He was born in July of 1921 and spent most of his life fighting for equal employment rights and civil rights in the United States. In the late 1940's, Whitney Young served as a teacher at the University of Nebraska. He also began working for the Urban League. Whitney Young is credited with turning the Urban League from a small civil rights group into a powerful and influential organization that fought vehemently for rights. In 4 years, Young turned it into a 38 person group to 1,600 people. He remained President of the National Urban League from 1961 until his death in 1971. Whitney Young was only 49 years old when he passed away.
