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James Compton Named
New Vernon D. Jarrett Senior Fellow
(This UIC News story is available in its original form at
http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/uicnews/articledetail.cgi?id=12079.)
Chicago Urban League leader new Great Cities fellow
April 16, 2008
Anne Brooks Ranallo
Photo: Kathryn Marchetti
James Compton, who led the Chicago Urban League for 34 years, plans to focus on African American
males in his new role as the Vernon Jarrett senior fellow of UIC’s Great Cities Institute.
The Jarrett fellowship is named for the nationally prominent journalist who served as an institute
fellow from 1996 until his death in 2004.
A committee of Jarrett’s family, his friends, and UIC faculty select a fellow every two years who
will work to extend Jarrett’s work in education, journalism, public service or social commentary.
Compton plans to research ways to improve the citizenship, productivity and parental status of African
American males — beginning when they are students in elementary school.
He emphasizes the need to start early to address problems like incarceration, dropout rates and poor
neighborhoods.
“We need to instill cognitive skills, not try to capture them in fifth or seventh grade,” he says.
Compton doesn’t plan to do it alone, however. He envisions a series of forums that reach well beyond academia.
“I want to establish a dialogue with those who interact with youths regularly — parents, social
workers, teachers, guidance counselors, youth experts — observers over an extended period, who see
them in changing environments. Even within the family, there are factors that change,” he says.
Compton brings to the task his experience as executive director, then CEO, of the Chicago Urban
League from 1972 to 2006.
He was active in the civil rights movement in Chicago and Atlanta, where he worked at Morehouse
College with Benjamin E. Mays, the college president and legendary educator.
Compton serves on the boards of Commonwealth Edison, DePaul University, Ariel Mutual Funds,
ETA Creative Arts Foundation, the Big Shoulders Fund, Morehouse Research Institute and the
Seaway Bank and Trust Company.
He has presided over the boards of the Chicago Public Library and the Chicago Board of Education
and he is a life trustee of the Field Museum of Natural History.
Compton is credited with transforming the Chicago Urban League from a social service provider
that addressed individuals’ immediate needs to a research organization with a voice on the education
and economic policies affecting African Americans.
“Services are necessary, but they’re reactive to a person’s behavior,” he says.
“But the experience gained through rendering services can lead to policy and procedures that affect
behavior, that aim at prevention, not remediation. The league needed to be recognized as a player,
and possibly a leader, in advancing a more just society — a catalyst, not ameliorative.”
Financial strength was critical to that growth. Compton says he paved the way with a good staff
and volunteers and a system of accountability.
He also cultivated a board of civic players like Tom Ayers and James O’Connor, both CEOs of
Commonwealth Edison; George Johnson, founder of Johnson Products; John H. Johnson of Johnson Publishing;
and Frederick Jakes, chair of Inland Steel.
“You have to make people believe you’re committed to an understandable direction,” he says. “I developed
a cadre with position, recognition, status. They were black, white, male, female, Hispanic, Asian.”
One result was an emphasis on citizenship. Working through block clubs, social agencies, churches and the
media to draw the public to voter registration drives, community forums and debates, Compton mined the
league’s grass-roots connections to pave the way toward its policy goals.
UIC Library users can see the league’s evolution through its archives, which by Compton’s arrangement are
preserved in the special collections department of the Richard J. Daley Library. For more information call 996-2742.
aranallo@uic.edu
© UIC News
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