A Vocal Salute to ‘Quiet’ Warriors : Anniversary: Mayor Bradley heads cast of notables honoring the Urban League on its 70th birthday.

A year ago, Louis Williams was just another teen-ager behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant, slapping together tacos and stuffing burritos.

But today, after graduating from the Los Angeles Urban League’s Independent Living Skills program, the 18-year-old Hollywood youth types 30 words a minute, works as a peer counselor and is studying airplane mechanics at Northrop University.

On Saturday, in a special rap tribute to commemorate the Urban League’s 70th anniversary at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Williams expressed his gratitude in rhyme:

Just a word of recognition to the people who helped me

Become a higher intellect of society

Teaching me the wisdom and the tricks of the trade

I’m saying thanks--because of you I’m getting paid

Williams was joined by Mayor Tom Bradley and a cast of other notables in paying homage to organization members who, since 1921, have considered themselves the “quiet warriors” in the struggle to promote African-American economic opportunity.

Last year, officials said, the Urban League--with seven offices in Los Angeles, Pasadena and Pomona--provided free meals for 954 preschool children, helped secure $2.5 million in loans for small businesses and found work for 2,255 previously unemployed or underemployed people, who went on to earn a total of $20.5 million in 1990.

“We may not always make the headlines and we may not always be the loudest,” said John W. Mack, president of the group since 1969. “But when it comes to getting results, we take a back seat to no one.”

The noontime celebration filled the mall’s central atrium, known as Tom Bradley Court, which opened to great civic fanfare in 1988 but has had difficulty attracting national retail tenants and local shoppers.

In fact, Bradley, who served on the Urban League board of directors that hired Mack as president, asked the audience of about 150 to continue patronizing the shopping center, which was hailed as the nation’s first major enclosed mall in a predominantly black urban neighborhood.

“I want you to do me a favor,” Bradley told the crowd. “I want to see all of you shopping here on a regular basis. We’re proud of this place . . . but if we are to maintain that pride, we’ve got to be sure it thrives.”

After his remarks, Councilwoman Ruth Galanter presented the Urban League with a plaque from the City Council honoring the occasion, the blue-and-gold robed Crenshaw High School Choir sang “The Greatest Love of All” and 12 preschoolers, most of them tiny girls in ribbons and lace, wiggled their hips to an African drumbeat.

Around them all were old black-and-white photos marking the organization’s history. One showed founder Katherine Barr, who transformed the group from its roots as the Tuskegee Industrial Welfare League. Another was of KTLA news anchor Larry McCormick, who, as host of “Dialing for Dollars” in the late 1960s, invited the Urban League’s president to be a guest on the TV game show.

“Despite the good work we’ve done, a lot of people all too often don’t know our story or our mission,” Mack said. “But we’ve been steadfast. We’ve been the quiet warriors.”