THE URBAN AFFAIRS COUNCIL has just had a most productive discussion with Mr. John Gardner of the Urban Coalition. This organization represents the kind of citizen volunteer effort that will help to reinvigorate our cities and our Nation. Its 42 local coalitions reflect the best in grass roots leadership.
In the Coalition, business, labor, local government, minority groups, and religious leaders work together to repair the grave gaps in communication that have fragmented our cities. These are American citizens who care about their own communities. They seek to end divisiveness and to bind together the conflicting forces within the community and the Nation.
The Urban Coalition is a "bring-us-together" organization, and I congratulate the leaders in American life who have made the Coalition such an effective instrument of citizen volunteer action--men such as Mr. Gardner, Andrew Heiskell, A. Philip Randolph, George Meany, Whitney Young, John Lindsay, and Arthur Flemming.
I urge business leadership throughout the Nation to lend active support to the Urban Coalition, both locally and nationally.
Note: The White House also released the list of those in attendance at the Council for Urban Affairs meeting, as follows: John Gardner, chairman of the Urban Coalition and former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare; Bayard Rustin, executive director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, New York, and member of the Urban Coalition steering committee; Andrew Heiskell, chairman of the board of Time, Inc., and member of the Urban Coalition steering committee and executive Committee; James H. J. Tate, mayor of Philadelphia and steering committee member; Max M. Fisher, chairman of the board of Fisher-New Center Go., Detroit, and member of the New Detroit Committee; Arthur Flemming, president of the National Council of Churches, president of Macalester College, St. Paul, Minn., member of the Urban Coalition steering and executive committees, and former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare; Frederick Close, chairman of the board of the Aluminum Co. of America, Pittsburgh, and steering and executive committee member; Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers of America, Detroit, and steering and executive committee member; Joseph Allen, president of McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., Inc., member of the steering and executive committees; and M. Cad Holman, vice president for program development of the Urban Coalition.
The President also referred to George Meany, president of AFL-CIO, Whitney M. Young, Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, and John V. Lindsay, mayor of New York City.
The transcript of a news briefing by Chairman Gardner and Dr. Dardel P. Moynihan, Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs, held after the meeting with the President, was also released.
Richard Nixon, Statement on the Urban Coalition. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/240455