The Urban League of Lexington—Fayette County was founded on May 17, 1968. In the late 1960s, when Harry Sykes attended a speech at the University of Kentucky by National Urban League executive director Whitney Young, he heard Young talk about an organization that sounded like a good fit for Lexington. In Young's speech, the Urban League, formed on the national level in 1910, was presented as an organization focused on economic improvements, an extension of the civil sit-ins and marches that brought public awareness to the plight of blacks during that era, wrote journalist Merlene Davis.
"It was clear in the beginning that it wasn't just another protest organization," Harry Sykes said. "It had very sound ideas of what was appropriate for the people: education, housing and employment."