Lester Blackwell Granger was an African American civic leader who organized the Los Angeles chapter of the National Urban League and headed the league from 1941 to 1961.
10 Facts About Lester Granger
2.
Lester Granger's mother was a teacher, and his father was a doctor from Barbados.
3.
Lester Granger grew up in Newark, New Jersey, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1918.
4.
Lester Granger was a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
5.
Lester Granger served in the US Army during World War I and worked briefly for the Newark chapter of the National Urban League.
6.
In 1922, Lester Granger was an extension worker with the Bordentown School, New Jersey's state vocational school for African American youth, in Bordentown.
7.
In 1940, Lester Granger became the NUL's assistant executive secretary in charge of industrial relations and continued to work to integrate racist trade unions.
8.
In 1941, illness made the executive secretary of the NUL, Eugene Kinckle Jones, no longer able to carry out duties, and Lester Granger was appointed as Jones' successor.
9.
Lester Granger retired from the NUL in 1961 and joined the faculty of Dillard University, in New Orleans.
10.
Lester Granger was the first American citizen to serve in this capacity.