For over 100 years, the Los Angeles Urban League has served as a powerful advocate for African-Americans and other minorities by ensuring our communities have access to careers with living wages, opportunities to start and grow businesses, and clear pathways to personal and professional growth.

The Tuskegee Industrial Welfare League, was organized in April 1921 in Los Angeles by Dr. A. C. Garrott , a black dentist, and Katherine J. Barr, its first Executive Secretary, to help Negroes participate to the fullest extent in American life by helping to change the social and economic conditions of their environment. In June 1921, the Tuskegee Industrial Welfare League merged with the National Urban League and became known as the Los Angeles Urban League (LAUL) with Katherine Barr as its first President. In 1968, the leadership of the Los Angeles Urban League was awarded to the Honorable John Mack who served from 1968 until his retirement in 2005. In February 2018, former Ambassador Michael Lawson joined the Urban League as President and CEO to steward his vision of re-igniting the spirit of entrepreneurship, ownership, and self-dependence for Black Los Angeles.