A social work leader in the struggle for racial equality: Lester Blackwell Granger

Lester Blackwell Granger, a professional social worker and leader of the National Urban League for 20 years, is rarely mentioned today in either social work or black history literature. Using primary source material from the National Urban League collection in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, I explore how his adherence to the principles of 'scientific social work' and rational planning for social change left him out of step with the civil rights movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s. I take a revisionist approach to examine the two most criticized aspects of Granger's career: his response to the civil rights movement as a professional social worker and his Republican party membership.