of the National Urban League. In October 1994, Herman Lassard, Jr. became president and CEO of the Austin Area Urban League.

His involvement with the Urban League spans 11 years in three states, recently in black America spoke with Herman Lassard. God, I was born in Pasadena, California, moved to Chicago, Illinois when I was about five years old, my parents and I kind of considered Chicago my home because I was raised there for almost 24 years of my life. Started with the Urban League in 1985 and Memphis, Tennessee as a coordinator of male connection program working with teen males, worked my way up to Director of Education there and then transferred to the Urban League in Portland, Oregon, where I was Director of Education and Career Development and then Vice President of Programs. In 1994, we came certified as a Chief Financial Officer for the Urban League and applied for the position here in Austin and here with us. What particular attracted you to the Urban League?

Well, I guess my involvement in working with adolescent males, especially African Americans minorities, where in Illinois, we were working with Department of Children and Family Services, you who had been under foster care. We saw a lot of the young men who were in disarray households being vulnerable to crime, like gangs, drugs and also teen pregnancy and we wanted to make a difference with that population so we started working with them and became a vehicle for the father's couples groups that we put together in Chicago. The program, dealt with teen fathers, helped them understand their responsibility of being teen male role models to their children, they fathered into the world. Being a part of the rearing and nurturing of the care of those youth, as well as legitimization giving them the youth their names.

The National Urban League had a program that time called the Male Responsibility Program. It was working with adolescent pregnancy prevention from a male point of view and started that process in working along with the National Urban League and the President of the Urban League and Memphis heard about the program ahead in Chicago and asked me to put together a program in Memphis and that's how I started. I want to stay on this sexuality point of view. Is it the culture in which we live in, i.e. a lack of communication between teens and parents or the videos, the sexual activities that happen on television programs and in the movie, where our teenagers are more sexually active today than they once were? I think it was a combination of that, John. We found, as far as when the teen pregnancy problem started to escalate, that it really became identifiable nationwide as a serious problem and then looking at ethnicity is

starting looking at that we had a larger problem in the minority community and that was shocking because, especially in the African-American community, we grew up in a community because we had to. We were locked down geographically in whatever we could live and also work. So we bonded together as having that village, I hate to use that because it's been so utilized now, but we actually did have that. Everyone lived in that community so everyone had a part of rearing and nurturing the children who lived there from the school teacher to the mother to the father and the nucleus family to the expanded family, the ministers, teachers, etc. Once we were able to have the flexibility of moving out in different areas, that nucleus of the community started to roll away, economics played a factor in that because you had a two family household who had to work to make ends meet.

So you had a lot of eroding away of the foundation that we normally would have in our youth getting the type of nurturing and the care that helped them to understand how to be adult males and adult females in today's society. With the advent of gangs coming in and saying that we accept you as you are, be a part of us, helped young people to steer them into an act of being a part of something that was outside of the family on a negative aspect. And I think that also started the enrows of drugs and also teen pregnancy. With the foundation being eroded away, kids started learning about sex and sexuality on the street and that became a norm and still the exception. So it started becoming a common place. When you had, like I had eroded it to before, that you had individuals or agencies and organizations started looking at these teen pregnancy problems, many programs came up

but the programs were focused on females. Making sure females had prenatal care, looking at having them, having support groups as far as preventing them from having babies at an early age. But nothing was being addressed from the missing piece of the puzzle from the males point of view. I think that's when you start having programs like the male responsibility programs start focusing on that. One really good one was one in San Francisco from the boys' clips there. They have a fantastic program and still is one of the nation's model of working with L.S. and males. The Urban League is some 89 years old. Give us an overview of this mission and mandate. Well, the Urban League started in 1910. Its focus at that time was to assist African Americans who were migrating from the south to the north to find equal access and to jobs, housing and education.

It's been an advocate piece of the Urban League from its conception. I think in the mid-40s, we started doing direct services case in point if a individual that we were advocating for to find a job, but was turned down by the employer because the employer felt that they didn't have the proper credentials or the skills necessary for that job. We didn't have too much to argue on unless we were able to start having job training programs, job training programs that would focus on the specifications and qualifications of the employer that they were looking for, we started training them. So now we can go arm and arm with that new person who has completed the courses and go to the employer and find out can this person now be higher because we know that we train them on the specification and the qualification that you're looking for. And once that started, we were starting to be more advocate in helping individuals get placed in jobs, placed in homes because we talked about how to get a home or some of the

barriers are there and making sure that you had your credit in line, you had to find that thing in line. So we started to work on behalf on the individuals as having direct services or the constituency that we operate with and have been doing that from that point on. The work culture has changed significantly over the last decade. I'll ask the Urban League kept up with the new changing technology, particularly here in Austin and nationally since we're becoming a more technological society. I think that what we have seen in the last seven years from the National Urban League and the 15th Philian State, is that the way we did job training and placing individuals, we have to change our paradigm as far as making sure that the needs of our community and these are our constituency bases being met.

And we need to make sure that we have a strategic plan in place for five, 10, 15 years down the future. One of the things that we see now is the advent of technology. Digital divide is ever increasing and is even increasing fatally in the Austin community. We see that those individuals, even though that Austin has been deemed as the Silicon Hills of this area, there are still segments of our population who do not have a computer level on Internet access. We have a growing population of unemployed and unemployed individuals, even though we're celebrating a 2.4 unemployment rate citywide, we have pockets of unemployment in Austin that's double digits. This chamber of commerce and communities try to draw other companies and corporations of a high-tech arena into the Austin community and surrounding areas.

Those companies are asking, where is my workforce coming from? I think the Urban League plays a very pivoted role of saying that we can be able to accomplish this void by tapping into that unemployment base of double digits, which are mostly minority community, who understand the operation of the Urban League, who feel comfortable in coming to the Urban League, where the Urban League can now address the issue by meeting with companies and corporations, understanding what are their philosophy and also what are the qualifications they want individuals to enter their workforce. The Urban League can integrate those qualifications into its curricula for job training, take that population that we have been serving historically, train them based on those specifications, and what you have as a return on investment is well qualified, well competent workforce coming through the doors to those companies who cut the ribbon and ready to operate.

How do you all go about selecting individuals to partnership with the Urban League? One of that question, and part two of the question, how many people can you all serve at any one given time? Well, to get the partners in place, Urban League goes out and solicit information from the company's corporation to look who are looking for trained individuals. Are they willing? They are willing. They are willing. We have just, during the summer, work with Dale, computer corporation, and getting individuals into their manufacturing production line. We are now working with other companies who are looking for qualified workforce to come through their doors because of the unemployment rate being so low, there is a need for skilled workers. The Urban League can play a very pivot role in making sure that it is being taken care of and also act as a bridge to the community that we serve.

We can serve up to 40 people in a given ten week course that we have here at the Urban League and 20 individuals in our evening courses that we have here at the Urban League and our satellite location at LCRA. There is also a component that has to deal with resume development. Are we as a people, meaning African-Americans, somewhat deficient in writing resumes or the community as a whole? I think the community as a whole, if you give, we have people who are in our training programs and also individually come off the street looking for jobs, and one of the things they are looking at is making sure they have a good resume, not just a paper one, but electronic one. We have to be able to help them to develop a resume that sells them in themselves. I think we are seeing the end of individuals who are the corporate persons who will be with the company or corporation for 25 years and get to go and watch.

People are now staying on a job four to five years, so they are selling their talents that they have. To be able to be marketable and to be able to get the job that pays the type of livable wage for yourself and your family to be self-sufficient. You have to be able to have something that you put into a human resources person's face to say, here I am, these are skills, this is why I can do because you are marketing yourself with a lot more people in the workplace now. You have to do that with a paper resume, but you also have to be, particularly enough, to be able to have that on the email system because a lot of companies now who are following the lead at Dell have are not accepting any paper resumes or applications. Everything is done electronically, so you have to be savvy as far as how your resume is going to look differently from someone else's, how it is going to be in a bin of thousands of other resumes.

But also, too, they can show you that you are the person that that entity is looking for and market yourself successfully electronically, and then the next point is how you will be able to market yourself when you do the face-to-face interview. What are you offering that our school systems aren't? Well, I think one thing that we have heard that the Urban League is doing is that we are staying in touch with the corporate community, we are looking at exactly what are the needs of the corporations also, so that we can make sure that once we do the training, that training is not obsolete, that is always influxed as far as change because that is the changing commodity that we have with the corporate partners that we are working with. Number one, we have to make sure that the type of curriculum that we have meets the needs of what they are looking for with the individuals coming through their door. Second part is that we must make sure that as we go out and do outreach for the people in the community, that we can bring them into the Urban League and help them understand

what are the basic necessities that the companies are looking for. So we don't give them a falsehood of that there is a pie in the sky and go through this training. That is it. We mark the type of training that we do with the Urban League. This type of environment that you have here is the same environment that you are going to be faced with in a corporation. So not only do we do business math, business English, resume writing, employee bills, these skills, but we talk about Justice Assist, we talk about what the expectation employer employee, how to be a team player and the employment world, so that when you get through that door, you know you are going to be inundated by a mix and diverse responsibilities. Number two, you may not have individuals to tell you specifically what you need to do, but you are going to have to be able to rely on your skills to be a self-starter and also be a team player. And I think if we can be able to enhance those type of training skills in a team-wing course that we have with the Urban League, it would make it more of an adversary role for our

part to make sure that we can make sure those individuals go into the door, but also too, we can benefit by making sure those individuals, once they go through the doors, will stay on that job. Does the corporation provide any type of financial assistance to the Urban League? We have some corporations who are partners with the Urban League, who give us both financial and in-kind support off of the services we render here. There also a emergency home repair component to the Urban League, why was that necessary? Well, that program is one of the oldest programs, the first program that we started in 1977. That program focused on working with senior citizens, low income individuals who own their own property, but can afford some of the repairs like roofing, plumbing, electrical work, water heaters, etc. We subcontract with contractors who are licensed through city, a lot of them also are minority contractors who actually go out and repair those homes for those individuals.

So they now have a super place to live that they can now continue to live in a home and property that they have owned for years. And make sure that housing stock in Austin is keeping up the par with the standards of living that we all want to enjoy. What makes up the youth development component? We have several. Our oldest program is our dream team 2000, which is after school tutorial program who works with middle school and high school students. We identify any deficient areas students may have and try to raise their grade point average by at least one grade level in working with our staff and volunteers here at the Urban League. Money through Thursday from three o'clock to seven o'clock p.m. Our newest program is our diversion program. That is a partnership with the Urban League in the Austin Police Department. The focus of that program is youth who are committed class even as the meters, children's fee violation, curfew, or first time shoplifting under $200.

They have an opportunity to either go to municipal court once given a citation by the police department and get adjudicated by magistrate and rendered a judgment or they can come to the Urban League where we provide case management intake and also a treatment plan that will help work with them for anger management, conflict, mediation, absolute tutorial program, community service, plus counseling, and we do counseling also with the parents of that youth. Is there a limit on the number of programs one can participate in at the Urban League? No, we use a holistic approach and the service that we provide is the Urban League. Matter of fact, we don't use the terminology of departments. We use centers so that if we see an individual who needs services from the center of education and youth development, that's not a problem.

They need to have services being provided at the Center for Workforce Training and Career Development. They can transition to that one and they have a household that's in need of home repair, the Center for Emergency Home Repairs there to work along with them. So we try to use the holistic approach that the services that we provided by the Urban League, even if you come into one center, you're not excluded and being able to be service by others that we have here. The summer of the Urban League had their National Convention, a gender 2000, equality and power for the next new millennium. What were some of the highlights that came out of that convention? I think the highlights that took place in the National Convention in Houston helped to paint the picture of which way the Urban League needs to go historically as we move into the 21st century. And that is? We focused on several areas, the area of economic development, helping individuals to become self-sufficient, self-reliant, to ensure that every public school serving disadvantaged youth is equipped with self-reliant by having computers, technologies so they can move into

the 21st century and have the training adequately placed for them, making sure that there are programs in place, supportive programs in place to reduce the number of dropouts and get them back on track in the schools to make sure there is a true link from elementary, middle school, high school, and linking them into higher education. So there are elements of scholarships that are available as well as support mechanisms so those youth can continue on into the higher education arena, eliminating the digital divide, making sure that there are affordable computers for individuals who can afford some of the high-priced computers that are out there now, and also to make sure there is internet access that is affordable to everyone, if you can't have it at home, making sure there are resource centers like the Urban League that can provide access to the internet and computer training. And making sure that minorities have the, are participating fully in the educational process so they can get the employment or start their own entrepreneurship and participating

in the society so there is a leveling of the playing field for all individuals, and making sure that the community that we live in understand that as we move into the 21st century that diversity is going to play a very key role, as we see the changing of the color spectrum in society that reflects all individuals, no matter their race, creed, color, and social background. I'll give Mr. Lassard the motivation to get up and come to work every day. I guess when you have programs that we've offered here at the Urban League that is making a very durable mission in this community, the number one that you can see individuals benefiting from the type of programs that we have, you see a senior citizen who probably have a home that may be falling down that we can actually help fix it up and build it up again and see the smile on their faces when you see individuals who come in and feel

at the last that you offer at the Urban League to get training and job training, GED or ESL, and they leave out getting a job and now making wages that's suitable for them and their families. When you see youth who probably felt that math is something that they couldn't comprehend and now they're getting straighties and I think you now see a difference in that. This is not just a job, it's a mission, I think you see it as a very durable asset to this community that we must never lose focus on. We must never lose the enthusiasm of helping individuals to help themselves and also to meet the challenges that are there on everyday life, front of action, prejudices, bigotry. What's there is going to continue to be there unfortunately and the Urban League must play a very key role in keeping a level playing field in place and making sure that we continue to strive for excellence on everyone and meeting those barriers and eliminating them.

Obviously you've put your time where your mouth is being all things to a lot of different organizations here in Austin and Travis County. Is it important for you to be involved in this breadth of organizations in which you are associated with? Well, one thing we focus on the Urban League is trying to see what the Urban League's niche is. What do we do best? Unfortunately, we can't be all things to all people. The direct service that we provide here at the Urban League, advocacy, workforce training, education, youth development, emergency home repair, we've been doing that for years, we do it best, and we want to continue to do that. Herman Lassard, Jr., President and CEO of the Austin Area Urban League. If you have questions, comments or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, write us. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station

or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for IBAG Technical Producer, David Alvarez, I'm John Elhenson, Jr., thank you for joining us today and please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. This week on in Black America.

The National Urban League with Herman Lassard, Jr., this week on in Black America.