About this item

"People who believe a problem can be solved tend to get busy solving it," William Raspberry wrote in the Washington Post in July 1994. "Hugh B. Price is a believer." This comment on Price's inaugural keynote address as head of the National Urban League proved prescient. During his tenure as president and CEO from 1994 to 2003, Price conceived and launched its Campaign for African-American Achievement, spearheaded pressure on the federal government to combat police brutality and racial profiling, vigorously defended affirmative action, and helped repair frayed relations between the black and Jewish communities. Yet his role with the League was just one among many for this impressive man. In This African-American Life, Price traces his forbears, among them Nero Hawley, who fought at Valley Forge under George Washington; George and Rebecca Latimer, who escaped slavery by stowing away on a boat and traveling north as master and slave; and Lewis Latimer, who worked with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison and played a pivotal role in perfecting the light bulb.