Record Crowd Boosts Urban League Benefit

The benefit-dinner crowd stretched to the distant ramparts of the Century Plaza’s Los Angeles Ballroom Thursday night as 1,700 people, a record for the hotel, raised more than $310,000 for the Los Angeles Urban League.

Highlights of the 15th annual Whitney M. Young Award Dinner had to be the emceeing of Earvin (Magic) Johnson, the impassioned litany of successes described by John Mack, Urban League president; the good-natured repartee from Peter J. Sodini, L.A. Urban League chairman; the tribute to the evening’s honoree from Mayor Tom Bradley, and the response, from Philip M. Hawley, department store executive.

Hawley, chairman and CEO of Carter Hawley Hale Stores Inc., took the opportunity, in receiving this year’s Whitney M. Young Award to make a “call to action” to corporations to “move far more aggressively than has been the case in this city” to support programs with the objective of “full equality for all.”

Honoring Values

“If corporations can really do it,” Hawley said, “perhaps we can have a real award dinner some day soon and celebrate something really worthwhile.” He said the award and the evening “is really an evening to honor the values pursued by the Urban League.” Hawley praised Whitney M. Young Jr., the National Urban League’s late leader, for his work as a catalyst. “He awoke a long-overdue consciousness on the part of corporate America . . . for social justice,” Hawley said.

Only one glitch marred an evening in which full acknowledgement was given to efforts by the Urban League and by corporate leaders to change the quality of life for minority and poor people in Los Angeles. The scheduled performers, the Four Tops, had a problem making their plane. Brought in at the last moment to fill in, comedian Paul Mooney (Sam Cooke in “The Buddy Holly Story”) did what was meant to be a comedy routine filled with racial epithets. Seemingly unaware that Bradley was on the podium, he attacked the mayor with derogatory language. Mack took the mike and ended the performance with a firm “thank you.”

Despite the awkward moment, the evening was seen as an enormous success, financially and in its spirit. James Miscoll, the Bank of America’s executive vice president who chaired the dinner, told the packed house that he had the same answer as St. Paul when asked how he managed to win so many people over: “I’ve got good material.”

There was an overabundance of good material. The Lakers’ Johnson, who insisted that he was “kind of nervous,” turned out to be a star emcee, even kiddingly taking on Sodini, the president of Boys Market Inc., saying he noticed the Boys’ chain surveyed with the highest prices.

Sodini came back with the line that last week he had an “itch to see the Lakers” and the ticket cost more than a week’s groceries.

Johnson turned the emceeing honors into a personal tribute, saying he had never met Hawley until he sat with him and his wife, Mary Hawley, but that “families tell a lot about a person. There are close bonds. He is really proud of his family. Mr. Hawley you are a special person.”

Strong Praise

Hawley received strong praise from Bradley and from Mack, both of whom spoke of his long involvement in working for equality in Los Angeles. Bradley also pointed to Hawley’s chairing, in 1973, of a committee dealing with the oil embargo. “In a week, we had a program we could use,” Bradley said, pointing out that ultimate success “would not, could not have been done without him.”

Bradley also praised Hawley and his company for its contribution to the now-under-construction Crenshaw shopping center development of land worth “millions . . . almost as much as your salary,” he kiddingly said to Magic Johnson.

Hawley’s hopes--that the corporate world will put a stronger emphasis on the Urban League programs--seemed more a reality by the end of the evening, as Sodini announced a new campaign to raise $2 million through the next year. Former Laker Jamaal Wilkes, the chairman of Smooth as Silk Enterprises, and Richard Riordan, of Riordan and McKinzie, have “agreed to take on the challenge,” Sodini said.

And he ended his speech with a phrase that showed just how serious the new endeavor was: “We thank you. And we will be contacting you.”