The records of the Detroit Urban League include minutes of the Board of Directors, correspondence and topical files of Executive Directors and Presidents, budgets and financial records, and papers concerning National Urban League conferences and Green Pastures Camp; also departmental files relating to community services, housing, vocational services, health and welfare, job development and employment, and education and youth incentives. The records also include photographs of chapter activities, meetings, and ceremonies; photos of buildings and staff (notably executive directors, John Dancy and Francis Kornegay); also films.
The Detroit Urban League (hereafter referred to as the D.U.L.), an affiliate of the National Urban League (N.U.L.), was founded in 1916 to address the needs of the growing population of African-Americans in Detroit. The N.U.L. had been founded in 1910 in New York as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes as an agency responsive to the needs of Black emigrants from the south who were then coming in great numbers to the urban north.
The establishment of the D.U.L. was a joint effort of the N.U.L. and the Associated Charities of Detroit. The D.U.L. was and is a problem oriented agency, creating programs and services to meet the most pressing educational, employment, health, and social needs of the Detroit African American community.
The D.U.L. was at first funded by the Associated Charities of Detroit (which later evolved into the Community Fund). It has also, in the past, received allocations from the N.U.L. In 1992, the D.U.L. received funding from the Community Fund's successor United Community Services of Detroit, the local United Way Foundation; from local, federal and state grants; and from N.U.L. grants and individual D.U.L. memberships.
The D.U.L., although it operates as an independent agency, is linked to the national organization through the N.U.L.'s "Terms of Affiliation." Policy is set by a board of directors and a strong executive director/president. The D.U.L. chief executive officers since its founding have been:
| Date |
Event |
| 1916-1918 | Forrester B. Washington, Executive Director |
| 1918-1960 | John C. Dancy, Executive Director |
| 1960-1978 | Francis A. Kornegay, Executive Director |
| 1978-1984 | Roy Levy Williams, President |
| 1984-1985 | Sue Hamilton-Smith, Interim President |
| 1985-1987 | Donald W. Woods, President |
| 1987- | N. Charles Anderson, President |
For further information on the D.U.L. records, the researcher should consult A Brief History of the Detroit Urban League and Description of the League's Papers in the Michigan Historical Collections (Michigan Historical Collections Bulletin No. 20) and the MHC's Guide to the Microfilm Edition of the Detroit Urban League Papers. These bulletins also contain references to other sources of information about the D.U.L. at the Michigan Historical Collections and elsewhere. The researcher should additionally consult the papers of John C. Dancy and Francis A. Kornegay and the records of the Children's Fund of Michigan also located at the Michigan Historical Collections. For a perspective on the D.U.L.'s Green Pastures Camp, Keri Bancroft's "Green Pastures Camp: Scene II" (Michigan History Magazine, 69, no. 5, September/October 1985, pp. 32-39) is a useful source.
A separate collection of D.U.L. materials is located at the Burton Historical Collections of the Detroit Public Library; while the records of United Community Services of Detroit are at the Wayne State University Labor Archives.
The records of the Detroit Urban League have been received in a series of accessions beginning in 1963. The first four accessions, 1963-1971, were reprocessed in 1977 and have been designated "Original Accessions." Beginning in 1977, upon receipt of new materials, the decision was made to process subsequent accessions as separate units of the collection, even though they might contain materials from an earlier period. These later groupings of files are labeled "1977 Accession. Records, 1936-1977," "1985 Accession. Records, 1939-1985," and "1992 Accession. Records, 1924-1992." The four accessions with their principal series are:
- Original Accessions, 1916-1963 (Boxes 1-56)
- Executive Director's Files
- General Files and Correspondence
- Topical Files
- Board of Directors
- National Urban League Conferences
- Budget and Financial Records
- Printed Materials
- Green Pastures Camp
- Detroit House of Corrections
- Social Welfare Cases
- Departmental Files
- Community Services Department
- Vocational Services Department
- Housing Department
- Educational and Youth Incentives Department
- Health and Welfare Department
- Job Development and Employment Department
- 1977 Accession, 1936-1977 (Boxes 57-73)
- National Urban League Files
- National Conferences
- Memos
- Press Releases
- Office Files
- Subject File
- National Council on Social Work
- Publications
- Urban League Affiliates
- Detroit Urban League Files
- Executive Board Materials
- Departmental Reports
- Research Reports
- Correspondence
- Memos
- Speech File
- Publications
- Reference File
- Green Pastures File
- Audio tapes
- 1985 Accession, 1939-1985 (Boxes 74-87)
- Executive Director's Files
- John C. Dancy, 1926-1967
- Francis A. Kornegay, 1951-1978
- President's Files
- Roy L. Williams, 1978-1985
- Photographs
- Films
- 1992 Accession, 1924-1992 (Boxes 88-96)
- Executive Director's Files
- Francis A. Kornegay, 1960-1978
- President's Files
- Roy Levy Williams,1978-1984
- Sue Hamilton-Smith, 1984-84
- Donald Woods, 1985-19897
- N. Charles Anderson, 1987 -
- Deputy Director's Files, 1968-1978
- Staff Files, 1974-1989
