Last month in Nashville, at the National Urban League Conference, I delivered the 2026 State of the Urban League address with a simple message: America is facing a crisis of priorities.
As our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, we should be asking whether the American Dream is becoming more attainable or slipping further out of reach.
For too many Americans, the answer is obvious.
Housing costs have skyrocketed. Healthcare remains unaffordable for millions. Childcare strains family budgets. Young people wonder whether they’ll ever be able to buy a home. Even Americans with good jobs often feel one unexpected expense away from financial trouble.
This is not a crisis of resources. It is a crisis of priorities.
The United States remains the wealthiest nation in the world. We have the capacity to expand affordable housing, strengthen schools, improve healthcare access, modernize infrastructure, and create pathways to economic mobility. The question is not whether we can afford to make these investments. The question is why we so often choose not to.
Instead, our politics increasingly revolves around division, distraction and grievance. We spend more time fighting cultural wars than solving kitchen table problems. While families worry about rent, groceries and retirement security, too much of our public debate is focused anywhere but on the challenges that shape people’s daily lives.
Americans deserve better.
They deserve leaders who place affordability ahead of ideology. They deserve policies that reward work, not simply wealth. They deserve a government focused on expanding opportunity rather than manufacturing outrage.
That’s why the National Urban League continues to defend diversity, equity and inclusion against relentless political attacks.
The opponents of DEI have succeeded in turning a straightforward idea into a political buzzword. But stripped of the rhetoric, the principle is simple: Everyone deserves a fair shot.
Equal opportunity is not a threat to excellence. It is the foundation of excellence.
When qualified people are given the chance to compete, businesses grow stronger. When barriers are removed, communities prosper. When talent is cultivated wherever it exists, our economy becomes more innovative and competitive.
America has always moved forward by widening the circle of opportunity, not shrinking it.
The same principle applies to voting rights.
A democracy works best when participation is encouraged, not restricted. At a time when faith in public institutions is declining, the answer is not to make voting harder. The answer is to make civic participation stronger.
Throughout our history, every major expansion of democracy has made the nation more representative, more responsive and more just. We should be building on that progress, not reversing it.
But defending democracy and opportunity is only part of the challenge. We also must confront the affordability crisis squeezing working families in every corner of the country.
That means raising wages so that a full-time job provides genuine economic security. It means expanding affordable housing so families aren’t forced to spend unsustainable portions of their income on rent. It means investing in workforce training and education so Americans can compete in a rapidly changing economy. It means ensuring affordable internet access so that no child, worker or entrepreneur is locked out of opportunity by the digital divide.
These are not partisan ideas. They are practical solutions.
The American people are less interested in ideological battles than they are in whether they can afford a home, save for retirement, start a business or send their children to college. They want an economy that works for them. They want a democracy that includes them. They want a future that looks brighter than the present.
As America enters its third century, we face a defining choice.
We can continue down a path of widening inequality, growing division and shrinking opportunity. Or we can recommit ourselves to the values that have always made this country stronger: democracy, inclusion and economic mobility.
Future generations will not judge us by the slogans we repeated or the partisan victories we claimed. They will judge us by whether we expanded opportunity, strengthened democracy and reduced poverty.
At 250 years old, America’s promise remains as powerful as ever. But promise alone is not enough.
It’s time to get our priorities straight. Because the true measure of our nation is not how much wealth it creates, but whether that prosperity reaches the people who need it most.
Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League and was mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002.