Urban League merger creates regional organization

The Pinellas County Urban League is becoming the Urban League of the Florida Suncoast, merging with the Urban League of Hillsborough County to create an organization serving a broad stretch of West and Central Florida.

The merger adds Hillsborough County to an existing service area that includes Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, Marion, Lake, Sumter and Seminole counties. The organization also plans a phased expansion into Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte and Lee counties.

Andrea Nikki Gaskin-Capehart, president and CEO of the newly named organization, said combining the affiliates will allow the Urban League to share resources and programs across county lines while retaining services already operating in their respective communities.

“This merger is about more than combining two organizations,” Gaskin-Capehart said. “It’s about building regional capacity, changing any lingering siloed mindsets, and combining decades of trust, legacy, and impact into one unified force for our region.”

The merger brings together organizations with distinctly different histories.

The Pinellas County Urban League grew from discussions among St. Petersburg community leaders in 1976. James O. Simmons became its founding president and CEO in 1977 after initial federal funding supported a pre-employment program. The National Urban League certified the organization as its 114th affiliate the following year.

Simmons remained in charge for 28 years. What began with four employees and a $50,000 federal grant eventually became a 17-program organization with an annual budget exceeding $6 million, according to the League’s history.

Herman Lessard and Gregory Johnson later led the organization. The Rev. Watson Haynes II became president and CEO in 2012 and served until his death in 2022. Gaskin-Capehart, previously St. Petersburg’s director of urban affairs, became the first woman to lead the Pinellas organization in September 2023.

Hillsborough County’s Urban League history stretches further back, although it is not continuous.

Tampa’s first Urban League was established in 1922. Early records preserved by the University of South Florida connect civil rights and education leader Blanche Armwood to the organization during its first years.

The original organization, eventually known as the Tampa-Hillsborough Urban League, closed around 2003 amid financial problems associated with plans to renovate and relocate to a historic Ybor City building.

Businessman Stanley Gray and other community leaders began organizing a new Urban League in 2019. They established it as a separate organization rather than a legal continuation of the former Tampa affiliate. The National Urban League approved the Urban League of Hillsborough County as an affiliate in 2021.

The distinction makes the merger unusual. It combines Pinellas’ nearly five decades of continuous operations with a Hillsborough organization that is relatively new but carries forward a Tampa Urban League tradition dating to 1922.

The combined organization will concentrate its work in education and youth leadership, workforce development and entrepreneurship, housing and community development, health, social justice and civic engagement.

One new program will provide an early test of how the larger footprint can work.

Beginning in October, the Urban League of the Florida Suncoast will operate a Tampa satellite site for INROADS College Links, extending programming from the organization’s Orlando chapter to Tampa Bay high school students.

College Links provides college and career preparation, including professional skills training, career exposure, planning and mentoring. INROADS says its in-person sessions are generally held monthly from October through May. The program also introduces students to careers in science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics and business.

The Tampa program gives the merger an immediate practical consequence. A program available through an established operation elsewhere in Florida can now be delivered locally through the expanded Urban League network.

The organization will formally introduce the Urban League of the Florida Suncoast Tuesday, Sept. 22 at noon at Stetson University College of Law’s Tampa Law Center, 1700 N. Tampa St. in Tampa. The event will include donors, community organizations, elected officials and residents.

The new name also reflects a geographic footprint extending well beyond Tampa Bay. If the planned expansion into Southwest Florida is completed, the organization would operate across 12 counties, stretching from Seminole County to Lee County.