During his term as president of the National Urban League, John E. Jacob (born 1934) pushed for the social and economic progress of African Americans and other minority groups.

"America will become a second-rate power unless we undertake policies to insure that our neglected minority population gets the education, housing, health care and job skills they need to help America compete successfully in a global economy," John E. Jacob, president of the National Urban League, told Martin Tolchin in the New York Times. Reiterated in his annual address to the organization, titled "The State of Black America," Jacob's efforts are often controversial; he repeatedly attacks what he views as the indifference of the American political system to the plight of the disadvantaged. During the 1980s, he called for the withdrawal of billions of dollars from the military budget to be used for training minorities to become skilled laborers. Jacob...