Vernon Can Read!: A Memoir

League. And that's another reason I invited you here-to help you get started. But I'vegot some advice for you, and I'm giving you advice that I couldn't have taken myself: Get your own

everyone outside the magic circle into the category of the presumptively unqualified.

life in general: Make the most of what you have at the moment, do the best you can when it counts, and hope and expect good outcomes from your efforts.

judgment I trusted, to get their thoughts about what to do. Even when I have an idea or preference about the best course of action, I have found it useful to sound out others about any life-changing decision I might make. The advice can be accepted or rejected,but it doesn't hurt, and it often helps, to think through contingencies with other people

What I had done in my life was take away certain skills and knowledge from every job and outside activity and apply them in each new arena in which I played. Working in the law with Mr. Hollowell, fund-raising, making speeches, conducting negotiations, managing people and situations-these were things I had spent two decades doing. Why couldn't thos

Whether we want to or not, all blacks end up representing the entire race wherever we are, and given the racial landscape, the bad things we do are taken as more generally representative

Similarly, if we wanted to firmly establish the Urban League as a civil rights organization, we also had to develop and maintain a recognizable and steady presence in the national community-to let the country know what we

Which raises the question: What constitutes merit? Who gets to decide what ingredients go into the mix to make up what is often a very subjective judgment of a person's capabilities? These questions were (and are) critical, given the role merit plays in maintaining the status quo. Peoplein power, in any field or society, have a vested interest in b

than the good things. It's unfair, but it is very real.