by Mell P
After years of planning and construction, the National Urban League’s groundbreaking Urban League Empowerment Center (ULEC), the 17-story mixed-use building on 125th Street in Harlem, will open its doors to the public next week, marking a milestone moment for the historic neighborhood and the broader movement for racial justice in America. The building will serve as the organization’s new national headquarters.
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Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League, described the opening as both a celebration of Black achievement and a bold statement about community empowerment and economic development.
“Next week is the first opening, and I’m so grateful,” Morial said in a Carib News interview. “This is going to be very big for us when we open the doors.”
From Great Migration to Modern Movement
ULEC tells the story of the National Urban League’s century-long mission, which began during the Great Migration of the early 1900s when millions of Black Americans and Caribbeans fled Jim Crow segregation, terrorism, and a declining agricultural economy in the South for opportunities in Northern cities.
A hundred years ago, we started as a migrant servicing organization,” Morial explained. “When they got to New York, they found discrimination, housing discrimination, job discrimination, and we were founded to help them transition: find a place to live, buy a house, find a job, find productive activities for their children.
The Center will showcase not only the African American experience but also the often-overlooked Caribbean influence on the Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance. Immigrants from Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and other Caribbean nations arrived alongside Southern migrants, and literary giants like Claude McKay and other Caribbean descendants helped shape the cultural explosion that defined the era, making this celebration of Caribbean contributions especially meaningful to Morial, whose parental lineages are linked to Haiti and who settled in New Orleans during The Haitian Revolution.
More Than a Center: A Community Development Model
What makes this project unique is that it’s part of a larger mixed-use development that embodies the Urban League’s mission of asset building and economic empowerment. The center includes housing, transitional units for formerly incarcerated individuals, domestic violence survivors, and young people aging out of foster care, along with retail space and offices for other civil rights organizations – an HBCU, 100 Black Men of New York, the United Negro College Fund, The Studio Museum of Harlem – will occupy space in the building, creating a hub for Black cultural and civic life in Harlem, a necessary part of the journey back home to Harlem.
We’re making a statement about what people can do,” Morial emphasized. “About a historic organization putting words into action.
Speaking directly to the Civil Rights Museum located on the 4th floor of the building, and which is set to open in June 2026, Morial shared that 2026 is a big year for the organization.
We want the museum to be like the Natural History Museum, or like when you go to New York and you go to Rockefeller Center, this should be a can’t-miss destination. It’s the public facing component.”
This isn’t Morial’s first venture into community-centered real estate development. As mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002, Morial led the city through a period of revitalization, significantly reducing crime, boosting the economy, and making significant investments in arts and culture. His administration is credited with a 60% drop in violent crime, a halving of the unemployment rate, and a decrease in poverty. Key initiatives included expanding the Convention Center, securing the return of the NBA’s Hornets, passing a bond for economic development, and creating new tourism and arts programs.
We are the anchoring institution and this is our project, my vision. We put all the pieces together, brought in all the users. I think one of the secrets is having a civil rights organization or community-based organization as the anchoring institution,” he said. “This model is workable and can be duplicated.”
With anchors such as Sephora, Target, Trader Joe’s, and Pandora, the building already attracts heavy foot traffic, underscoring its position as one of the city’s busiest retail corridors.
The key to preventing gentrification and displacement, Morial argues, is ownership.
The way you fight that is through ownership. If you’re just renting and the landlord can walk at any time, they’re in control.
Building for the Future
As the museum prepares to welcome visitors on Wednesday November 12, Morial hopes the project will inspire similar developments across the country and transform the surrounding neighborhood.
We’re making a statement in the hope that this becomes contagious,” he said. “When you bring investment and activity that’s good for the community, things start getting contagious.
The Center will offer its conference and event spaces to community-based groups at reasonable rates, ensuring the building serves not just as a monument to history but as an active center for community organizing and civic engagement.
This is about continuing to make a statement but also coaching others,” Morial said. “We’re trying to get more institutions to take space here in Harlem. This is high-quality, and we want it to spawn other projects like this.
