Major funding for this program was made possible by Pitt Ohio, with additional major funding by UPMC.

And generous support from these funders.

Thank you.

It's a quiet morning at Esther Bush's house, having recently retired the woman with enough awards, degrees and commendations to fill a small warehouse.

Is enjoying a cup of tea and a look back at a life of service.

And if any of that makes her sound soft spoken or restrained, you don't know Esther.

She will be missed.

She's a great person.

Treat everyone beautiful and we all love her.

Thank you.

I think that she carries that fearlessness and that boldness she has to do to if she's going to do the work.

She has to tell the story and tell the story the way it is.

Why is America like this?

When to me, it always seemed like there was enough wealth to go around.

How dare you try to keep this group or this sex of people out of an opportunity to achieve.

And what I can say to you is that there are no more minorities that own homes, which is the greatest asset, greatest way to build wealth.

Then there were 50 years ago, people in our community understand the basic notion of fairness, and they want a fairer society.

But when you get into talking about how that actually plays out for people who are white versus black, that gets uncomfortable.

President Bush, how is the state of black Pittsburgh now?

The state of black Pittsburgh is, trying to claw its way up.

We, still have, many challenges.

She has been a cheerleader for Pittsburgh for three decades and a cheerleader for life all over her life.

And I think that's her down to earth approach to who she really is.

Because I want people to be all that they can be and all that they want to be.

Don't restrict yourself.

Let's all take somebody along.

It was an announcement that made headlines everywhere.

After 27 years running, the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, one of the nation's top chapters, Esther Bush, was retiring.

Give me a hug.

Bush.

I can give you all her, and she will be missed.

And we all love her.

It is really challenging to think about life after Urban League, because people won't let me and the people won't let me part is a compliment, but it is still something that I cannot wrap my arms around.

But I'm looking forward to learning.

So that was the first thought.

Oh, we can do that at all.

The leadership.

So African-American leadership directories that we produced and the two health books on the status of black health in Pittsburgh.

It's been nearly three decades of building partnerships, meeting challenges, and fighting for progress.

Whether it's corporate, governmental, or philanthropic.

Building those partnerships has been essential to the success of Esther and the Urban League's mission.

Grant Oliphant is the former president of the Heinz Endowment, with an annual grant making average of nearly $70 million.

The Hines is one of the leading foundations in the United States.

The mission of the Heinz Endowment is to change the region and make it better.

It's as simple as that, but as beautiful and wonderful a place as Pittsburgh is.

It has some real challenges, and one of them is around the disparity that exists in terms of race in this town and creating a community that is generally for everyone, where everyone has the same caliber of opportunity to be successful and to thrive.

I am really pushing right now individuals to advocate for themselves and for business and industry.

Don't point out this is what we're doing for blacks in our corporation.

Point out how are we going to help the entire city move from A to B?

Esther called and said, hey, we need to talk and, there hadn't been a great history of the foundation and the Urban League working together, at least recently.

And so I said, sure.

And I wasn't sure what to expect.

All I knew was that I was going to end up saying yes to what I'm become, because Esther had a way of just being very clear about what she needed and why it was important.

And quite honestly, what all that has meant for me every single day for the last 27 years here in Pittsburgh and the last 41 years in general, is quite honestly, doing what I want it to do in the name of moving black folks closer to equity in the city of Pittsburgh and in the United States of America.

The August Wilson African American Cultural Center is home to a legacy of black art and history.

At the Helm is Janice Burley Wilson.

I've been the president since September of 2017, and our mission is to be a home for the arts, storytelling and exchange of ideas around the African-American experience and promoting the African diaspora.

So I met Esther socially through my parents.

They are very involved in the community.

There were numerous times over the last 20 years when I've called her and said, I need to come across the street and talk to you and share my ideas, get her advice.

And then she would go and do her work and make things happen.

I think that that's what makes Esther, so special is that when she says she's going to do something, she's going to do it.

You can always count on her that reliability and just unwavering support.

What we're looking at here is a receipt from the state of Mississippi in 1859 that shows this person owned 40 slaves.

Esther Bush's home was filled with artwork, treasures, and mementos from her years of work and travel.

She is a maasai warrior from Africa, and she's really very special because there were not too many female warriors in the Maasai tribe.

And so she is very, very special.

Esther grew up in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood, in a close knit family with parents who expected and wanted the best for their children.

My mother is a former teacher, and so everything had to be right, and you had to be ready for school.

And my father was always in love with trucks.

When he first came to Pittsburgh, he bought a dump truck.

And then eventually he owned a fleet of 18 wheelers.

We thought we had died and gone to heaven.

And I said to my father one day, daddy, I want to be a truck driv And my father said, you can't be a truck driver.

You're a lady.

You're a woman.

And so the thought of him teaching me, he said straight up, he wouldn't teach me.

And I had a problem with that.

I had a problem with restrictions on women and restrictions on black folks.

It was at Westinghouse High School that she discovered the possibilities.

What we are looking at here are the cheerleaders of Westinghouse High School in 1969.

And I am extremely proud to say that I was the co-captain of the cheering squad.

I loved being a student at Westinghouse High School because I felt like I was coming into my own.

And not just Esther Bush, but everybody around me.

So as there were riots throughout the country, as people would be seen on the news with the hoses and the dogs and all of those things, it was like this is unbelievable.

But I always felt that anybody black, white, young or rich or poor, male or female should be whatever it is they wanted to be.

If they were willing to work for it, train for it, why not do it?

And so that's really what led me to the Urban League.

I first started working at the National Urban League June 5th, 1980.

And I felt like I was big time number one, because I was in New York and I was with the Women Affairs Division.

I purposefully would go on a construction site and just look around and literally ask for the foreman and say, I don't see any African-Americans or people of color, and I don't see any women.

Do you have any?

Her work with The National would lead to a role as president and CEO of the Hartford, Connecticut chapter.

But her hometown would soon come calling.

I'm Evan Frazier.

I'm the president and CEO of the Advanced Leadership Institute.

The Advanced Leadership Institute is, really, committed and dedicated to cultivating black executive leadership.

The Talley program ensures that African American leaders are equipped with the academic instruction, as well as practical application to excel in the workplace.

And I was just really a year, year and a half out of college at the time, and I had the opportunity to serve on a search committee that actually went out to find Esther Bush and, encourage her and try to convince her that Pittsburgh is the right place.

Esther Bush was she was a national talent, and to be able to bring someone like that to Pittsburgh was, was a real win for for our city.

After accepting the position, Esther took on the enormous task of bringing the 2003 national convention to Pittsburgh.

Here we are in January of 2003.

You're very close to that convention, about seven months away.

Are you ready for it?

Of course.

We're going to be ready.

The planning, of course, has taken an awful lot of time, but the city of Pittsburgh has absolutely come around.

I'm talking about people that are on public welfare through corporate executives, though not all members of the community were happy with the convention itself and an appearance by President George W Bush.

Your fellow Americans gathering what proved to be a great success for the city and the chapter.

It's been a fabulous, fabulous career and life because it's an opportunity to express who I am and what I feel.

Through the years, Pittsburgh has had many champions in the ongoing work of social justice.

One of Esther's closest allies is Tim Stevens.

Tim Stevens, chairman CEO of the Black Political Empowerment Project.

We call it BPEP, and our mission is very simple that African-Americans vote in each and every election, not just when there's a ballot for Obama.

Well, Reverend Al Sharpton, Reverend Jesse Jackson, but each and every election, Tim Stevens and the Black Political Empowerment Project have joined the legal fight against them.

We're aiming to make sure that our votes count and we don't need any political shenanigans.

Who's going to Disenfranchize disenfranchize that opportunity and that, right?

We have a citizen.

I'm going to be honest with you.

I can't remember when I first met Esther, but she was just so part of my life.

And I know she remembers this, but after the death of Johnny Gammage, which was October 12th, 1995, out of that came the first consent decree in the nation.

Pittsburgh was under a federal consent decree for five years.

But we took the tragedy and created creativity and possibility for justice.

Esther Bush was my partner when we went to D.C., she hosted a press conference in D.C.

around the death of Jonny Gammage.

Esther Bush did that.

How many people are you going to sin because you speak up about police brutality and then say, yeah, there's some black people here that need some jobs, too.

It takes internal fortitude to do that.

Esther Hansen.

Duquesne is a small town in Pennsylvania's Mon valley, once a vital part of the region's legendary steel industry.

It's also home to one of the three family support centers run by the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.

Denise Hill heads up the family growth and Development department.

The free meals at the church, right?

Yeah.

The family centers provide a myriad of services.

We really work with the community to meet their needs, especially around parenting and helping their families become more stable in the community.

So we have a number of collaborative partners, like the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, where we can do emergency food pantry services.

Through the county.

We have a program called Hello Baby that I absolutely love.

And that she's eligible for her and her baby for a variety of things to help them, you know, help her through the first year of life and get her sort of acclimated with her new baby.

We have social services available for families.

We have mental health services at some of our centers where that families who are having some difficulties can, can come for some help.

We do a lot of fun things.

We have family fun night where parents come, they play and activities anything from movies to Easter.

I can.

So we do a lot, I think with a little bit of help and and people who are really dedicated to their jobs, we we try to manage to, to help the community where we're, where we're in life, just doing a little bit of training.

Okay.

What's the training today?

This is, part two of, money.

Wellness?

Yes.

Financial wellness.

Okay.

The centers also serve as a welcoming resource for neighbors helping neighbors.

Keesha Stribling and Tisha Lewis are the president and vice president of the parents council at the Northview Heights Support Center.

They help me because they let me know about different resources so that I can tell, you know, people in our neighborhood who don't, you know, come to certain, meetings at the center, me letting them know of different resources such as, you know, the free clothing, the free food you what?

The ladies who run the program, them looking like me.

It helps me to be able to say, yeah, I can do this.

This is where you guys came from.

I can buy a home.

They show us the steps of how to build our credit and and lead in this direction of giving us a home.

They help us to obtain, you know, employment, GED help you.

A bus passes a bunch of different resources that, you know, help not just, you know, African-Americans, but anybody in the community who wants to be a part of a filling support center.

My name is Faith Harfield.

I am a family development specialist at the Northview Heights Family Support Center.

That is through the Urban League.

And what I do is, support families.

The Duquesne Center has close, and they will allow us to come over and get that.

That's what's so important.

It's their goals.

It's not my goal for you to have a driver's license.

You know, it's your goal to have, you know when they have their own goals and they're accomplished.

It's just amazing.

You know, it's it's amazing.

But.

And for me, it's just a sense of pride and, and what we do and how we help.

And seeing people rise up and rise over their barriers gives me great joy.

For over a century, the Urban League has worked to positively raise the public and personal prospects of African-Americans.

Most recently, the Pittsburgh branch would launch an impressive list of programs and initiatives, including opening the city's first charter school.

Trip to Africa.

Publishing and releasing the state of black Pittsburgh reports as televised town hall meetings.

Bringing together some of the region's best and brightest.

Hello and welcome to the 2019 edition of State of Black Pittsburgh, a community forum.

I'm honored to be sitting here tonight with a woman known and appreciated by so many people in Pittsburgh and beyond.

Esther Bush is the president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.

Welcome.

How are you?

I'm great.

Alan Trivilino serves as board chair for the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and a senior vice president for PNC investments.

It's an outstanding organization.

I'm very proud to be part of the work that the Urban League does.

Partnering with the corporate community and with businesses is a very important part of the Urban League's mission, because it really helps break the cycle of poverty, and it's also a way to ensure that there's a stronger community for all.

Another path to a stronger community is through homeownership.

An elusive goal for many African Americans.

Fortunately, the Urban League has a plan for that.

I decided I wanted to buy a house, but I went through a couple of different programs to buy a house.

I ended up at the Urban League and they helped me get my credit in order.

My name is Victoria Goins.

I am the vice president of programs and services here at the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.

Through the horrific spotlight that has been put on George Floyd and other cases, disparities have become more and more apparent.

So the Urban League is intent on putting an emphasis on home ownership so that more and more people of color can attain that as the creation of wealth.

I understand the importance of building credit, understand the importance of owning a bank account.

I love the yard outside.

I love the space.

This is way more than I ever expected to have in my life.

It's not impossible.

Look at me.

You can do it.

Don't give up.

Don't stop.

Oh, this is good.

Inside the Urban League's downtown offices, Richard Morris also helps to provide solutions to some of the daunting challenges people face every day.

Hi.

My name is Richard.

L. Morris, and I am the housing director for the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.

I think that that what we are concerned about every day is how we serve the people who are homeless, people who are having difficulty paying their rent.

As neighborhoods change and affordable housing becomes harder to find, Urban League resources are more important than ever, especially those dealing with pandemic related difficulties.

We provide rental assistance for folks who are being evicted.

People who are facing housing instability.

People who have been engaged in some form of domestic and or community violence.

And individuals who are doing what we call seeking new moneys.

As part of a coalition made up of service providers, government entities, corporations and more.

Thousands of area residents have been held.

We've given out collectively over, I think, $32 million in our county, and we're doing, you know, maybe a million something every week.

And that's 5000 families thus far.

So that's a bunch.

One of those partners is the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh.

My name is Carster Binion.

I am the executive director of the housing authority at the City of Pittsburgh.

The housing authority manages about 11,000 units that comprise probably about 25 to 30,000 families of people who we work with every day.

Built with the community in mind.

Cornerstone village is one of the newest mixed income developments in the East Liberty Larimer neighborhood.

So the reason affordable housing is so important that people who grew up in the city of Pittsburgh are people who have a low paying jobs.

They deserve the same type of housing that everybody else receives.

This is an opportunity to do something for someone every day.

Change is inevitable.

And for better or worse, Pittsburgh will continue to meet challenges and champions that will help define it for years to come.

Give people good wages.

Give people good opportunities.

Have, a city that embraces people and that brings into the racial dynamics.

Pittsburgh has never been a city where it's a majority of African-Americans or people of color.

It doesn't have to be.

It just has to be a place to stay and equitable.

And on Grand Street, there will be historic change.

All real power is not to change the world, but it's to make a world of change.

And the people that we encounter every single day.

Mayor Gainey should be a great source of pride for all of us.

Black, white, young, all educated, uneducated.

There will be change at the Urban League as well.

With the addition of a new president and CEO, Carlos Carter is a gentleman that will be sitting in this exact seat starting November 10th, 2021.

In my first conversation, it became clear that Carlos understands the mission of the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh.

So the mission is critical because it is about empowerment.

People aren't looking for a hand out.

They're looking to be empowered.

You know, people want an opportunity.

You know, to live a life that's meaningful to them, a meaningful life.

It's what Esther's lived since she first wanted to drive that truck.

A life of purpose and grace that's really just beginning.

And I don't care how hard you work, how much you accomplish.

Especially if you're a black person in America.

There is still so much that you can do to help the next generation, to help this generation.