Whitney Young - Leadership at The National Association of Social Workers (NASW)

Leadership At The National Association of Social Workers (NASW)

Young served as President of the National Association of Social Workers, (NASW) from 1969-71. He took office at a time of fiscal instability in the association and uncertainty about President Nixon’s continuing commitment to the “War on Poverty” and to ending the war in Vietnam. At the 1969 NASW Delegate Assembly Young stated,

“First of all, I think the country is in deep trouble. We, as a country have blazed unimagined trails technologically and industrially. We have not yet begun to pioneer in those things that are human and social… I think that social work is uniquely equipped to play a major role in this social and human renaissance of our society, which will, if successful, lead to its survival, and if it is unsuccessful, will lead to its justifiable death.” (NASW News, May 1969).

Mr. Young spent his tenure as President of NASW ensuring that the profession kept pace with the troubling social and human challenges it was facing. NASW News articles document his call to action for social workers to address social welfare through poverty reduction, race reconciliation, and putting an end to the War in Vietnam. In the NASW News, July 1970, he challenged his professional social work organization to take leadership in the national struggle for social welfare:

“The crisis in health and welfare services in our nation today highlights for NASW what many of us have been stressing for a long time: inherent in the responsibility for leadership in social welfare is responsibility for professional action. They are not disparate aspects of social work but merely two faces of the same coin to be spent on more and better services for the people who need our help. It is out of our belief in this broad definition of responsibility for social welfare that NASW is taking leadership in the efforts to reorder our nation’s priorities and future direction, and is calling on social workers everywhere to do the same.”

The NASW News, May 1971, tribute to Young noted that “As usual Whitney Young was preparing to do battle on the major issues and programs facing the association and the nation. And he was doing it with his usual aplomb-dapper, self-assured, ready to deal with the “power” people to bring about change for the powerless.”

Mr. Young was also well known in the profession of Social Work for being the Dean of the school of Social Work at Clark Atlanta University, which now bears his name. The school has a solid history of Social work, graduating leaders in the profession and having created and founded the "Afro-Centric" prospective of Social Work, a frequently used theory practice in urban areas. In his last column as President for NASW, Young wrote, “whatever we do we should tell the public what we are doing and why. They have to hear from social workers as much as they hear from reporters and government officials.”