The Autobiography of Dr. Edward Irons: Only by Grace [1 ed.] 9781940002552, 9781940002538

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ONLY BY

GRACE BY

DR . EDWARD IRONS

Copyright © 2014 Dr Edward Irons. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Cover: Daryl Anderson, Sr. Interior Page design & layout: Ornan Anthony of OA.Blueprints, LLC Editor: Springhawk Publications, LLC Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-940002-53-8 (HB) ISBN: 978-1-940002-54-5 (ePUB) ISBN: 978-1-940002-55-2 (ePDF)

Contents Dedication..........................................................................................................................4 Foreword.............................................................................................................................6 Chapter 1: The Ghetto: The Small Town Way..........................................................12 Chapter 2: In Defense of My Country.......................................................................24 Chapter 3: Sitting-in Before Sitting-in was “in”........................................................38 Chapter 4: Education on My Terms...........................................................................43 Chapter 5: My First Job Out of College and Beyond.............................................48 Chapter 6: Hospital Administration Studies..............................................................57 Chapter 7: A Non-Politician Takes a Political Job....................................................64 Chapter 8: The Consolidated State Institutions Experience..................................71 Chapter 9: Somebody Upstairs Stepped into My Life Again..................................79 Chapter 10: The Struggle for Dignity Comes to Tallahassee.................................87 Chapter 11: A Country Boy Goes to Harvard..........................................................99 Chapter 12: My Career Options................................................................................113 Chapter 13: Teaching, Publishing and Organizing a Bank...................................119 Chapter 14: Washington Calls....................................................................................131 Chapter 15: Howard University Calls: To Create a Business School..................150 Chapter 16: A Prestigious Professorship.................................................................174

Chapter 18: The Reluctant Banking Commissioner..............................................207 Chapter 19: Atlanta Beckons Again.........................................................................216 Chapter 20: Lazarus Wasn’t the Only One..............................................................223 Epilogue.........................................................................................................................231

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DEDICATION dren: Trisha Lynn, Eddie Jr., Tamara Joy, Brigitte Killings, and Tony Morrow; to my eleven grandchildren and to my two great-grandchildren. est asset, irrespective of any material wealth one may possess.

of God throughout my life, I have been fortunate to have a number of pearls of wisdom bestowed upon me. It is therefore my hope that my children, their children and future generations of young people like them may be inspired to be their best as God intended them to be.

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To reach your goals, sometimes you must sail against the wind and sometimes with the wind but never drift, nor lie at anchor.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes [abridged]

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foreword By KERMIT MAJETTE IBM Management Executive (Retired) and Chairman of the Evangelism Committee, Ben Hill United Methodist Church, Atlanta, GA. Dr. Edward Irons - Economist, Bank Organizer, Banking Commissioner for District of Columbia, Economic Consultant to the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa, founder, Howard University School of Business; Dean of the Business School, the Mills B. Lane Professor of Banking and Financial Institutions and Distinguished Professor Finance/Entrepreneurship, Clark Atlanta University. A servant of the people spent more than 60 years as a university educator, as a business, government and educational executive, as a U.S. and foreign governments, including the United Nations Commission on Africa. By most standards, Edward Irons would be considered a high achiever. He served on a number of corporate boards and commissions by four Atlanta mayors, three Georgia Goverschool; however, he managed to earn a Ph.D. degree in Finance from Harvard University Graduate School of Business in 1960, before it was “cool” for black people to be admitted to Ivy League Schools. –––––––––––––––––

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Dr. Irons grew up in a small, rigidly segregated, Oklahoma town with a population of 6,000, 500 of whom were black, where the Grand Cafe on Route 66, which ran through the heart of the town, featured a neon sign that read “Nigger Chicken.” “Those of us who lived on the north side of town had to walk by that restaurant every day to get to school,” recalls Irons. Like most proletariat families at that time, money to fund their four children’s college education. The two boys and got married. To provide some perspective to this situation, the average black male in the U.S., in 1940, (when Dr. Irons was seventeen) attended fewer than six years of school, and the average white male attended only nine years. Additionally, the black male median income was $537 per year and the average white male earned about $1,234, more than double the earnings of black men. The 1930s and early 1940s included the great depression years. During that time nei-

In spite of those handicaps, Edward Irons went on to be a testament to the power of hope and the role of Grace against improbable odds, leading him to attend college, graduate, and eventually earn School of Business. In the meantime, he spent more than 60 years as a university educator, a business, government and educational exand to the U.S. and foreign governments including the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa. He also served on several

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Using the “Sit-In” strategy in 1945, almost two decades before SitIns became a major weapon of the Civil Rights Movement, he successfully caused the Muskogee, Oklahoma Veterans Hospital to quit requiring black veterans to come in the back door of the cafeteria and sit and eat in a segregated section of the cafeteria. In 1945, he rejected the actions of the Muskogee, Oklahoma Veterauto mechanic without his knowledge. Instead, he chose to matriculate at Wilberforce University, a historic HBCU that was created in 1856, seven years before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. He was valedictorian of his senior class in high school. With a burning desire to attend college, he spent the next two years trying to undergraduate school in three years at the scholastic rank of cum laude with a degree in Business Administration. At the master’s level, he was awarded the Sabra M. Hamilton Award for the Best Management Thesis in Hospital Administration, for the class of 1951, at the University of Minnesota. In spite of a less than hospitable environment among the students and faculty, he earned a doctorate degree in Finance from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business in two years when the average was three years above the master’s degree. After receiving his doctorate, he vowed to go back South and “give back,” rejecting a number of major corporate offers, including Chase Manhattan Bank, which, at that time, was the largest commercial

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bank in the country; and the Mead Corporation, a multinational paper manufacturer with 15 subsidiaries around the world at that time. erside National Bank, Houston, Texas in 1964. This bank received U.S., during the prior 40 years. In the process, a renaissance of minority bank ownership in the U.S. was initiated, which was his vision. He was recruited by Howard University in Washington, D.C., to organize a business school at the University, and with the help of its students and faculty, brought it online in 1970. Howard was 102 years old and did not have a Business School although it was reputedly the most prestigious HBCU in the nation. of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, President of Operation Push, he launched a $100 million Bank Deposit Development Program for Minority Banks during which, Jesse Jackson importuned Jim Roche, million dollars in minority banks, and begin granting black people that automobile franchises became the largest segment of minority business in this country in the following years.

Banking for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C.

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accepted the deanship of the School of Business of Clark Atlanta University. In this position, he was charged with securing the accreditation of both the graduate and undergraduate schools, with extremely limited resources. The graduate school was in danger of losing its 21-year accreditation had Dr. Irons been unsuccessful in his mission. The aftermath would have been devastating to faculty, students, the alumni, and the university in general. This was to be his last job before retirement. “You can imagine the pressure I was under if I had failed at this endeavor,” said Irons. By the grace of God and perhaps, given the fact that he was a member of the Board of the Accrediting Agency, his quest for accreditation was successful. Following an illustrious 24-year tenure, he retired from the deanship, exhausted. He was then importuned by Dr. Thomas W. Cole, Jr., president of the University, to stay on as Distinguished Professor of prior to his retirement.

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- Winston Churchill

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1 The Ghetto: The Small-town Way It was a typical southern town with all the social mores of the South intact. Segregated schools; black people accepting the status quo as the only thing they knew. Vinita, Oklahoma, had approximately 500 Black people, about eight percent in a town with a population of 6,000. There were no problems between blacks and whites, because black people accepted their lot without protest, but there was no viciousness between the races. In fact, there was downright cordiality between the races. For example, everybody, including black people, He operated a hardware store. If anyone wanted to see or talk to Craig, all they had to do was go to the hardware store, buy a pound of nails, for example, and talk to him. That’s how informal the culture was in Vinita. There was one black doctor who was on call 24-hours a day. I remember thinking to myself, “I don’t want to be a doctor if I have to live that kind of life.” There were no black lawyers, and only one black business—a chili parlor. Chili was 10-cents a bowl. So for 15-cents you could get a bowl of chili and a coke. We had one black high school from K through 12; with 12 teachers and a principal.

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on the situation, the upper crust of black society in Vinita did not condescend to those of us who were the proletariat. The wisdom that seemed to govern the behavior of the black community in Vinita was that we were all black and thus we were all in the same boat. And any pretense to the contrary was to pursue a rainbow. There were no buses in Vinita, thus, if you didn’t own a car, and most of us didn’t, you walked wherever you wanted to go. And of course the walk wasn’t all that taxing since one could walk across town in thirty minutes without hurrying. Cultural Dynamics of Vinita My family lived on the north side of town. The school was on the south side of town so my brother and two sisters and I had to walk across town to get to school. As in any southern town, we walked by white schools to get to our school. One of Vinita, Oklahoma’s claim to fame was that Highway 66 passed through the center of town. to pass through the town and not know it. The other claim to fame was that Vinita played host to the rodeo and carnival once a year. Watching the cowboys and cowgirls rope the calves and steers, ride the bulls and the bucking horses, and bulldog the steers, was the biggest fun the town would see until the same time the next year. Once in a while something unique would happen that would create some excitement such as the Budweiser Beer Caravan from St. Louis, Missouri, passing through our town and allowing those big beautiful Clydesdale horses to parade through the town before loading them back in their special trailer and proceeding down Route 66. This was

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exciting to us because we had to study agriculture at our high schools in Oklahoma and we learned about those Clydesdales in our agriculture class. They were the most beautiful draft horses I had ever seen like Vinita, you learned to be thankful for small things. Equally unusual in Vinita, were the suicides that happened in our town during the crash of the 1930s, when many people lost everything they had. In New York, and other big cities, the people jumped out of tall buildings to commit suicide when they lost their fortunes. Since there were no buildings more than two stories high in Vinita, people who were bent on committing suicide (and there weren’t many), went out into the cow pastures and shot themselves. Of course, on their way to the point at which they were going to shoot themselves, they ran the risk of stepping in something, in which case they died with something on their feet. The family at the top of the social ladder in Vinita at that time was the family of Dr. Lewis Ryan. Unfortunately, Dr. Ryan died at a relatively early age, but he had already built a thriving practice and a building that was designed to be a hospital. Uncharacteristically, although Dr. Ryan was black, he was reputedly the best doctor in Vinita. As a result, most of his patients were white. This allowed Dr. Ryan to accumulate considerable real estate, which became the source of income for his family following his death. As a result, his widow never had to work although she had nine children to raise and other two could have gone to college, but they opted not to go. The second oldest girl, Marilyn, and the last living sibling, currently lives

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in Bethesda, Maryland. I was privileged to attend her 90th birthday party recently. Predictably, as the oldest son, Lewis, who had planned to follow his father’s footsteps and become a doctor, had to abandon his plans and assumed the mantle of leadership of the family. His family comprised nine children and a widow. In addition to assuming the leadership of the Ryan family, Lewis, who was referred to by everybody as “Son,” became a teacher at Attucks High School, the one black high school in Vinita. He also served as the coach of the basketball team, and he was excellent at both of those functions. A Championship Basketball Team with Six Players Coach Lewis Ryan had not even played Jr. Varsity college basketball. He was too short, approximately 5’9” in height. That didn’t stop him from becoming one of the best basketball coaches in the state, however. In this regard, he would design plays and required the players to practice them until they were as natural as walking. In a short time our team could run those plays without thinking. There were no tall men on Vinita’s Basketball Team. Our tallest player was six feet tall and he was the only one. Because of the lack of height among the Vinita players, we had to learn to shoot with a high trajectory as a means of shooting over taller opponents. We missed a lot but we made enough to win most times. I keep saying “we,” because I was a member of that team at 5’9”, and I became captain in my senior year. We had only six players on the team; thus, we had to learn to play a full sixty minutes at top speed because there was only one substitute, and there were times when two men fouled out before the game was

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way. Because of our six-man roster, the coach’s strategy was to run up as high a lead as possible early in the game, so that if two men fouled out, we could still win the game. Winning under these circumstances was not uncommon for Vinita. Can you imagine a team winning the state championship with only six players on its roster? Well, we did it, and before long the word went forth throughout Oklahoma that we were good. We traveled in one car, the coach’s, including the six players and their togs. But we showed up on time for each of our out-of-town games. One occasion in the history of the team I will never forget. We had given a new basketball gymnasium. Prior to the new stadium, the night before a game, the basketball team had to practice in a gymnasium loaned to us by the Catholic School. In between games, we had to practice on an outdoor, clay court at Attucks.

defeated by Claremore, Oklahoma. Like Vinita, Claremore was also gave the town unique acclaim. It was the home of the nationally famous humorist, Will Rogers. Claremore had a team that had a number of players above 6 feet tall, one of which was referred to as “QT”. The average height of our team was about 5 feet 10 inches. QT had a reputation throughout the state as being one of the dirtiest players in the league. He also had

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a reputation for being a very good basketball player. He frequently would observe the referee, whose attention was someplace else, providing him the opportunity to elbow his opponent in the side, in his back, on his arm, or anywhere he could get to him; just to take him out of his game and make him mad. Rarely would the referee catch him doing this, so he was rarely charged with a foul. But referees would frequently call a foul on the player that QT was harassing because that player would foul QT while the referee was watching. QT also was known to be good at shooting the long ball, which today is referred to as the “three-point shot,” although it only counted as two points in those days. Our First Loss in the New Gym Attucks had lost no games during the last two years. We were ten seconds away from winning this game by one point. Two of our more designated QT to bring the ball across the ten second line. It took him about eight seconds to get the ball across the ten second line. As soon as he got across the ten-second line, he shot the ball. While it clearly was an optical illusion, with the high arc of the shot, it looked like it was going to hit the rafters in the ceiling of the gym. The crowd had become deathly quiet. When the ball reached the basket, you could hear nothing but the swish of the ball hitting the bottom of the net. The game was over and Claremore had won by one point at the last second. Our cheerleaders (we had three) broke into tears and so did our team, including myself, the captain. Even a number of students in the audience, and many women in the audience were also crying. The dirtiest player in the state of Oklahoma

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a championship game at that. This was a bitter pill to swallow. The team went into shower with tears in their eyes. As young athletes, we learned this as one of the life lessons that would prepare us for similar challenges in the future. No matter how good you are, there’s always someone who can beat you at whatever you’re good at. The Legacy of Segregation in Vinita Like all cities in the South, Vinita was segregated in all its social endeavors. This was an awful chapter in the history of the U.S. Not only did segregation achieve its direct objective of depriving African Americans of the basic freedoms that other Americans take for granted, it also produced some unintended and unpredictable consequences. One example of unpredictable consequences of segregation was that at Attucks High School. There were times when the demographics of the school produced too few boys to meet a given need. Sports for example, we could not have a football team because there were not enough boys in the school and as a result, we only had six players on the basketball team. Additionally, there were other times when there were too few girls to meet a given need. One such example was there were not enough girls to meet the need of the senior-class play in 1940. The play called for one more girl than was in the senior and junior classes combined. This situation posed a dilemma for the teacher directing the play. She had to decide between selecting a girl from the sophomore class to play a part in this seniorclass play or designate a boy to play the girl’s part. After agonizing over that dilemma the teacher rejected the option to select a sophomore to play a part in the play. Her decision, therefore, was to designate a boy to play the part of the girl. The teacher looked

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at me and said, “E.D. (They called me E.D. in high school), I’ve seen your legs on the basketball court and they look pretty good so I’m designating you to be the girl in the play.” Here I was captain of the basketball team; I played sandlot football without a helmet. I was the best boxer in the school. In addition to being president of the senior class, I had been designated as the valedictorian of the graduating class. In those days you accepted the decision of the teacher, no matter how it might impact you. The thing about playing the part of the girl in that play that troubled me the most was the fact that the girl had to be kissed by a boy who looked like the cartoon character, Bubba. Denzel Washington and I still would’ve had the same apprehension. In Vinita, boys didn’t kiss boys, and girls didn’t kiss girls in those days. It may be different today, but back then, “real men” in Oklahoma didn’t even carry umbrellas when it was raining. A real man in Oklahoma, at that time, would rather get wet than be seen carrying an umbrella. tives and friends of the graduates. You can imagine the turmoil in my mind contemplating this kiss from Bubba. When the time came for Bubba to kiss me, the only thing that saved me was that I quickly turned my head and he kissed the back of my head. The audience howled. I was relieved. I felt like I had just scored the winning basketball shot against one of our prime opponents. After Bubba recovered, he too seemed relieved. The fact that I was selected to play the part of the girl did not generate any ideas that I was gay among my

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classmates and peers in the student body or in the community. This was looked at as a school fun thing that carried no sexual connotations. If I were a kid in today’s climate, I would’ve had to reject the suggestion that I play the part of the girl because I could not have escaped the label that I must be gay. There was life beyond high school and in Vinita, but not much. Most of my friends following completion of high school stayed in Vinita and supported themselves and their families with unskilled jobs at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. My most profound memory was built around my idea that I did not want to live like black people lived in Vinita. During high school, I shined shoes in a white barbershop that would not cut my hair nor that of any black man, for that matter. I was paid ten cents a shine. As we walked to school each day we had to pass a restaurant that featured a neon sign on its façade that said ‘Nigger Chicken.’ I had to enter the back door of a restaurant that I was hired to clean up every day, but I could not eat there. Such was life in Vinita, Oklahoma. The Japanese Bombed Pearl Harbor By the time I had graduated from high school in 1941, my family had moved from Vinita to Tulsa, Oklahoma, the number two city in Oklahoma. Since many of my friends and family members still lived in Vinita, I frequently commuted from Tulsa to Vinita. There were a number of little towns on Route 66 between Tulsa and Vinita. I never shall forget, on one of those trips, we pulled up to a light in this little town and there was an old guy who looked like a hillbilly sitting on a bench in front of a store whittling on a piece of wood.

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The light had turned red and when this guy saw us stop, he got up and walked to the car and bent down and put his head in the open car window and said, “Hey boys” (with emphasis on the word boys), “did you hear the news?” They called us boys in Vinita in those days. It did not matter how old we were. Since I was sitting next to the open window, I answered him saying, “No, boy, what is the news?” I made sure that he realized I was calling him boy. He said, “Dem Japs done bombed hell out of Pearl Harbor.” I said, “Where in the hell is Pearl Harbor?” He said, “Damned if I know, but ‘dem japs done bombed hell out of it.” The light turned green and he turned and spit a wad of tobacco out of his mouth and walked back towards his bench as we were driving off. The next day, we turned on our radio and there was President Franklin D. Roosevelt, seriously addressing the American people regarding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This is in context, what he said: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a day which will live in infamy, the U.S. was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the Imperial Air Force of the Empire of Japan. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people will win absolute victory in this war.” While this is not all he said in that speech, this is what I remember. The next day Congress declared war on Japan. It did not take long for the U.S. Army to begin drafting young men to enter World War II. Some of my classmates who had already entered college were being drafted and sent to war with no promise that they would be reimbursed for the tuition which they had paid to their respective colleges. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon your point of view, I did not have the money to enter college, as bad as I

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wanted to go. So I waited until they drafted me. For some reason it took two years for them to call me.

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When you are down to nothing, God is up to something.

- [Author Unknown]

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2 In Defense of My Country Lakes Naval Base near Chicago where I took my basic training. As Candidate School Test. If you passed, you were eligible to go to OfI had passed because you know when you know something and you know when you don’t know something. Following the test, I inquired as to what my test score was and they told me “We lost your tests papers.” I responded, “Then I will take the test over,” to which they responded, “We cannot re-administer the tests, in fact we are going to send you to Williamsburg, Virginia, to train you to be a stevedore.” Navy at that time. In fact, black naval personnel were either servants the operation of the Navy. They did, in fact, send my group to Williamsburg, Virginia, where we did train to become stevedores. Stevedores are those laborers that load and unload ships. We did not have any seaports in Vinita, so I didn’t know what a stevedore was. While I was disappointed that

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I accepted this obvious act of racism because I was now designated as property of the U.S. Navy, and we were in a state of war, which meant I could be court-martialed for refusing to obey an order. The Stevedoring Begins Having accepted my lot, I quickly acquired the skill set to become a good stevedore. Following three weeks of training, I was assigned to the Seventh Fleet located at the Boston Naval Ship Yard. Stevedoring entailed unloading boxes of supplies from railroad cars that were sent to the Boston, Massachusetts Naval Pier, putting them on wooden pallets that were then picked up by the crane of the ship and dropped into the hole of the ship and stacked in the proper place. The next thing I knew, following my arrival at the South Boston Naval Pier, was that I was promoted to the rank of Coxswain and made supervisor of a crew of men. A Coxswain on board a ship is responsible for all personnel and equipment on the boat and he

they were recognizing my leadership potential. The next thing that we learned was that my group was being designated as Seabees. This is the naval group known as the Construction Battalion. The Seabees would go in following an invasion of a given area of the war and build the infrastructure, i.e., bridges, barges, roads and housing, etc., so that soldiers following the initial invasion would have a base from which to operate. Often bullets from the constructing the infrastructure. This obviously generated numerous casualties. –––––––––––––––––

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The following statement is from a fellow black World War II Seabee named James Jackson, who served gallantly during the same period as I. At the construction job site where we worked, we had what was called a lister bag, which contained water for us to drink when the water wagon was elsewhere

‘Hang on, son, hang on.’

My buddies came over. ‘Yeah, chief, I’ll use it,’ one replied. ‘Wait for me, chief,’ said another. And so on, one after another.

low-key, almost friendly way, as if it were the most normal thing in the world that the only black person in the crew was a second-class citizen. Whatever happened to that cup, I don’t know. I wonder if they buried it.

tory attitudes that were ubiquitous in the armed forces of the United States in those years. But I also was privileged to witness and be part of the momentous historic changes

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harnessing the energies, skills and patriotism of all her citizens regardless of their race. It helped that I am an outgoing person. I like people, and my parents taught me not to be prejudiced. It also helped that I came to view being a Seabee, as a member of the elite Navy Construction Battalions -- abbreviated to CBs, and as support units for amphibious landings, and their achievements during that war are the stuff of Navy lore. Moreover, I have come to believe that an intense, goaloriented environment like that of the Seabees is one of the most effective antidotes to racism over the long term. On the job, your skills are needed, your expertise is valued, your manual labor is as critical as the next guy’s. Prejudice is more likely to take a back seat. Nevertheless, my journey through this rewarding career was not easy. I never experienced the level of overt, racist violence depicted in the movie ‘Men of Honor,’ ter, daily and for years, the small acts of prejudice that can be just as defeating tasks. Eventually, I was instructing and supervising others, but the negative attitudes among my white peers and seniors, coupled with the feeling that nothing was being done about it, wore me down. Most critically, there was no upward mobility.

the summer of 1944, during the hottest part of the Japanese War of WWII, when the Japanese were shooting everything moving. As a result, most of my colleagues became war casualties. The irony it otherwise. I contracted rheumatic fever while in Boston and was

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sent to the Chelsea Naval Hospital, Chelsea, Massachusetts, for treat-

developed a double heart murmur that the cardiologist said would never heal, but could get worse, dependent upon my lifestyle. The military reassigned my treatment to be administered at Veterans Hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where I could be closer to my home. I was given a medical discharge and provided outpatient care. Meanwhile, my colleagues were sent to the hottest part of the war which predisposed them to a high rate of casualties and I was discharged with the prognosis that I would be permanently and totally disabled. While I was leaving the Navy, I was transferred to a Veterans Hospital, where I was to continue my rehabilitation for anthrough this set of life experiences, I was being prepared for greater service. Organizing a Sit-in to Confront Racism When I arrived at the Veterans Hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma, I soon realized that I was being returned to an environment much like the one I left before the war. In fact, as was typical in the segregated South, the VA hospital was divided into white and black wards. It was a sad commentary to view the separation of the races when the wounded warriors came out of their wards, one could see white veterans and black veterans with one leg, with no legs, with one arm, with no arms, in wheelchairs, on crutches, and in wheelchairs with all sorts of bandages on their bodies. Such a sight caused me to feel that the bullets that had found these veterans did not differentiate

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between black and white soldiers. Thus I reasoned that black veterans had fought as gallantly, bled as profusely, were maimed as often as others and, sadly, died as surely and unfortunately as their white counterparts. They should not have to come in the back door of the dining hall or sit in separate places in the dining hall as was the practice in this hospital. So in that instant, I decided that I was going to do something about that situation. I organized a group of seven veterans, including myself, and we developed a plan of action that we were going in the front door of the cafeteria and sit at separate tables and stay there until they served us. When we got inside the cafeteria, having entered from the front door as the white boys did, I directed each of the other six veterans to sit at separate tables, all of which had white veterans already seated. The waitress observed my orchestrating what the other veterans did, so she came to me and told me that she could not serve us because we did not come in the back door. I told her that we wanted to see the hospital administrator. She replied, “That is Mr. P. T. Lundquist, and he is out of town,” to which I replied, “Well, we will just sit here until he comes back or until you serve us.” Meanwhile, you could hear the white veterans saying quietly, “Why don’t they just serve them?”

Mr. P. T. Lundquist, the hospital administrator. The waitress brought Mr. Lundquist to my table and said to him, “This is the leader of the group.” Mr. Lundquist looked at me and then looked around and saw the other six black veterans sitting at tables with the white boys, and Mr. Lundquist, looking at me, said, “Boys, what can we do for you?” I responded “You can serve us like you’re serving the other

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veterans.” He responded, “The laws of the state of Oklahoma won’t let us do that.” My response to that was, “This is the property of the U.S. Government. The state of Oklahoma has no authority over this facility.” Mr. Lundquist then said, “Boys, would you agree to come to

the answer is no. However, if you genuinely are interested in making a change, we will come with you.” It seemed to me that Mr. Lundquist was seriously committed to making a change. I then waved to the men in my group and said, “Let’s follow him.”

we discussed the issues that we, the black veterans, were concerned about. During that process, Mr. Lundquist smoked two packs of changed. However, Mr. Lundquist promised to do everything within his power to change the situation so that black veterans would not have to enter the cafeteria through the back door and sit separately. In the meantime, Mr. Lundquist said that if we wanted anything from the canteen or cafeteria and didn’t want to come to get it, all you have to do is call and they would bring it to us. We took him at his word because he seemed sincere in the discussion. We knew he didn’t create the procedures that the Muskogee Veterans Hospital was pursuing. Nonetheless, he was the administrator of the hospital and we wanted him or someone to whom he was responsible to change the situation; and we weren’t going to sit idly by and accept the status quo. It was totally unacceptable, given the their tenure in the war. –––––––––––––––––

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As promised, during a discussion with Mr. Lundquist, I drafted a seven-page handwritten letter to Gen. George Gray, who was the current Administrator of the Veterans Administration in Washington, D.C. Within two weeks, a two-star general paid a visit to Muskogee Veterans Hospital. He did not talk to us; however, the talk in the hallways was that something was getting ready to change. Meanwhile, they transferred me to the Hines, Illinois Veterans Hospital. They did not tell me why, but the talk in the hallways was that they were shipping me out because they perceived me as a “troublemaker.” After I had been at Hines, Illinois, hospital for about two weeks, I received a call from one of my fellow veterans who sat-in with me, and he told me that the situation had changed, that the black veterans no longer had to go in the back door or sit in a special place in the dining hall. Instead, they could sit anywhere they wanted to where there was a vacant seat just as the white boys did. While I personally never Hospital, I felt secure in the realization that my fellow black veterans, who may be sent to Muskogee Veterans Hospital for rehabilitation, would not have to suffer the indignity that we had to face before the change was made. What we had done obviously had not eliminated racism in the Veterans Administration, but it was one small step in tation at the Hines, Illinois Veterans Hospital, I was sent home with my honorable medical discharge. The next thing on my agenda was to begin preparing for the rest of my future. As far back as I could remember, I had said to myself that I did not want to live as my family and the rest of the black people in Vinita lived, which meant that I had to get an education. –––––––––––––––––

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package for veterans, I visited the Muskogee Veterans AdministraI wanted to pursue and my response was “education.” Hearing this they gave me an aptitude test and told me to come back in a month. On my next visit, when I asked them what the next step was, and representative said “We are ahead of you; we have already enrolled you in Kansas State College Vocational Department, where you will study mechanics to become an auto mechanic.” Somewhat surprised, I asked him “How did you know that I wanted to become a mechanic?” His response was, “You scored very high on manual dexterity. In other words, you are good with your hands.” My response to him was, “The test is right, I am good with my hands, but I’m also good at other things and I don’t plan to be a mechanic and I don’t plan to enroll at Kansas State College.” I got up from my chair and walked face. My assumption was that the look on his face suggested that no black man had ever rejected anything he had been told to do. This clearly was a new experience for him. Having rejected the assistance of the Muscogee Veterans Administration representative, I now needed to plan my next step in my pursuit of an education. In this regard, I had done considerable research on Wilberforce University located at Wilberforce, Ohio. And given its historical background, I decided that I was going to go to

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Wilberforce. In my research of Wilberforce, I had learned that Wilberforce was a junction of the Underground Railroad created by Harriet Tubman, the legendary abolitionist that brought many slaves from the South to the North as a means of gaining their freedom. It was well known that Harriet Tubman followed streams from the South to the North, often walking in the streams to cover her tracks such that bloodhounds could not follow their trail. The small stream on Wilberforce’s campus was called Tarawa Springs. This stream had a small bridge over it so that students and faculty could go from also revealed that Wilberforce was created by a Methodist Minister named William Wilberforce seven years before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This institution was created to provide education for 80 ex-slaves who had been precluded from getting an education during their slavery years. After I had learned this awe-inspiring history of Wilberforce, I wanted to be associated with this important Institution. There was just one problem, however, it was August and I had not applied for admission to Wilberforce nor did I have my G.I. EligibilSo I packed a bag, got on the train and ended up in Xenia, Ohio, which was four miles from Wilberforce where the campus was located. There was a shuttle bus that routinely ran from Xenia to the campus every 30 minutes. So I got on that bus and ended up on the campus of Wilberforce, where I saw a long line of students in front of a building. I did not know what the people in that line were doing but I assumed that they were registering; so I got in that line. When I got to the desk of the person who was processing the students,

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I learned that the person at the desk was Mr. Warwick, Dean of the University. When it was my turn, Dean Warwick reached out his hand and asked me for my papers. Since I did not have any papers in my hand, he asked for my admission letter and I told him I did not have one but I told him I was a G.I., and that I was planning to go to school on the G.I. Bill. He then asked me for my G.I. eligibility letter and I told him I did not have it. What I did not tell him, however, was because of my precipitous exit from the Veterans Administration hearing that I had no admissions letter nor a G.I. eligibility letter, Dean Warwick leaned back in his chair and just stared at me for a moment, as if to say, who is this country bumpkin that has come to our campus without being admitted, with no G.I. eligibility letter nor any money? When he had caught his breath, Dean Warwick looked at me and pointed towards a building and said “Son, do you see that building over there and I said, “Yes sir.” “I want you to go to that building and tell the house lady that I said to give you a room. Then I want you to come back to this building and go inside and tell The Director of Food Service to give you a meal ticket. You won’t be able to register until we get your eligibility letter from the Veterans Administration, which will allow you to complete an application for admission. In the meantime, all you will be able to do is eat and sleep and perhaps get acquainted with some of your potential classmates.” Having matriculated at the historic Wilberforce University, that attracted students from most of the 48 states and a number of foreign countries, I felt I had made the right decision to seek admission to this school. In this regard, my experience in my freshman year at Wilberforce proved to mean that the education I had received at Attucks

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High School in Vinita, Oklahoma, had been a good one. As I rebecame clear to me that I was strong in three basic areas, i.e. English, math and science. Mrs. Armstead, who taught English, required her students to learn Latin which, at that time, I thought was outdated. But I later learned that Latin is the foundation for English. Thus I was strong in English. I had acquired a good working knowledge of science from my high school science teacher, Mr. Ryan. Likewise, I learned math from Professor Sidney Blye who was a masterful math teacher and educator. As an example of Professor Blye’s prowess, one day he saw me walking at a rapid pace down the hallway and he pointed out to the other students, “See that boy? He’s going places in life. He walks like he knows where he is going.” At that time, had he known that I was rushing to the bathroom, he might’ve waited and made that statement at another time. But having heard him say that, I never forgot that throughout my career. At times during my career development, when things got tough, the phrase ‘that boy is going someplace in life,’ always registered in my head. And whatever the challenge was, I would always put forth whatever extra effort was required to overcome the obstacle that might have been in my path. Professor Blye’s statement about me and my future, taught me that a child will strive to live up to the expectations of the adults in his life whether they are parents, teachers, relatives or friends. I wish Professor Blye were still living. If he were, I believe he would be proud of me, because his inspiration is a part of everything I have achieved since I left high school. So, in spite of the obvious constraints of a small segregated school in Vinita, Oklahoma, there were a few bright lights in this experience.

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member Senior Class; President of the senior class and Captain of the basketball team during my senior year, which team won the state

be killed in the Revolutionary War of the United States. Knowledge of this noble account in American history and to have attended a boost to my self-esteem.

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Progress always involves risk. You can’t steal second

- Frederick B. Wilcox

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3 Sitting-In before Sitting-In was “In” Vinita was a small town surrounded by a lot of other little towns. Oklahoma had just become a state in 1907, and had not developed many big cities beyond Oklahoma City, which is the capital. In the 1930s and 1940s, Oklahoma City’s population was about 200,000, and Tulsa’s was about 150,000.

go to college, I did not have the money to go, nor could my parents help me. My dad was a construction worker, earning $.25-cents per hour. My mother was a domestic. I don’t know what she earned. I just knew it wasn’t enough. My plan was to work for a couple of years, save my money and then go to college. As life was to reveal to me many times into the future, “the best laid plans of mice and men, often go astray.” Two things were about to change my plans; one: The Japanese done bombed hell out of Pearl Harbor and two: Hitler was trying to conquer the Japan were, but the word on the street was that they were a formi-

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machines in the world. My college plans were going to have to wait, or if worst comes to worst, I might not live to go to college. Already, some of my friends were being yanked out of college to go to war, with little or no notice, no promises of any kind, and some were already being brought back in boxes. I recall thinking to myself that life for black people [they were called Negroes then, and Niggers by some whites]. Life was no “silver stairway,” and there were times that I hated it with a passion. But the reports of what Hitler was doing to the the situation. Which would be worse, living or dying under Hitler, or living under the racism of the Southern white man? At the time, the choices seemed to be between two equally undesirable alternatives.

side of Americans against Hitler and obviously, the Japanese. In retrospect, this was a more complex decision than I knew at the time. As it turned out, the U.S. Army was totally segregated, Blacks were precluded from serving in certain functions, among which were tions, I knew that I had passed.

I believed they were lying so I told them I would retake the test. But they said they could not give the test over, and that they had decided to send me to Williamsburg, Virginia, to train to become a stevedore. And they did, in fact, send me to Williamsburg for stevedore training.

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Oklahoma being an inland state, with no water ports of entry, there were no stevedores in our state, so I didn’t know what a stevedore was. When I got to Williamsburg and began my training, I quickly realized that a stevedore was the laborer that loaded and unloaded the ships that transported supplies to the army, wherever they were in the world. Upon completion of my training, I was promoted to the rank of Coxswain, which meant that if I were on a ship I would have the responsibility of steering the ship. However, my duty was not on a ship, I was a laborer that loaded and unloaded the ships that were transporting goods to troops all over the world. It was spring of 1944, which was the hottest part of the war in the as part of the U.S. war machine in that zone. As fate would have it, however, I couldn’t go with my group because I contracted rheumatic fever and was sent to the Chelsea Naval Hospital. This illness required me to stay in the hospital four consecutive months. The consequence of this illness left me with a double heart murmur. I shall never forget the scene during which I was lying in my hospital two on either side. Their diagnosis of my condition was that I would be permanently and totally disable. One of them said, “We might as well discharge this boy, he will never be able to do any strenuous work or play.” I was issued a medical discharge from the Navy and sent to the Muskogee, Oklahoma Veterans Hospital. In view of this, I obviously

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group. And as I was to learn later, most of them came back in boxes.

I remember the attitude of the average World War II soldier. Most

that I did not understand at that time, I contracted rheumatic fever and was thus precluded from going to the shooting part of the war. So, while most of my colleagues came back in boxes, I received a medical discharge and thus remained alive. God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.

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Attitude is the library of our past, the speaker of our present and the prophet of our future.

- John Maxwell

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4 Education on My Terms As was the Navy’s plan, I was sent to Williamsburg, Virginia, to train as a stevedore, following which they assigned me to a unit at the South Boston Naval Pier to begin operation. After several months of operation, loading ships, I contracted rheumatic fever and was given a medical discharge. I received a call from Wilberforce University advising me that I could come and complete my registration. After completing my registrahistorically black University in the United States—launched in 1856 at Tarawa Springs. As a new student of this historic institution, I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. My college years were largely uneventful. I couldn’t play sports, so I devoted most of my time to my academic studies. I did engage in one extracurricular activity that turned out to be exciting while it lasted. In this regard there were 29 students from the state of Oklahoma. Most of the students at Wilberforce were from the Northeast and

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a minority and they were generally treated that way. To counteract this, several of us ‘Okies’ got together and organized a secret club which we called the SADOO Club. SADOO was a secret acronym for the Sons and Daughters of Oklahoma. In pursuit of our objective we met secretly and assigned every member of the SADOO CLUB to one or more campus organizations. It was the responsibility of that student to report to the club everything that was going on within that particular student organization. When the time came for that particular student organization. We then nominated one of our ed on. We then secretly campaigned for the SADOO nominee. To make a long story short, we won the presidency of every organization on the campus. As fate would have it, however, we were discovered after about two years and the other students began to boycott anything that we were trying to do. It was fun while it lasted but it only lasted for a couple of years. We learned a valuable life lesson in this endeavor however. We learned that even a small minority in a major organization can aclife lesson that we learned was that had we not gotten greedy and sought to dominate all the organizations, we probably would’ve survived for much longer time. It was the power and the greed that was our downfall. Greed is one of the cardinal sins of human behavior. Greedy people ride high for a day, but they are destined for a fall.

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I set myself a goal of completing the four-year bachelor’s degree in three years while remaining on the honor roll. I set this goal for myself because World War II was rapidly approaching an end and I knew that G.I.s by the thousands would be pouring onto the job market and the jobs may be in short supply under those conditions. Having achieved my goal, I graduated in the summer of 1948 and accepted a job back in my hometown Tulsa, Oklahoma, as business

it had been incurring over the last several years. As it turned out, at 25-years old, I was younger than any of the employees who reported to me. In pursuit of the objective that I had been given, I sat about installing systems that would achieve that

would track the cash in and out of the hospital; a perpetual inventory system that would control the inventory which we purchased for the hospital and a purchasing system that would require competitive bidding for most of the goods that we bought in behalf of the and I obviously had achieved the goals that the board had requested of me when I began the job. Having demonstrated that I could manage the business side of the hospital, I now wanted to learn more about the management of the whole institution. I thus decided to pursue a master’s degree in Hospital Administration.

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I approached my boss, who was administrator of the hospital, and told him of my idea and I requested that he give me a leave of absence to pursue a master’s degree in Hospital Administration. His name is not important for this purpose so we will call him Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith’s reply to me was, “We will give you a raise if you don’t go, but if you go we will not guarantee you anything when you come back.” I was quite shocked at that response to my request. It was clear to me that Mr. Smith did not care about me or my future. After I recovered from the “shock” of his statement, my reply to Mr. Smith was, “Mr. Smith, obviously this is your hospital and you are free to do what you want with it and that is as it should be. But I am going to go to school to get my master’s degree in Hospital that situation when I return.” I then thanked him for the opportunity hoped God would bless him as the administrator of this institution in the coming years. I then got my hat, waved goodbye to Mr. Smith and left the hospital. While I was disappointed, I maintained a pleasant disposition. I learned early in my career that you should never let your enemy see you cry. By this time, Mr. Smith had earned the right to be called my enemy, in my mind.

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I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

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5 My First Job Out of College and Beyond Having rejected the limited guidance of the Muscogee, Oklahoma Veteran’s Administration, I was not given any additional assistance or my veteran’s eligibility papers. So I decided that I would go to Wilberforce University. I had obviously turned off the southern white men who had been accustomed to telling blacks what they could or should do and they had always followed that advice. I did not do that, so I did not know what the impact of my behavior would have on my efforts to secure should be in my pursuit of a college education. As I pondered my next action, it occurred to me that if the Veterans Administration was able to enroll me in college without my permission, this indicated that many schools throughout the country were willing to do Ohio, which was the small town four miles from the Wilberforce University campus. Upon arrival, I found there was a bus that ran from Xenia to the Wilberforce Campus, every thirty minutes. So I caught that bus and headed for Wilberforce. –––––––––––––––––

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The gods obviously were with me because I was able to meet my goal of completing four years of college work in three and I graduated in the summer of 1948 with an academic rank four hundredths of a point below magna cum laude, the second-highest academic honor awarded by colleges and universities. In addition, I had several job offers and I accepted a job back in my hometown, Tulsa, Oklahoma, as Business Manager of Moton Memorial Hospital. Having demonstrated that I could manage the business side of the hospital, I now wanted to learn more about the management of the total institution. The then administrator of the hospital was a full-time secondary school teacher who came by the hospital in the morning before he went to work and came by the hospital again after he left work. He would ask me how things were going and if I had and went home. My prayer was that God would show me the lesson that I was to learn from this life-changing scenario. One of the lessons that I gleaned from this youthful stage in my life, was that ‘as you seek to climb the ladder of life, many people will try to pull you down while a few will try to lift you

As business manager of Moton Memorial Hospital, I was required to move around in the community. Thus, I had to buy a car which exhausted my savings. Fortunately, I had one year left on my G.I. a two-year program at the University of Minnesota in pursuit of my master’s degree. My wife and I had been married one year (we had

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tral State University), and we agreed that she should stay in Oklahoma and teach for a living while I was at the University of Minnesota pursuing my master’s degree. Our plan further called for her to save money during that period so that we would have money to tide us over until I got a job after I completed my studies. istration at the University of Minnesota. I was the only black. This was a new experience for me. I now had to compete with graduate students who obviously were selected from a high quality group of students, given that this was the inaugural year of this new discipline. The Department of Hospital Administration was a new discipline in the School of Business. So our classes were held in the business school, often with students who were pursuing MBAs. The curriculum in Hospital Administration required one year of academic residency and one year of Administrative Internship at an accredited hospital. The year of Administrative Internship required that the student work under the guidance of a Hospital Administrator of an accredited hospital for a full year, during which, the student had to select a management problem of the hospital and write a Management Thesis on the solution to that problem. It was clear that God had not abandoned me because I had no problem in competing academically with my peers in the program, all of whom were white. In addition, I was selected to do my Administrative Internship at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I had spent a year as business manager of Moton Memorial Hospital before I entered the University of Minnesota. Hillcrest

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Hospital Center was a teaching hospital and was the largest hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and it obviously was totally white. There were no black professionals working at the hospital, at that time. Thus my appointment made statewide news in the Oklahoma, because I Parenthetically, I should emphasize that Mr. Bryce Twitty, who was the administrator of Hillcrest Medical Center, was on the board of Moton Memorial Hospital when I was selected to become business manager. In fact, he was responsible for the board making the decision to hire me in that capacity. The board, including the administration, had balked at my salary requirement and was leaning against hiring me. During that debate, Mr. Twitty told the board that while they may have to pay a bit more for me to become business manager, which was at issue, may appear small in comparison to the money that would be saved. It was this reasoning that led the board to hire me at a salary higher than the person whom I was replacing in that

It must be clear to the reader that Mr. Twitty was an unusually fair Southern white man compared to many of this period. When I entered the hospital to begin my administrative internship, Mr. Twitty introduced me to his executive staff and told them what my mission was and suggested to them that if he needed any information from them that they should accommodate him. While they looked at me with a jaundiced eye, since I was such an anomaly in their hospital, they treated me like I was supposed to be there. During that year Mr. Twitty allowed me to shadow him in all his executive responsi-

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bilities, including board meetings; the medical staff and the hospital departmental meetings; with colleagues outside of the hospital and at lunch. One of my major responsibilities as an administrative intern was to select a problem that needed a solution. Mr. Twitty and I spent numerous meetings debating the problem that would have the biggest items on the income and expense statement was the cost of linen services to the hospital. Together we decided that it would make a major contribution if we could determine whether or not the hospital could save money by having its in-house laundry systems without

Having made this decision, I set about collecting the data necessary to analyze this problem and to make a recommendation as to what the hospital should do. In collecting the data, there were both quantianalysis. I decided that this analytical strategy should be a ‘make-orbuy’ decision model similar to that which manufacturers used in determining whether they would make or buy parts for whatever they were manufacturing. After analyzing the data that I had collected, the result indicated that the hospital could save several hundred thousands of dollars annually and could guarantee timely clean linen at all times for the hospital. This analysis involved estimating the capacity of the laundry that would be required to produce the volume of linen that the hospital required, estimating the cost of the equipment and the building; and estimating the operating cost of processing the linen on a timely basis going forward; and comparing it with the

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current cost of purchasing laundry service from an outside vendor. When I presented the analysis and recommendation to Mr. Twitty, he was pleasantly surprised and suggested that we present my recommendations to the Board of Directors. I was pleasantly surprised at the attitude of the board, for they accepted my recommendation without change. I have no doubt that Mr. Twitty had already briefed them because the board approved the recommendation without the comprehensive debate that would typically accompany a major decision such as this. It goes without saying that anytime you can save service, you are likely to win their approval, and we did. As a result of this analysis, I was awarded the Sabra M. Hamilton Award for the Best Management Thesis for the class of 1951, during the graduation ceremony at the University of Minnesota. You can imagine how I felt because no one had warned me that this was a possibility. This was prima facie evidence that I had competed successfully with the white boys and that I could hold my own in any competitive environment of which I may become a part. Here I was, scholastic rank just .04 of a point less than magna cum laude, and now having been accorded the distinction of being awarded the best management thesis for the class of 1951, the University of Minnesota, I thought to myself, ‘Now, will Mr. Smith rehire me?’ Predictably, the news went around the state of Oklahoma in the daily press, not to mention the national Black Press. My next challenge

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was to return to Moton Memorial Hospital to see whether Mr. Smith would rehire me.

Moton Memorial Hospital. I was sure Mr. Smith had seen the press regarding my having graduated from the University of Minnesota with a master’s degree in Hospital Administration and having been awarded the Sabra M. Hamilton Award for the best management in an Administrative Residency at a major white teaching hospital.

swallowed the canary, but I was not sure that I had succeeded. After the customary greeting and the small talk about how the hospital was doing, to which his response was “Fine.” I immediately turned to the reason I had come back to the hospital. I then asked him whether he had decided to rehire me in my old job, to which he said, “I can hire you at your old job at your old salary.” I ment. After I caught my breath, I said to him, “Mr. Smith, This is not accept your offer. And I hope God will continue to bless you in your capacity as Administrator of Moton Memorial Hospital.” I then tipped my hat and left the hospital. My conclusion when he would not approve my leave of absence, when I decided to pursue a master’s degrees in Hospital Administration was that Mr. Smith did this latest decision.

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I was aware that most of my classmates had already received offers before they graduated. Even those who were perceived as just average also had jobs. And there I was having received the distinction of being awarded the honor of having produced the best management thesis for the class of 1951; yet I did not have a job. I had not conducted a job search among black-controlled hospitals in the country so I didn’t even have a prospect. I had wrongly assumed that given my superior academic achievement at Hillcrest Hospital and the University of Minnesota, Mr. Smith would have changed his mind about the condition under which he would rehire me when I returned. This was another life lesson that I was to learn; as long as you are not growing, insecure leaders will accommodate you. However, the minute you start growing, don’t be surprised when the insecure (weak) leaders begin to “chop at your knees.” As you would guess, in those days, white institutions were not hiring black administrators, no matter how good they were. Picture me, having excelled at my educational endeavor and there was no job for me at the end of this endeavor.

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When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.

- William James

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6 Hospital Administration Studies I was valedictorian of my class in high school. I missed magna cum laude by only four hundredths of a point at Central State University when I graduated with a bachelor’s degree. So I wasn’t surprised when I was accepted at the University of Minnesota. As fate would have it, there were not very many professional jobs in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for African Americans in the 1940s and 1950s. So when one member of a black couple had to go to school away from their home, one of them typically stayed home and worked to make sure that he or she had a job at the end of the year; and could pay the family bills while one member of the family was absent. My wife and I did the same thing. She took a teaching job in a little town outside of Tulsa named Bigsby, where she taught music and English. Our objective was that she would save money for us after I had exhausted all my savings during my last year of my master’s degree studies. It was an 800-mile drive from Tulsa to Minneapolis and the only way I could see my wife was to drive that 800 miles by myself on long holidays. And that’s what I did. Having completed my matriculation at the University of Minnesota, I was assigned a dormitory directly –––––––––––––––––

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across the Mississippi River from the campus. During the winter the temperature fell below 20° below zero. I had brought all my winter clothes to Minnesota with me, but they were never able to keep me warm when the wind was blowing, particularly when I walked across the Mississippi River. What amazed me was although I had all my winter clothes on and I was still cold, the scientists in those buildings would walk between buildings with white cotton smocks on and seemed to be comfortable. Another difference between Minneapolis and Oklahoma was that the kids in Minneapolis walked around with ice skates on their shoulders, just coming from or going to a skating event. We did not have ice in Oklahoma, therefore, I did not own ice skates nor did I know how to skate on ice.

in the class and there were 15 of us in the class. Later, I was also to learn that I would not see another black American, sometimes for weeks at a time. There were 30,000 students at the University of Minnesota at that time, and the classes were often taught by professors using microphones and there may be as many as 200 students in the class. Still another difference between the Undergraduate and Graduate School was that at the undergraduate school, we were given assignments from one general text whereas at the graduate level we may be given assignments from three or four different texts.

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three in the morning trying to read the assignments verbatim from every book. What I learned later was that the assignments that the professor gave, even though they may cover more than one book, they covered basically the same information from different authors. So I had to learn how to rapid read rather than read each word verbathat I had attended school with white boys (there were no girls). As the semester progressed, I was to learn that the same distribution of the quality of students with whom I had studied in undergraduate school was operational at the graduate level at the University of Minnesota. In other words, there were a few very sharp ones, some mediocre ones and a few that I would call below average. The curriculum of Hospital Administration required one year of academic residency at the University and one year of Administrative Residency with an accredited hospital somewhere in the country. The Administrative Residency required that the student shadow an experienced Hospital Administrator in an effort to learn every aspect of the management of the hospital. It was the responsibility of administrative resident for that year. During that year, the student is required to select a critical problem of the hospital, collect the data surrounding it, analyze it and write a management thesis in behalf of the hospital. This management thesis is to be submitted to the

As I was to learn, the white boys in the class had multiple opportunities to select a hospital in which they could do their administrative

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administrative residency; but as fate would have it, the hospital administrator that managed the number one teaching hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, served on the board of the hospital that I had managed the year before I entered the University of Minnesota. His name was Bryce Twitty. I asked him whether he would consider allowing me to serve as an administrative resident at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. To my surprise, he agreed. This was to be another major milestone in the evolution of my career. It should be remembered that in the South in 1950, there was rigid segregation in the South. When the news hit the Tulsa Tribune, the largest newspaper in Oklahoma, the big news was that Hillcrest Medical Center had broken the color barrier in the South. Bryce Twitty, the Administrator had agreed to take an African American named Edward Irons of the South. Thus, the news was carried throughout the state of Oklahoma. Predictably, Hillcrest Medical Center did not have any black physicians on its medical staff or any black professionals on its administrative staff. I, therefore, did not know quite how this situation was going to play out. Mr. Twitty could’ve given me a desk, put me in the corner and allowed me to spend the year doing innocuous chores that did not contribute to my education or to the management of the hospital. But as it turned out, Mr. Twitty took me everywhere he went as he managed the hospital, including Board Meetings, staff meeting and meetings outside of the hospital. He thus, allowed me to see how he conducted business as the administrator of the hospibut as time passed and they saw how Mr. Twitty treated me, they began to accept me as a professional. –––––––––––––––––

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Not only did Mr. Twitty treat me as a professional, he made the statement, “Now that I’ve done you a favor. You now have to do me a favor.” I said, “What’s that?” He said, “We are spending several hundred thousand dollars on linen services and there are times when needs. I need you to conduct a ‘Make-or-Buy’ analysis and tell me if there is a more cost-effective way to manage this function. And, as the number one hospital in the city, we’ve got to have clean linen patients.” To conduct this study, I needed to research the land cost, the equipment cost, and the operating cost of a new facility and compare it with the current operating costs of buying the laundry service from outside the hospital. This analysis was equivalent to a ‘Make-or-Buy’ decision that is routinely made by manufacturers who are seeking to minimize the cost of manufacturing a given product and thus maxistudy, I found that the hospital could recoup its investment within three years and save at least $100,000 a year thereafter. In addition, it would eliminate the uncertainty of not having adequate linen supply on hand at all times. Mr. Twitty took that Report to the Board and he allowed me to present it. The Board accepted the recommendation that I had prepared and decided to invest in construction of the laundry and to hire the personnel necessary to manage its own linen function in-house. At the end of the year, I sent this ‘Make-or-Buy thesis to Mr. James Hamilton, Director of the Department of Hospital Administration

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at the University of Minnesota. When I got back to the University, at graduation time, I was pleasantly shocked to learn that I had been selected to receive the Sabra M. Hamilton Award for the best management thesis for the class of 1951.

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Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

- Vivian Greene

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7 A Non-Politician Takes a Political Job Having graduated at the top of my class with a master’s degree in Mr. Smith had told me at the time I left the hospital that if I stayed I would get an increase in salary but if I left he would not guarantee controlled hospitals in the U.S. and the fact that no white-controlled hospitals were going to hire me, as they say in the South, (I knew that I had a rough row to hoe). Nonetheless, I decided to test Mr. Smith’s resolve as it related to rehiring me. True to his word, Mr. Smith told me when I approached him that “You can have a job at your old salary if you want to come back.” I needed a job badly and would love to have come back to my hometown to apply my newly acquired education in Hospital Administration, but I could not accept Mr. to go to school, I thanked Mr. Smith graciously and told him that this is still his hospital and he should feel free to conduct its business as

Without my realizing it, fate or more likely God, was working in my favor. There had been a news item in the the largest

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newspaper in the state of Oklahoma, covering the story that I had completed a master’s degree in Hospital Administration at the University of Minnesota and as the only black in the class, had graduserve an Administrative Residency in a major Teaching Hospital in the South. Perhaps as a result of that publicity, I received a call from a man named Taylor Randolph who said that he was an Administrative Assistant to the Governor of the State of Oklahoma. He said he wanted to talk to me and asked whether I would agree to see him. I had no idea what a representative from the Governor of the State of Oklahoma wanted to talk to me about, but I had no reason to avoid talking to him. So we met at my house. After giving me a third-degree grilling about my background, my experience and who I was in general, Mr. Randolph said the GovConsolidated State Institutions at Taft, Oklahoma. The Consolidated State Institutions comprised a 1000-bed Psychiatric Hospital, a 450-bed Orphanage and a 250-bed School for Girls who were being rehabilitated. It was situated on an 800-acre farm on the outskirts of a small town named Taft, Oklahoma. This was the second highest paying state job available to blacks in the state of Oklahoma, in those days. The highest paid job in the state available to blacks was the president of Langston University. At 27-years old, I was being offered the state job that paid the second highest salary available to blacks, at that time, in the state of Oklahoma. –––––––––––––––––

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I emphasize that it was well known throughout the state that the CEO of the Consolidated State Institutions was always given to the African American who had done the most to get the Governor electfact that he had gotten the most votes for the Governor in the black community. It had always been poorly run and generally a discredit to the black community. With that knowledge as a background, I told Mr. Taylor that the only way I would accept the job as Administrator of the Consolidated State Institutions, was that the Governor would allow me to use my newly acquired training in Hospital Administration to clean up the institution of all of its infractions and that the professionally and who would respect me as the Chief Executive

There I was, unemployed and making demands on the Governor as to the conditions under which I would accept the job that he was offering to me. Most people aware of the circumstances surrounding this scenario would have said, I had to be out of my mind. Following the interview, and with some skepticism in his voice, Mr. Randolph told me that the Governor seriously wanted to offer me the job as Taft Oklahoma and that he would convey my message to him. Having exhausted my savings during my last year as a student of Hospital Administration, and the fact that instead of being able to save money as we had planned, we discovered that my wife not only when she received her bank statement at the end of her academic year, her account was in the red. –––––––––––––––––

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Fully understanding that my wife had to build a total wardrobe from the bottom to the top, I could not, in good conscience, be mad at her for not saving any money while I was in school. Given the state of affairs, my wife and I decided to get in our car and drive back to Ohio to my wife’s parents’ home, where we could eat and sleep for free and get a little rest while planning our next move. The question in our minds was, do we have enough money to buy gas to get back to Ohio? At any rate, we got on the road and ended up driving into the driveway of her mother’s house in Wilberforce, Ohio. Just as we drove into the driveway, her mother rushed out of the house and yelled at me, “Eddie, Eddie, what have you done? There’s of Oklahoma.” I rushed in the house and discovered that it was Taylor Randolph, the Special Assistant to the Governor of the State of Oklahoma. He indicated that the Governor had accepted the conditions that I had set forth as a condition for accepting the job, and Taylor asked me when I could get back and start the new job. I told him that I was tired from two years of rigorous educational pursuit and that I needed to take a little rest. He then asked when I could get back to Oklahoma. I told him to give me at least a week. He said, “Okay, give me a call when you get back in the state.”

back in spite of my wavering faith. As anybody could see; faith was all that I had left. There I was at 27-years old with a brand-new master’s degree in Hospital Administration and the Governor of the State of Oklahoma

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tion in the State of Oklahoma for African Americans. The events were beginning to form a pattern. God had permitted me to contract rheumatic fever while in the Navy, which prevented me from going in to battle during the hottest part of The South colleagues had. He caused me to be discharged to the Muskogee Veterans Hospital, where I had the guts to confront the discriminatory practice at the VA Hospital and cause it to be changed in 1945. He’d given me the guts to reject the admission to Kansas State Uniranged in my behalf, without my knowledge. He had given me the guts (the boys on the street might’ve called it ‘the balls.’) to get on the train and go from Oklahoma to Ohio, to enroll at Wilberforce University without having been admitted; with-

He had allowed me to get a year of executive experience in a hospital immediately upon my graduation from undergraduate school, and in the process, to learn that I needed additional education. He allowed me to matriculate at the Department of Hospital Administration at the University of Minnesota (a division of the Business School), becoming the only black in the class.

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He allowed me to break the color barrier in the South to become major Hospital Center. He had allowed me to serve my administrative residency under a southern white administrator who literally took me under his wing; that was relevant for the hospital bottom line. He allowed me to be selected for having produced the best Management Thesis of the Department of Hospital Administration, Class of 1951; and he caused me to have the guts to reject a job offer when I had no job and the offer that I refused would’ve been a step of an institution that had 1000-bed Psychiatric Hospital, a 450-bed orphanage and a 250-bed school for girls that were being rehabilitated, all of which was situated on a professionally managed 800-acre farm. If one ever needed proof that only the grace of God can sustain you when you can’t help yourself, look no further, the above scenario is dramatic evidence that God is real.

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when you don’t see the staircase.

- Martin Luther King, Jr

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8 The Consolidated State Institutions Experience No sooner had I settled at my desk than my phone began to ring. Generally, on the other end was a State Representative or a State hire a person to manage the storeroom of the institution. The storeroom carried most of the items that the 1,650 residents of the institution needed, including the hospital, the orphanage, and the girls’ school. This included all the clothing that they may need from shoes to outer and undergarments. In addition, we had a walk-in refrigerator in a stand-alone building that housed hundreds of pounds of meat which we purchased, often by the ton. Moreover, we had a herd of dairy cattle that allowed us to produce pasteurized milk. The instithat produced the amount of pork the institution consumed. From the above it is clear that the institution carried considerable assets in its store rooms. My response to the politician who was on the telephone line was, “I will be happy to hire this person on three conditions: one, that he

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this State Representative had never had this kind of response from the Administrator of the Consolidated State Institutions in the past. Additionally, I also knew that I was putting my job at risk, in spite of the Governor’s promise to support me in my efforts to clean up the hospital and the institution, in general. While the state representative inhibiting any progress that I might make at the institution. Many of the employee families of the Consolidated State Institutions had worked at the institutions for generations; many of whom were quite mature in age. When one old gentleman who had worked at the institution most of his life heard what I had told the politician, he remarked that ”This young man’s [referring to me] footsteps are SHO’[sure] but his judgment is PO’[poor].” He had been accustomed to the administrator saying, “Yes, sir” to the politicians when they called and asked him to hire someone irrespective of his/her that my judgment was ‘po’. What he didn’t know was that I had rejected that way of doing business as a condition of accepting the job. But what I didn’t know was that the Governor, in all of his sincerity, could not protect me from those local politicians. This old gentleman knew this. I didn’t. It was this environment within which I set about trying to clean up the institution. Among the challenges that I faced, was stopping wholesale theft of the institution’s assets, including medications; food, especially meats; clothing of all types; and hospital orderlies sleeping on the job during the night shift, literally in the bed under

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cover. One did not have to be an Einstein to discern the motivation behind the grand theft that was rampant within the institution. thing that I did to begin cleaning up the institution was to develop a set of policies that included rules that anyone caught stealing the

do my level best to raise their salaries to be commensurate with their responsibilities and performance.

this institution that the Governor of the state had decreed that the serve under this new edict, I had to carry it out. Historically it had been a political plum that was awarded to the African-American who had done the most to get the Governor elected. I should also emphasize that there was considerable irony in my appointment to this position by Gov. Johnston Murray, particularly his interests in cleaning up the institution and having it run professionally. It was Gov. Johnston Murray’s father, Alfalfa Bill Murray, who was head of the State Constitution Convention in 1906 [A year before Oklahoma was granted statehood] that wrote the segregation laws into the state constitution of Oklahoma, and he frequently publicly referred to black people as Niggers. As a result, the laws of the State of Oklahoma were rigidly discriminatory, including the prohibition against intermarriage of blacks and any other races, including Indians.

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The prohibition of blacks from intermarrying with Indians grew out of the white power structure’s objective of preventing black people from getting into the ownership of the oil, of which Oklahoma had more than its share at that time. The Indians who had been moved from other southern states during the ‘Trail of Tears’ in 1831, owned land at that time that contained a considerable amount of oil. The white power structure did not want black people to become wealthy as a result of the oil land which they might acquire. White people could marry Indians, but not blacks; although some blacks had married Indians before that law was passed, including my paternal grandfather. The legend in my family was that my grandfather married a fullblooded Cherokee Indian girl, but her tribe came and stole her and took her back to the reservation. But she ran off from the reservagenetics of that union was interesting. Two of the children had primarily Indian features with straight, black hair and olive complexion while three of them had primarily African features, one of which was my father. It was clear to the black community that Johnston Murray’s attitude and behavior was 180-degrees from that of his father. Whether his cantly, was yet to be determined. It did not take long for the existing personnel of the Consolidated

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ordered 555 pounds of stew beef to be prepared for the dinner the next day. My instructions to him were to weigh the meat that he got from the storeroom once it got to the kitchen. If it were not exactly as he had ordered, he should call me and the police department. (The institution had a standing police department). The police department of the weight and volume, the meat was always delivered by truck from the walk-in, refrigerated, storeroom building. There were several buildings between the refrigerated storeroom building and the kitchen. The police were instructed to search each of those build-

the route to the kitchen. The police had been instructed to bring the beef to the chef and the truck driver who was delivering the beef those two men immediately and they would come by and pick them all the personnel of the institution telling them what had happened, what I had done and admonishing them that anyone caught engaging in similar activities would be treated similarly. There were several other such activities that were handled similarly, before the personnel realized that I was serious. To eradicate sleeping on the job during the night shift required that I personally tour the wards after midnight. To carry out this process I instructed two toured the wards in the hospital and predictably discovered an orderly in bed in one of the patient rooms; and he was sound asleep

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under the cover. I instructed one of the policemen who was on duty that night not to wake him up, but that he should remain in that room until the employee awakened. When he awakened, the police-

the personnel sharing with them what had happened, the action that I had taken and admonishing them that any person found engaging in that behavior would be treated similarly. Within about a month, I had stopped the pilferage of the institutions and stopped the sleeping in bed under the cover in the patient wards. The upshot of the above actions was that I no longer got reports from the chef that we were running out of food during mealtime for the patients or the residents of the other institutions. Similarly, I no longer got reports that people were sleeping in bed in the wards. Obviously they may still be sleeping but at least they were not sleeping in bed under the cover. This was a major step in cleaning up the institution. My next step was to report to the Governor what had transpired at the institution and what I had done and to ask his help in getting additional funds for salaries for the staff of the institution. It was obvious that my actions at the institution had gotten to the community because I began to understand what the old gentleman meant when he said, “My steps were ‘sho’ but my judgment was ‘po’.” In this regard, scurrilous news items about me began to appear in the local papers. One such item was that jugs of whiskey had been found under the residence that I lived in; at that time, I was a teetotaler.

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This was a house that was provided the CEO on the campus of the institution. None of those news articles were true. But when the new budget of the institution was presented to the legislature, the ‘old boy’ network swung into gear. The raise that I hoped to get for my employees was defeated. It became clear to me that any future I may have was not there. Notwithstanding the hostile environment within which I found myself, my value system did not allow me to preside over an institution under the conditions desired by the local politicians. The upshot? What I thought could be a giant step in a promising career, was rapidly becoming an albatross around my neck. Something had to be done, but I had no idea what. I had no alternative job prospects when I accepted this job. The situation hadn’t

best to support me. However, the State Senators and Representatives were elected by independent voters over whom the Governor had no control. They thus had license to do what they pleased; and they obviously were pleased to disrupt the operation of the Consolidated State Institutions, and they did.

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harder I work the more I have of it.

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9 Somebody Upstairs Stepped into My Life Again Two and a half years of taking the abuse from the local politicians was enough for me. Being the second-highest paid black in the state of Oklahoma was not enough to keep me in that job or in Oklahoma. But I had no idea where to turn in search of another job. When I accepted this job, I had no alternatives. Mysteriously, my telephone rang and on the other end of the phone was Mr. J. R. E. Lee, Jr., business manager of Florida A&M University. I did not know him. I had no prior communication with him. Somehow he had gotten my name and out of the blue was calling to see whether I would be interested in serving as Assistant Business Manager of Florida A&M University with the goal of becoming Business Manager when the current Business Manager retired. Given the fact that I sorely needed a job and didn’t have any prospects, my answer to Mr. Lee was, “In principle, the answer is yes. Obviously I would like to talk to you in depth about the position and to see the institution.” Any rational person would’ve said this. I didn’t feel particularly smart with my response.

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Mr. Lee asked when I could come to Tallahassee, Florida, which is where Florida A&M University is located, and have an interview. My response to him was, “Set the date and I will be there.” In an effort not to sound too anxious or desperate, I hastened to add as matter of fact, because I am CEO of the Consolidated State Institutions; I am able to set my own schedule. What Mr. Lee did not know was that even if I couldn’t set my own schedule, I would still be there at his discretion. Following the interview, Mr. Lee asked me what salary I expected. My response was, “Salary is not the most important issue with me.” After learning that I would be responsible for all revenue-producing functions of the University except tuition, I told Mr. Lee, “My primary interests are to do the best job that I can for the University and to do whatever I can to serve you well.” I had learned that bit of wisdom from Mr. Twitty during my Administrative Residency at Hillcrest Hospital Center (they did not teach me that at the University of Minnesota). He repeatedly told me, “Whatever you do, always try to make your boss look good.” I was putting that piece of wisdom to good use in my efforts to convince Mr. Lee that I was his man. By this time it was clear to me that God was at work again in my life. I had learned that faith is of little value to you until that’s all you have to hold on to. That clearly was where I was in my life situation at that time. Following the successful interview with Mr. Lee, and having been of-

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was to write Governor Johnston Murray a gracious letter thanking him for having given me the opportunity to manage this important State Institution and to apprise him of what had transpired at the another opportunity which I had accepted and would be leaving as Taylor Randolph who I knew would be anxious to know what I had done. The transition from the CEO of the Consolidated State Institutions to Assistant Business Manager of Florida A&M University proved to be an interesting ordeal. I went from having a well-furnished residence on the campus of the institution to one having to live in barracks that were left on the campus following World War II. Florida A&M University had a major ROTC Program on its campus during WWII; and those barracks were left on the campus at the end of the war. The university had no faculty housing, nor were there any middle-class housing developments for blacks in Tallahassee at that time. Leftover Army barracks were the home of the young and new faculty of the University at that time. While I had an important function at the University and was well respected as such by my peers, I still lived in a barrack which was totally unacceptable to me as a young executive of the University. Before I could get my head into the task of doing the job that I had my living conditions to the satisfaction of my family. Without any money, I set out to build a new house for my family. There were a

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number of young faculty members in the same condition that I was in, so I selected one of them to join me to build each of our families bank that was run by the son of the founder. The president of Lewis State Bank was George Lewis who was about 30-years old, just one year older than I was, at the time. This turned out to be a blessing. George Lewis accepted me as a peer professional. After I told him house. The young faculty man that I had recruited to work with me was skilled at doing a number of the craft jobs, such as painting, wall papering, installing the central air conditioning system and the evaluation and inspection of subcontractors for all of the subcontracting jobs that were necessary to construct the house from the foundation to the roof. When we completed the job we had the house appraised and it appraised for more than we had spent on the building. Therefore, I was able to borrow the money for the long-term mortgage Lewis had granted me. We replicated the same process for my colleague who worked with me in the building of my house. With a wife and one baby, I now had a two-bedroom, two-bathroom brick home, two blocks from the campus, so I could walk to work the barracks as my neighbors saw what my colleague and I had done with no money up-front, they began to do the same thing and a pattern of housing development for new families had been set in motion by the initiative which my colleague and I had taken. In spite of the lack of adequate housing, the move from Oklahoma

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to Florida A&M was proving to be a good move from several perspectives; one, both my wife and I worked on the campus; two, my future children could go to school free of charge when they became of age, although I had only one child and she was then only a yearcould play nine holes of golf for 50-cents; four, tennis courts were on the campus free of charge and so was indoor swimming. And most of all, my professional and personal integrity were no longer under attack. Now I felt that I could give my full attention to the job for which I had been hired and that’s what I did. Both my educational and management experiences turned out to be very important assets in the performance of my job. Each of the auxiliary enterprises of the University had managers who reported to management; and I began to utilize all my educational and experiential skills. It did not take long for Mr. Lee to determine that I was skilled at the job for which he had hired me and for my colleagues to learn that I was a young, skilled executive on the rise. Because of my management training and experience, both the good and the bad, I was able to make a number of improvements in the management of the various auxiliaries of the university. As an example, one of my auxiliary enterprises was that of managtitles was Athletic Business Manager; therefore, I was responsible for

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In those days Florida A&M University had what was considered the top football program in the country among HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities). As part of its football program, the University created a football game called the Orange Blossom Classic, which was an annual football game that was held in the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. Under the banner of the Orange Bowl, Florida A&M would select the best football team among HBCUs in the country and the game would be held in the Orange bowl. The Orange Blossom Classic drew 50,000 people in the 1950s and was

Another of the management improvements that I was able to set in

control system, the tellers who sold the tickets, never got to see the football game because the volume of money that they had to count and be responsible for was of such magnitude that it took the balance of the game after they had closed the ticket window to make their report. What I did was not rocket science, but was simply streamlining the process in a way that allowed them to go to their seats in the game shortly after they closed their ticket window. We simply created a port in triplicate that comprised the summary of the money which they had been advanced at the beginning of the game along with the tickets, and to be responsible for the ticket money that they sold and the balance of the tickets in inventory at the end of the game. As the money began to accumulate, the tellers were instructed to count the excess cash, leaving only enough to make change for the balance of –––––––––––––––––

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the game. Thus when the window closed, most of the money would have been already counted and the remaining tickets inventoried. A copy of this report, the money for the sale of the tickets, including the cash that was advanced to the tellers, and the remaining tickets were put in a night deposit bag for the bank, a copy to the teller and a copy to me, the business manager. Five minutes after the ticket window closed, the Brinks Truck arrived at the Windows, picked up the night deposit bag and delivered it to the bank. Monday morning, the bank would send a deposit slip for each bag to me. Meanwhile, the tellers were able to see the balance of the football game, beginning shortly after the half, which often was the most important part of the game. Again, while the system was not rocket science, it was not being done at the time I assumed the responsibility. The upshot was that it raised the morale of the tellers while eliminating the mistakes that were often made in the former reporting system.

bookstore, the restaurant and the laundry, but it was the improveimagination of the tellers, my colleagues and Mr. Lee, my boss. Because of the magnitude of the cash being handled at the Orange Blossom classic, and the advent of the improvement in the cashmanagement system, it was my assessment that my prospects of inheriting the Business Manager Function of Florida A&M University, my assumption with an effusive compliment regarding the new cashmanagement system. –––––––––––––––––

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There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

- Nelson Mandela

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10 The Struggle for Dignity Comes to Tallahassee Two and a half years had passed and I was maturing into my job. Reading the ‘Tea Leaves’, I felt that my reputation as a skilled, young and including Mr. Lee. It appeared to me that I was on track to inherit the business manager position at the University as originally planned. CARRIE PATTERSON AND WILHELMINA JAKES Do the ‘Rosa Parks Dance‘ As fate would have it, however, on May 1, 1956, six months after the onset of the Montgomery, Alabama bus protest, two Florida A&M students were arrested on the Tallahassee City Bus for violating the bus driver’s demand that they get up and go to the back of the bus. They were arrested and charged with “inciting a riot.” Their names were Carrie Patterson, age twenty-one, who was a wife and mother, and a junior at Florida A&M University, and Wilhelmina Jakes, a senior at Florida A&M University. Both women were studying Elementary Education to become teachers. This event infuriated –––––––––––––––––

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and staff, including me. In the wake of these arrests, the Reverend Charles Kenzie (C.K.) Steele, a preacher and a civil rights activist and a prominent member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, became one of the main organizers of the Tallahassee bus boycott. He, along with Reverend King Solomon DuPont and the other prominent ministers of Tallahassee, organized the black ministers of the city and began what was branded the Inter Civic Council, which adopted the acronym, ICC. As a result of these arrests, the Florida A&M students stopped ridin the bus boycott. Since 80-percent of the bus patronage was black, the buses were running with little or no customers. After several months of running empty, the busses stopped running and information began to circulate that the bus company was owned by a Chicago Corporation. When they were contacted by a representative of the ICC, they said they normally follow the mores of the city where they operate. In short, they felt they could not do anything. The upshot was that because of this, the tension between the races was at a high-pitch level. With the buses no longer running, the people in the community who would normally ride them had to walk to work. This obviously was a hardship on some of the citizens, particularly those that were beyond a certain age. To address this problem the ICC organized a car pool, much like Montgomery, but the City Council immediately ruled that they were running a taxi organization without license and that was

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illegal. Since the ICC car pool was ruled illegal, the black people in the community, without organization, began to drive the streets and pick up people who were walking to work. My wife, Lorean, and I joined this movement. We would get up at 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. each morning and drive the streets looking for people who were walking and pick them up and take them to wherever they were going. It did not take long for the City Council to rule that people who were picking up passengers were running a taxi illegally and the city police began to arrest people who were picking up people, including me and my wife, Lorean. Meanwhile, the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross outside the rooming house where these two students lived. Following our arrest, we were released on bond and ordered to report to the court at a given time and date. I did as I was ordered. But by that time, we had a new baby and my wife decided not to go down to the courts, whereupon they sent two armed policemen to get her. When they reached the door of our house and rang the doorbell, Lorean opened the door, but left the screen door closed and locked.

bombing houses of key people in the movement, but we also had to long. Meanwhile, Lorean told them, “If you step a foot in that door, I will pull this trigger. What you need to do is to get off my porch and out of my yard; otherwise, somebody’s going to die here.” Through

“Will you come down to the court house tomorrow in response

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to your subpoena?” To which my wife said, “Yes.” They then slowly turned around and walked away, guns swinging on each side. When I got home that evening, Lorean told me what had happened and I almost had a heart attack. The next day I had to babysit while she went down to the courthouse to be booked for operating a taxi, just as I had. When the word got to the president of Florida A&M University that a number of faculty and staff were active in the ICC, he called each of us in individually and admonished us to get out of the movement. to sit down and I did. He promptly said to me, “Mr. Irons, I brought you down here to help me build Florida A&M University, not to get involved in civil rights activity. Unless you and the other faculty and staff stop what you’re doing, the Florida Legislature is not likely to give Florida A&M any more new buildings.” By that time I had caught my breath and I responded to him thusly: “Mr. President, I am not representing the University in anything that I am doing with the ICC or in the community; I do it only after hours as citizen Ed are encouraged to aspire and develop to their full potential, they will build more buildings than the Florida legislature will ever give Florida A&M University. He swallowed heavily and I did too, because I knew immediately that my “goose was cooked” at Florida A&M. It seemed obvious that I had not learned anything from my Oklamy behavior so I should not have expected a different outcome.

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I knew that unless something happened to the current president, I had a limited future at Florida A&M. Clearly, I would never be Business Manager of the University. After the two of us visibly swallowed, I got up and said, “Thank you Mr. President,” and left his President, I respect you for doing the job for which you were hired. I can only hope that you will be proud of the service which you rendered during this period in your career.” It was clear that neither attempting to save his job, and I was risking mine. I could only hope that the outcome would be worth the risk I had undertaken. Predictably, when raise time came around, those faculty and staff who got out of the movement got raises; those who didn’t, didn’t, including me. Wisely, those people who did not get out of the movement began to look for new jobs. I, on the other hand, decided that I would not seek another job until pressure on the black community, to stop them from participating in the movement and they did that by calling loans; by denying loans

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It is for this reason that I decided to go back to school to get a Ph.D. degree before I applied for another job. Incidentally, after receiving my bachelor’s degree, I vowed not to pursue a Ph.D. because I thought the Ph.D. degree program was too theoretical for one to use it to succeed as an entrepreneur. My vision was to be a businessman. My situation obviously had changed and I therefore felt the need to change my development strategy as well. This did not deter me from serving as treasurer of the ICC. While the ICC did not generate a lot of funds at its weekly meetings, the organization was wise to make sure they could account for the collections and expenditures of the people who were supporting the movement. Thus, I played a critical role in this process as its treasurer. Predictably, there was a lot of tension between the black and the white communities, much of which was generated by the banks, the business and the political leaders of the city. It is this group of peonity, both black and white. There was fear among the leaders of the ICC that the black supporters of ICC might become intimidated and diminish their support of the movement. Given this point of view, one of the senior ministers, Reverend King Solomon DuPont, began to repeat this mantra at every meeting: “Most of you have seen the pictures of the Ku Klux Klan in the burning crosses in various parts of the city. This is designed to put fear in your hearts. But I am here to tell you, that we will either stand

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together or most assuredly we will hang separately.” Amazingly, this wise counsel had a calming and steadying effect on the participants in the ICC. Now that my future at Florida A&M was no longer assured, I had to develop a strategy to take my career in another direction. Having just built a new house two years earlier and having borrowed the money to go to school. I only knew that that’s what I had to do. So I began to apply to various universities throughout the country to be admitted to a Ph.D. degree program in Finance. Because I had a high-quality record at the bachelor’s and master’s levels, I was accepted by every school to which I applied. However, there was always one hitch. They had no scholarship money to give me. And with a wife, two babies and no money, I needed scholarship money in the worst way. The second year I heard from four different ate School of Business. But while I rejected the other schools that admitted me that did not provide any scholarship money for me, my a way to go even though it had not offered any scholarship money. At the time, the Harvard Business School was among the most exget into. There I was with no money, owed “everybody” and planning to go to one of the most expensive schools in the nation. I had to be out of my mind. And as I was to learn, as soon as the information got

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around about what I was planning to do, all of my closest friends and

ability to play nine holes of golf for 50-cents; swimming and playing tennis free on the campus; being able to walk to school, thus, no travel expense; having one of the highest paid jobs in the University and potentially a great future; children able to go to school free when they get that age and having health care for my family at the highest level (Florida A&M University had a hospital on the campus). “What else would you want?” They would ask. Further they asked, “What if you fail? You would have to come back here dragging your tail.” My response was always, “I don’t plan to fail so that is not an option.” While I did not know how I was going to do it, my wife and I agreed that we would take one step at a time and move on faith. The wisdom that I had learned in Sunday School was currently being put to good use; i.e., “Faith is of no consequence until that’s all you have to hold on to.” So faith was our only hope. It was obvious to us that we were facing a mighty high mountain. And we had chosen to climb the rough side of that mountain. I also had learned as a kid in Sunday School that everybody has mountains to climb in their lives, no matter how good or how bad they may be. The counsel I also remember getting at that time, was that when you face those mountains in life, “Don’t pray for God to move the mountain, pray for the strength to climb it.” This is what we did.

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proceed with our plans to go to school in spite of the fact that we

see George Lewis, president of Lewis State Bank. Because I had borrowed the money to buy the land on which I built my house, the construction loan to build it and the money to furnish it, I had developed a good rapport with him. When I approached George and shared with him that I had been admitted to Harvard Univernances so that I could go, he immediately responded, “Ed, if you’ve been admitted to Harvard University Graduate School of Business, here’s what I will do. I will suspend all principal payments on your loans and all you have to do is send me an interest payment every principal payments.” Already I could see God giving me the strength to climb. Having been given a commitment to restructure my housing loan, we next turned to the challenge of how we were going to get the money to pay for my education at one of the nation’s most expensive and most challenging schools. Lo and behold, I received a telephone call from Lorean; she had gone home to have lunch, she could walk home and check the mail. She said, “Ed, you have a letter from Harvard University Graduate School of Business, shall I open it?” I responded, “Yes.” She said, “The letter is from the dean of the business school and it says you have been selected as a Teaching Assistant for the academic year 1957 and 58.” She then asked “Have you applied for

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a Teaching Assistantship?” I said, “No, that must be some kind of mistake. Will you bring the letter to me?” And she did. Sure enough, the letter was from the Dean of the Harvard University Graduate fer to me although I had not applied for such a position. In fact, I would not have had the nerve to apply for a Teaching Assistantship at the Harvard Business School, given where I had come from and what I knew about the school. Even I knew that the students of the Harvard Business School, at that time, were the sons of captains of industry and they represented the brightest minds from all around the world. They were descendants of the leaders of industry and they were destined to become leaders and they deported themselves in that manner. My dad was a common laborer. My mother was a domestic. It was not yet clear what I would become. But with God on my side, I knew that I was destined to be “something.” While we were a long way from the top of the mountain, the evidence was increasing that God was ordering our steps. First, it was God who allowed me to be knocked down at Florida A&M University so I can only guess that He was trying to get my attention to show me that I was not as great as I thought I was and also to show what he could do for me when I could not see my way. With my admission to the Harvard University Graduate School of to pay my tuition at the University in hand, and a paltry $800 in my pocket, I now was ready to pack and head towards Boston. So I said goodbye to my friends, I rented my house, stored my furniture, packed my clothing and put my washer and dryer in a small trailer

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on the back of my car. With my two babies in the backseat and my wife at my side, I got on Highway 1 that would take me all the way to Boston. I had not bothered to seek a leave of absence because it was my opinion that it would not be forthcoming. But while I was embarking on a high-risk venture, I had a peace of mind that I was not able to enjoy at Florida A&M University since the inception of the civil rights activity in Tallahassee.

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Your future depends upon many things but mostly upon you.

- [Unknown]

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11 A Country Boy Goes to Harvard Driving nonstop from Tallahassee, Florida to Boston, Massachusetts, caused considerable fatigue for me and my family. I was so exhausted that I missed the exit that would have taken us directly into the city of Boston. When planning the drive, I had estimated a 6:00 p.m. arrival time in Boston. Still, it was several hours later than that, closer to midnight before I realized I had driven right past the a tired and restless family and we were lost. Fortunately, before we left, a friend in Tallahassee who was a native of the Boston area had given me a telephone number of one of her closest friends who still lived in Boston. So I found a pay phone and got out the telephone number that my friend had given me, and I called a total stranger in the middle of the night to ask for help with directions. Surprisingly, the lady whose name was Mrs. Crawford, answered the phone and I told her who I was and who had given me her telephone number. I then told her my situation, my entire situhousing for me and my wife and children, while I attended Harvard.

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place that a person with modest means could afford, Mrs. Crawford called to ask for permission to stay at your house, I simply wanted you to point me in the direction of the community that I could afford.” Nevertheless, she insisted that we make our way to her home and, with that said, she gave me the driving directions I needed and I drove back to the appropriate exit, into Boston and straight to her house. When we arrived, she said, “I have two spare bedrooms. You can put the two children in one bedroom and you and your wife can share strangers that approached her after midnight, to share her home, but she explained that her children, who were close to us in age, no longer lived at home. Not only did she invite us to share her home that night, she told us we could stay there until we found an apartment that we could afford. God had to be in this plan. It took me could afford that was near the business school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As we prepared to leave, I nervously asked her what we owed her for our lodging to which she replied, “You do not owe me a copper penny.” Upon hearing her response, I went from trembling with the ger rent funds, to trembling in amazement at her generosity. I must emphasize that, we had slept, dined, washed and ironed our clothing and lounged as if the house belonged to us. Still, she insisted that we did not owe her anything and, as we left, she extended to us an invi-

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tation to come back in a few weeks for Thanksgiving dinner at her house. Not only did we have Thanksgiving at her home that year but we were her guests on every holiday and special occasion thereafter her children, and we loved her as though she were our mother. Can you explain this scenario in any other way than that the grace of God was at work? The transition from our stay with our guardian angel to our new home in Cambridge was fairly seamless. We were fortunate enough Business School. Harvard Square was the main shopping center for Harvard College, the Harvard Business School to M.I.T. and the surrounding community. Harvard College was located in Cambridge, across the Charles River, the address of which was in Boston. I got the family settled in and shifted my focus to my academic endeavors. By the time I had completed my registration, I had learned that Harvard College was 400 years old, the oldest in the nation, and that these institutions had formidable experience with which to provide a high-quality education, for which they were known worldwide. While my Teaching Assistantship covered the cost of my tuition, I began my preparation for the school term fully aware that I still had I pursued my academic requirements on a full-time basis. Lorean and

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on the services of a babysitter to take care of our two small children classes, Lorean went down to the Board of Education to apply for a teaching job. After they perused her transcript and resume, which she fortunately had with her, they asked her if she could start teachbabysitter for my two babies.” They then informed her that if she job. Essentially, she was hired “on the spot.” As excited as my wife couldn’t help feeling overwhelmed by the challenge of locating a reliable sitter for our children in this totally new environment. When she got back to the apartment, she noticed our new next door neighbor playing with what appeared to be her grandson, who looked the neighbor introduced herself as Mrs. Diallie. Instinctively, my wife asked Mrs. Diallie if she knew anyone who could babysit for her two children while she taught school during the day. Mrs. Diallie replied, “They look to be about the same age as my grandson and I have to keep him during the day, so adding two additional children within the same age range will not be a problem for me. I will keep them for you.” Our neighbor’s generosity meant that my wife could accept the teaching position that was only a short walk from our apartment and our children would only have to take a few steps from our door to be under the care of a trusted neighbor throughout her work day. As my wife relayed the day’s events to me, I could not help being

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incredibly grateful to God for the way things had come together for shopping center and ten minutes from the business school. I had completed my registration, which meant that my tuition and fees were paid and I had received the assignment for my Teaching Assistantship. My wife had found a job and a babysitter all within one day. Wow, we had pushed several rocks up the rough side of the mountain. Clearly, God was in the plan. cial challenges to my life and I soon realized that the color of my skin was a prevailing factor in the interactions between me the other students at Harvard, and the faculty and administration. One of the me and a white student in the master’s program. My Teaching As-

noted that in 1957, apartheid was still very much a part of the South African legal and cultural system. When my professor introduced me to the MBAs with whom I would be working, they were assembled in a straight line. I went down the line shaking their hands, introducing myself and having them introduce themselves. When I reached the South African student, he refused to shake my hand. Although he offered no explanation for his behavior, I imagine that this may edgement of a black man in a position of authority. The moment was awkward and embarrassing for both me and my professor, who wisely chose not to intervene.

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Obviously, the young man who refused my hand and who balked at our introduction had been socialized to believe that the color of my skin automatically deemed me inferior to him and he did not consider me worthy of his respect. The irony was that before the end of the year, this same young man was one of my strongest and most vocal supporters. I am not sure why this happened because I treated him just like I treated the other students. Perhaps my decision to move forward with the best quality of advice and guidance to him as an instructor and my demonstration of fairness and consideration to all of my students proved to be better markers of my character than the color of my skin. I hope that his experience, as my student, afforded him the awareness that black people were no different than other people, given a similar level of competence. I should point out that the culture and environment at the Harvard business school was dramatically different from that in Florida. In Florida men frequently wore pastel colored suits, generally designed for summer wear. At the business school, all students, at that time,

group. I was the only black in my class and I was the only one who

I was never sure whether the fact that I was different motivated my classmates to treat me differently, but for the greater part of my during class breaks the students would often stand around in small groups and talk about whatever was on their minds. The groups were motivated by the fact that at the Harvard Business School,

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every student was assigned to a group and the student would stay with that group throughout his tenure at the business school. In the informal groups during class breaks, random students in the group would literally stand in front of me so that my only view was their backs, thereby creating a physical barrier, so that I could not directly engage in the group discussion. Even on the rare occasion when I was able to penetrate the group, I would do so only to withstand the group’s suspension of any worthwhile discussion and their collective effort to humiliate or ridicule me, instead. For example, instead of sharing perspectives on a given business topic or revealing student employment opportunities, often they would go around the group asking one another about holiday plans or upcoming social engagements. One student might say, “I’m going to Maine and ski.” Another student might say, “I’m going to the Hamptons and sail.” When my turn to speak came around, all I could offer was something like “I’m going to the park with my two children and buy them a hot dog and a coke.” They assumed (and I knew) that was all I could afford, and I am sure this bit of repartee made them feel important. The whole group interaction was dejecting, most days, and if the goal was to make me feel that I did not belong there, the mission was accomplished. Attempting to join the group, again and again, despite the treatment displayed toward me by my classmates was a daily climb up an incredibly steep mountain; pushing rocks aside along the way. Regardless of my feelings of rejection, however, in the back of mind, I knew that God was on my side and somehow I knew that I would survive this treatment.

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At that time, to remain at Harvard, the doctoral students had to pass

year, a number of students had washed out. By the grace of God I year, when many of my fellow group members had failed one or how I was able to pass the milestone test. I resisted any temptation to remind them of their mistreatment of me during the group sessions and applied the Golden Rule instead. When any of my classmates asked me about my academic tactics, I graciously accommodated their questions with the appropriate answers. After a while, word spread about my academic “know-how” and the students no longer tried to block me from participating in the group. In fact, they sought me out and would wait for me to start because they wanted to ask me questions. They had learned that my brain was equal to or better than theirs and they no longer treated me with condescension. The differential treatment toward me by the professors and administrators at Harvard was not as overt as the antics of my student peers, but I believe they, too, were being reactive to my race and not my potential when they repeatedly attempted to dissuade me from studying nance and banking and I was pursuing my Ph.D. degree solely for the goals and objectives, soon after I began my studies, the faculty at the business school made an earnest effort to convince me to change my focus to the area of human resources. In fact the Associate Dean, Tom Graves, who seemed to have a very high regard for me, sug-

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gested that I would make an excellent Human Resource Director. My response to him was that “I know I would make an excellent human resource director, but that’s not what I plan to be. I plan to

Throughout my studies at Harvard, there would be many more mountains to climb and the rocks would increase in size to boulders. Still, with my family at my side, I forged ahead, determined to earn my terminal degree from one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions. As it should have been, my most strenuous and memorable experience at Harvard had nothing to do with the social or cultural environment, but stemmed from my most grueling academic accomplishment, to date. As a doctoral student, one had to sell his research idea to a professor who had to agree to serve as his advisor before the process could begin. If a student was not successful in his efforts to sell his idea to a professor, as a last resort, the school would assign an advisor to ing, I petitioned the top banking professor in the school who also was Charlie Williams. At the Harvard Business School, the practice was not to use the title “Dr.” when addressing our professors, nor did we refer to them as “Mr.” Charlie Williams. The advisor that I and corporate boards, and he was in great demand as a banking in-

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you. I don’t know what you know. Where did you get your MBA?” When I told him that I had graduated from the University of Minnesota, he replied “Minnesota? What do they teach at Minnesota?” I answered his question as politely as I could and replied, “I assume they teach the same theory that you do here.” His next response was very straightforward. “The only way I will supervise your research is that you will spend the summer conducting a research paper on a new bank and bring it back to me at the end of the summer. I will evaluate it, and then I will decide whether I will supervise your research or not.” So I spent the summer conducting research on a 10-year-old bank in Worcester, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. As the personnel from the president down to the janitor were all white, I was pleasantly surprised at their positive reception of me from day one. When I showed the staff the business card that was provided to all Harvard doctoral candidates, they were so amazed to know that I was a doctoral student at Harvard that they bent over backwards to accommodate me. Anything I asked for, they readily provided and, with the data they allowed me to review, I was able to analyze the bank from its inception throughout its entire ten-year lifespan. I covered the whole organization’s developmental process from the inception of the idea; the organization of the board; the raising of the capital; the management of the assets and expenses; and the determination

submit my report. He took it from me and, without any further discussion, told me to come back in two weeks. When I returned at the

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end of two weeks, his appearance clearly signaled that our meeting would be very brief. He was dressed in tennis shorts and was holding his tennis racket in his hand. He took my study down from the top than sitting and facing me, he then turned his back and walked over to the window. As he looked out into the school’s courtyard, he began to speak. There was very little emotion in his voice when he said, “I guess I will try you; but you are changing from a management level and nobody has ever done that at the Harvard Business School.

I thanked him graciously for I knew that I was fortunate to be supervised by the top banking professor in the nation. In fact, when my peer students heard whom I had chosen to be my advisor, they told me that I was a “glutton for punishment.” I disagreed. I sought Charlie Williams out as my advisor because I was determined to prove that I was capable of earning the academic approval of a professor that was considered the most knowledgeable in the areas of banking

Realizing the magnitude of this challenge, I put a simple milestone chart on Charlie Williams’ desk the next week, laying out the time frame within which I would complete each milestone along the way, in completing my research. I told him that I was not seeking his approval of my strategy, but that I wanted him to be aware of my goals and time frames. As I accomplished each milestone, he would comface.” He made that same remark each time I reached a milestone. In

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fact, throughout the entire preparation of my doctoral thesis, Charlie Williams never once made a positive remark regarding my progress or the quality of my work. However, when I had successfully completed all my milestones, including the defense of my thesis, he extended his hand and, as we shook hands, he looked me squarely in

time I had been called “Dr.” by anyone. The acknowledgment from Charlie Williams made my accomplishment all the more satisfying. Not only had I earned his respect and approval, I had completed the doctoral studies at the business school in two academic years, when

With my doctoral studies completed, it was now time to decide where I wanted to work. Florida A&M University was not an option for me because I knew the president was not interested in rehiring me, no tion, I realized that in the pursuit of my doctoral degree, the grace of God had sustained me and my family every step of the way. When I decided to pursue the Ph.D. degree, after my president made the decision to thwart my growth at Florida A&M and when I had no idea ranged for my acceptance into Harvard Business School’s Doctoral Program and orchestrated my receipt of an unsolicited letter from Harvard offering me a Teaching Assistantship to pay my tuition. and a babysitter in one day shortly after we moved to Boston and my being able to hold my head erect when my peer students were treat-

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ing me condescendingly and my professors were discouraging me from my desired course of study. Completing my doctoral studies in two years instead of three, under the most demanding professor at the business school, happened because of God’s amazing grace. As determined as I was and as hard as I worked, as much as my family curred if God had not heard my prayers and gracefully answered.

was headed professionally, Grace would guide my career choices and Grace would be with me along the way.

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Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to end; its about learning to dance in the rain.

- Vivian Greene

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12 My Career Options vard University, even in the 1950s, I had many options. I could go to Wall Street and make a ton of money. I could go into industry at a high level, I could go into government at the top of the civil service level or I could go into teaching. The only position that I took a serious look at was an offer from Chase Manhattan Bank. Chase was the largest commercial bank in the nation in the 1960s and 1970s. The chairman was David Rockefeller. Chase invited me to New York and made me an offer to become a branch manager of Chase in Harlem. I knew what branch managers did and with a Ph.D. degree I rejected that offer. In fact, during the 1950s only 6-percent of U.S. culture of the industry during which the industry hired high school students to process the check-clearing operation, which was done were encouraged to stay on rather than go to college. Working for a bank in those days was a prestigious position even though its pay was modest. It should be noted that banking was one of the simplest businesses in the community, in those days, although it was the most powerful.

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With Respect to Chase’s offer, I offered to manage their Nigerian Operation. At that time, Nigeria had well over 100 million people and I envisioned that there would be a number of exciting developmental opportunities if I were running the Chase bank in Lagos, Nigeria. However they stated, “We haven’t done our economic research in Nigeria yet.” My response was, “I can do your economic research for Nigeria for you.” They countered with, “We are not quite ready yet.” Whereupon, I decided not to accept Chase’s offer. Moreover, I made a decision to eschew offers from major corporations and

tant to the U.S. Government, the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa, among others. The United Nations assignment required me to visit a number of Sub-Saharan African Countries and evaluate their economic development opportunities and strategies. One of those assignments involved the evaluation of Development Banks which the Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of State, had funded in a number of developing countries. One such country was Nigeria. Ironically, when I got to Lagos, what they had told me when they offered me a job in Harlem, I was quite surprised to see their branch in Lagos, Nigeria. Out of curiosity

and Europeans. I wonder why they did not want me to run their operation in Nigeria. The answer was obvious, given what I saw of their operation.

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teaching position at an HBCU in a Unit Bank State. There were nine such states in the United States in 1959, as I was graduating and Texas was one of them. A Unit Bank State is one that prohibits commercial banks from operating more than one site. Thus, those states are likely to have more De Novo [new] bank opportunities than states black-owned commercial bank to demonstrate what a black-owned commercial bank could do for the community, not only in Houston, but around the country. This motivation stemmed from my experience in Tallahassee during which the white-controlled banks denied loans, called loans and did their level best to discourage the black community from engaging in the Civil Rights activity. A group of us who were participating in the ICC, met to see whether we could organize our own bank in Tallahassee; however, none of us had the knowledge or experience to be able to carry out this objective. So I decided from those meetings that I would go back to school and learn how to organize and run a commercial bank. As fate would have it, Dr. Milton Wilson, dean of the School of Business, at Texas Southern University of Houston, Texas, a historically black state supported school, was at Harvard taking a Leadership Seminar along with a group of other Deans from around the country. When he heard that I had just been awarded a DBA degree an Associate Professor of Finance. This offer from Texas Southern seemed to be the perfect vehicle that would enable me to accomplish this objective. So I accepted Dean Wilson’s offer.

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Now that I knew where I was going to work, I set about clearing objective I hired a real estate broker to sell my house, along with my furniture which was in storage, to pay off Lewis State Bank and send me the net proceeds after deducting his commission. Within a month this transaction was complete and I was able to purchase a home in Houston just over two blocks from Texas Southern University, much like my situation in Tallahassee. ation. Among the things that I considered were: How likely was I to be admitted to Harvard University Graduate School of Business to pay for that education, given that I had no money to begin with; direct warning by my professors and still succeed; to overcome the condescending behavior of my leading Thesis Advisor; to overcome the condescending/racist behavior of my student peers at Harvard; which enabled us to pay for our food, housing and other living ex-

as she did. Yet we did not know a soul in Cambridge. How likely to graduate in two years, one year earlier than the average and to be offered a job in a state in which I wanted to work “before the ink was dry on my degree” and without having to complete a job

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ida A&M had posed the question to me about what I would do if I failed at Harvard and had to come back to Florida A&M dragging my tail? I sent a letter to several of them bringing them up to date on what was happening in my life. And while I did not mention that advice in my letter, I had no doubt that they were silently “eating Wilhelmina Jakes, two Florida A&M students that made the moves that sparked the drive for freedom in Tallahassee that ultimately vard University Graduate School of Business. When the history is written about the struggle for freedom in Tallahassee, Florida, these two ladies’ names should loom prominently as heroines. History will also record that while these two students initiated the movement for freedom in Tallahassee, it was the president of Florida A&M who created the most direct reason for which I felt constrained to pursue A&M under a leader who felt the need to protect his job rather than understand his behavior. We all tend to act in our own self-interest. Were all of these events coincidental? Were they luck, or did they two years earlier? It may sound like a broken record, but no one can convince us that God was not in the plan.

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Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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13 Teaching, Publishing and Organizing a Bank My base job, as is true with all professors, is teaching and publishing. My underlying objective was to organize a new commercial bank owned by African Americans. Accordingly, I devoted the appropriate time to teaching and I therefore became a favorite of the students. The word had gotten around that I was from Harvard University and the word had gotten out that I was in process of organizing a new commercial bank in Houston. Actually, some of them were looking forward to working in the bank. In fact my students’ favoritism became so pronounced that when I was walking down the hall with the dean, I purposely tried to walk a half step behind him, lest and I did not want the dean to get the impression that I was aspiring behavior that I knew that one should never do anything to diminish or detract from his immediate supervisor. In fact, if an employee is wise, he/she will always make a special effort to make his immediate supervisor look good or succeed. Walking a half step behind the dean in the hallways was part of my effort to achieve that result. Af-

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of my doctorate. And I genuinely wanted him to be happy with my behavior. Obviously some supervisors would not be concerned with an issue this small. But my discernment in the personality of this dean led me to believe that this could be a signal to him that I was more important than he was, although this was the farthest thing from my mind. As for my publishing endeavors, I set about doing two things: one, I had to complete the editing function of my thesis and get it back to the university in order to graduate in 1960. I also contacted the University of Texas about the possibility of their publishing my thesis and they agreed. I thus needed to do some editorial changes for this purpose.

thesis and interacting with the publishing arm of the University of Texas in pursuit of the publication of my book. I also had to devote sell the bank stock. Given the negative community environment in light of the failure of the Ft. Worth Bank, we had to conduct a vigthe architect to design the building and the contractor to construct it. that I had my hands full. Besides teaching my classes, I had to complete the editing of my thesis so that I would graduate in the spring of 1960. My objective

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was to complete the editing of my thesis and return it to the univerachieve that objective. And my degree of DBA in Finance was in fact, conferred upon me in the spring of 1960. My next priority was to complete the revision of my thesis for publication by the University of Texas. This turned out to be a relatively simple task. I completed it and sent the manuscript to University of Organizing a New Bank. Recruiting the First Board of Directors With my editorial responsibilities, completed, I now had the time to ideal Board of Directors would comprise a cross-section of the leading business and civic leaders of Houston. As a newcomer to Housorganization. Having found that organization, I arranged to speak at one of their luncheon meetings. It soon became clear that the leading black business organization in Houston would not be an appropriate group to lead the bank. My who had not risen to the top but were well on their way. This obviously would be a time-consuming task, because these individuals were not part of a single organization and thus had to be researched one at a time. It was my assessment that it would take at least a year to complete this process; and it did.

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After assembling the prospective First Board of Directors, we spent the better part of the next year getting acquainted with each other and educating the board members, because they were all new to banking, and planning the strategy for launching the bank. When the plans had been completed, they called for raising $500,000 in stock; building of modern new building; recruiting; organizing the staff of the bank and conducting an active public relations program to keep the community current about what was going on. As the only person who knew anything about banking in the group, I was elected the education about banking to the rest of the directors. The challenge of raising $500,000 from the black community was launched with the backdrop of the failure of the only black-controlled bank in Texas. This was an institution that was controlled by a fraternal organization and run from the hip pocket of one of its members. Although it had been in existence for a number of years, it only had $1 million in assets at the time of failure. Like many institutions that failed during the 1930s, this bank was organized under bank regulations that allowed entrepreneurs to hang out a shingle as a bank in the same way they would as if they were organizing a grocery store. At the beginning of the 1930s there were 30,000 banks in the U.S. operating under these rules. By the end of the 1930s depression, there were about 15,000. So half of the American Banks had failed during the depression. The new laws that were enacted under the leadership of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, required experienced bank management; a prescribed capital base and at a well-researched market, to make certain that there was a sound banking opportunity, all before a charter could be granted. The laws

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that strengthened the banking industry during the bank holiday in the 1930s, did not arbitrarily shut down the existing banks; but rather it allowed them to continue operating until they failed of their own accord or reorganized under the new law. The Fort Worth bank that failed in 1961, was a leftover institution from the pre-1930s era. It was destined to fail, and it did. The average person in the black community did not know the difference between the banking laws of pre-1930 and the new banking laws that became effective, following the bank holiday in 1933. All they knew was that the institution had the word bank in its title. They did not know the kind of management it had; the kind of capital it had; nor the competitive environment within which it operated. They only knew that the only black-controlled bank in Texas had failed. It was in this environment that we had to sell the stock of the proposed new bank. In spite of a vigorous public relations program, to sell $500,000 in fore, took us eighteen months to sell that volume of stock. By the time we had completed the sale of that stock, however, the attitude of the community had changed 180-degrees and we could have sold another million dollars’ worth of stock within the next 30 days, had we needed to. Planning and Constructing the New Bank Building With all the stock having been sold, we then turned our attention to constructing the new physical plant. To achieve this objective, we hired John Chase, an architect from the engineering school of Texas

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Southern University, and empowered him to visit a number of the new banks in Houston and neighboring cities. We wanted him to conceptualize a modern, well-designed, new bank headquarters. As is the practice of architects, he presented a number of sketches to modern structure with an all glass front and 5000 square feet of operating space. Following the construction of the new bank building, we were now ready to begin assembling a staff and planning the grand opening. Locating an Experienced Banking Executive

banking experience, and since none of the directors had any banking United States in 1964, the year the bank was scheduled to open. The banks in this country were still lily-white one hundred years after the legal cessation of slavery. As it turned out, it was obvious that God was still watching over me and my group. Fortuitously, one of the banks that I had analyzed in preparation of my doctoral thesis, was Douglas State Bank of the Kansas City, Kansas, a black-controlled, commercial bank and the only one in my doctoral exhibit. In researching that bank, I had formed a valuable friendship with the chairman, Mr. H.W. Sewing. So I Invited Mr. Sewing down to Houston to meet with our board Mr. Sewing spent several days with us, getting acquainted with the

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board members, visiting the community and getting an overview of the market that we were planning to serve. At the end of his visit, we Tillmon, for one year. This would allow us to get our charter while we sought or trained his replacement. We were therefore able to subfor chartering purposes. During my thesis research at Harvard, I had learned that banking and politics go together like hand and glove. In other words, to get a bank charter, political connections were generally required. We had no relationship with the political leaders of Texas, so I contacted Charlie Diggs, a congressman from Detroit, who at that time, was Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, D.C. Charlie Diggs, knowing the machinations involved in getting a bank charter, contacted Lyndon Johnson, who had become President by that time. By then it was 1964. It was clear that Lyndon Johnson was trying to do everything to live up to the plans that President John F. Kennedy had put in place prior to his assassination. It was our belief that with Charlie Diggs contacting him, if there was anything he needed to do to assist us, he would do it. The Grand Opening of Riverside National Bank Proceeding with the assumption that we would get our charter, we then turned to organizing the grand opening of the bank. As part of the grand opening plan, we invited black business and civic leaders the U.S. We had conducted a successful campaign in the community

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to neutralize the negativity surrounding the failure of the only blackcontrolled bank in Texas, a year earlier. We therefore expected a large crowd of people from the community to attend the grand opening of the bank. At the grand opening, we conducted a brief program featuring Jim Saxon, as our speaker. In those days, there were numerous banks being chartered almost daily in the United States. For the Comptroller of the Currency to speak at our grand opening, was an unusual event for him, and truly a blessing for Riverside National Bank. The grand opening was covered by the local and national media. Because of its historic nature, the opening of Riverside National Bank was treated as national news. It was clear that the community had bought into our message that a commercial bank owned and operated by African Americans was an important contribution to the community. Thus, there was a crowd of people in front of the bank, from little children with their piggy banks to little old ladies with their money in a variety of bags, including paper bags. There were also businessmen and women both from the black and the white communities. It was a joyous sight to see the various media outlets taking hundreds of pictures at our grand opening. ing a deposit in the bank? You guessed it, the gentleman who had disrupted the meeting of the leading black business organization at the meeting during which I was attempting to involve the members of that group in the organization of the new bank, which signaled that the leadership of the black community of Houston was leaving –––––––––––––––––

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the shores; he wanted to make sure that he did not get left behind. While we were glad to see him make a $10,000 deposit in the bank was less than $100 in his account. Clearly he wanted the public to believe that he was the anchor behind the bank movement, but the facts were that he was not wishing us well. That was because we had created the most powerful institution in the black community without his involvement. And he was not very happy about that. The life lesson in this scenario was that entrenched leadership in any social, civic, business or political organization is not likely to willingly give up its leadership to newcomers. This has nothing to do with race but rather it is a human phenomenon. I was well aware of this saying, but I did not waste one minute trying to persuade others to join us in this new leadership role. Instead, we put together the emerging leadership that was destined to supplant the old guard. It was interesting to watch most of the old guard’s efforts to get on board the leadership train that was leaving the station without its participation. By the time the tellers had counted the deposits for the day it had totaled almost $500,000. That’s a small amount in today’s economy but it was a huge amount in 1964. As part of the capitalization of the new bank it was imperative that the directors control the bank. This was the only way that the direcmoney to buy the stock that his credit would allow. To facilitate the purchase of the stock by the directors, we had the formal relationship with what is known as a correspondent bank. This bank would lend the money to the directors commensurate with their ability to pay –––––––––––––––––

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for it over time while the stock would be held by the correspondent bank as collateral. This was a widely practiced system within the banking industry at that time. Thus, I could only borrow $20,000 because I was still trying to get my family back on the solvent side following two years of austere living. We needed a new car. We had to establish a new household. So my stock purchasing power was severely limited. I, thus owned only four percent of the capitol stock. One doesn’t get sweat equity stock in the development of a new bank, as is common in a new commercial or industrial corporation. The new bank was now open and the early indications were that it was on the road to becoming highly successful. My motivation for leaving Florida A&M University with the objective of studying banking and organizing a commercial bank in the black community was coming to fruition. In addition, it appeared that we had planted likewise.” However, as is often the case in human endeavors, when it appears that there is considerable money to be made, together with the power that goes along with it, often greed comes into the picture. Such was the case in the Riverside National Bank organization. There was a medical doctor whom I had personally recruited to beal Bank. He was selected because he worked in the community and knew a lot of people, plus he had the biggest balance sheet of any of the directors in the group. He had an organization consisting of himself and a realtor to whom he would funnel his surplus income to buy real estate. He, therefore, had accumulated a considerable real estate portfolio. As a result of his balance sheet, he was persuaded by

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a number of the directors to co- sign the loan for their stock, since they were unable to buy the amount that they wanted to own in the bank. When this particular director was being recruited, he was visibly solicitous of the opportunity to become a member of the board of the new bank. His attitude stood out that he was just happy to be asked to serve. When it looked like the bank was going to do quite well, he persuaded those directors whose notes he had co-signed to vote to remove me as president, to move the current chairman to the position of president and make himself chairman of the board. His plan was not to make an announcement of this change so that I would continue to serve in the same capacity as I had from the beginning for public consumption but the internal organizational chart of the bank was now changed to recognize him as the chairman and the former chairman as the president, me, as the new vice president with the same duties that I had before, for public consumption. Given what I had put into the development of the bank up to this point, I could not accept this new organizational structure even though for public consumption I would continue to do the things that I did when my title was president. Therefore, in accordance with the arrangements which the directors made among themselves, to give from the board. I knew it was not wise for me to go public with my decision because if the bank went down, so also would go my ownthe community which we had worked so hard to build, and perhaps even the control of the bank. So I quietly accepted my lot in the new arrangement while I pondered my next move.

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Many of life’s leaders are people who do not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

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14 Washington Calls Perhaps because of the nationwide publicity which I had gotten for al Bank, I had received several calls from the Federal Government offering me various jobs. Because I was in the process of organizing Riverside National Bank, I had to tell them that I could not come at that time. This time the call was from the Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of State, asking whether I would consider accepting a position as president of a development bank in Nigeria that the U.S. government had funded. Nigeria was the largest black country in the world with a population of 100-million at that time, and it was growing. It also had some of the world’s richest oil reserves and the potential, if it were managed properly, to be a power in the world. It was clear that the gods were still looking over my shoulder. This time my answer was yes. This sounded like a great opportunity. So, I submitted my resignation to the Board of Riverside National Bank, and sold my stock back to the board, as was our agreement when we bought the stock. I also took a leave of absence from the university; bundled up my family and went to Washington, D.C. I would be an employee of the Agency for International Development,

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the Technical Assistance and Banking Arm of the U.S. State Department. Whatever decision was made by the U.S. Secretary of State that required Financial or Technical Assistance, was carried out by the Agency for International Development. In this regard the State Department had funded a number of development banks throughout the developing world. These banks were designed to facilitate economic development in these countries. Accordingly, the loans made by these banks were long-term and had soft interest rates. In short, they were designed to give the country time to develop a positions for which I was being recruited to become president. As fate would have it, the Biafran War broke out in Nigeria. This was a civil war between the tribes of Nigeria, and the motivating factor was the oil resources of the country. Chase Manhattan Bank had denied me the opportunity to go to Nigeria for that institution when Nigeria under a different umbrella had presented itself and I was delighted by this new opportunity in 1964. When I reported to Washington, however, I was presented with the news that a civil war had just broken out in Nigeria, as a result of which I could not go to Nigeria at that time.

for the civil war, as reported by some African newspapers, was that the former colonial powers who were seeking to control the oil, pitted the tribes against each other, which morphed into a civil war. The

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upshot was that AID would not let me go to Nigeria. At any rate, for the second time I was being denied an opportunity to run a bank in Nigeria. So there I was, having moved my family to Washington with the prospect of becoming a banker in Nigeria and now the opportunity had vanished under my feet. Under these conditions, of which was at the top of the Civil Service salary scale, so money was not an issue. After several offers, none of which I wanted, I told them that “before I accepted a job that I did not want, I would go back to Houston and resume my teaching career.” They vigorously suggested that I should not go back to Houston, that they would

Finally they came to me with a piece of legislation that Congress had just passed that required the State Department through the AID, to interested in investing in the developing countries, worldwide. This would be a brand-new agency within the State Department and it would be designed to strengthen relationships between these countries and the U.S. The challenge with this offer was that I would have to organize this program from the ground up. I would then be the chief of this division. Up to this point, no African American had been appointed chief of a division in AID. This was not a problem for me. I had grown accustomed to competing with smart, white boys at the University of Minnesota and at Harvard and often being the only minority in the group. Thus, I had no inhibitions about being able to compete with my white peers in AID as a Division Chief. As would be true in the launching of any new organization, I had to

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lay out each function to be performed; create job descriptions; hire the personnel; develop policies and procedures and manage the organization. It is interesting to see how God knocks you down, only to show you what he can do for you.

of AID wanted to design my job and tell me whom I should hire. I promptly rejected their overtures, reminding them in the process that all I wanted the personnel department to do was screen the ap-

the message and complied with my wishes. While I knew I was qualime the job was that they believed I was a constituent of President Lyndon Johnson. He was from Texas so they assumed that I had come to Washington because of him. It is amazing how God works his wonders. One of the amusing experiences that I had while launching and managing the Investment Survey Division of AID, was observing the surprised look on the faces of the major bankers and industrialsecretary named Fitzgerald and a black director of a major department of AID. This scenario went something like this: a banker or an industrialist vey Division and would be greeted by a secretary named Fitzgerald. In the eastern part of the US, the name Fitzgerald was generally

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an Irish person. When the executive arrived at the department, he would frequently walk to the white secretary and ask to speak to Ms. Fitzgerald. The white secretary would point to the black secretary and say, “That’s Ms. Fitzgerald.” He then would ask to speak to Dr. and announce, “Dr. Irons, this is Mr. Alexander. He wishes to discuss The Investments Survey Program with you.” His mouth typically dropped noticeably as if he were totally surprised. He had just encountered a black secretary that he thought was white and a black executive that he also thought would be white. Neither of these experiences was common to him, thus, the surprise on his face. After a few such encounters, during which I had to explain how

without regard to race. This was not unlike my experience at Harvard, during which I had to prove to my student peers and my professors that I could think as well as they could and perhaps better than some. The Investments Survey Division of AID was a program in which industrialists, who were interested in investment opportunities in the developing countries, would come to the Investments Survey Divestment interest. The program worked this way: If an industrial investor was interested in a particular country, following an approved application from the department, that industrialist could send a team of researchers from his or her own organization to that country, that would research the viability of an investment in that country.

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Because most of these countries had a variety of raw materials and other opportunities and little or no competition, often there were Accordingly, if a given industrialist sent a team of researchers to proceed with their investment with our guidance and they would

feasibility study, present it to the Investments Survey Division for approval, and in this case that was my responsibility, and following my expenses. The net effect was that if they found a viable investment, portunity, they were reimbursed for their out-of-pocket expenses. In either eventuality, the industrialists were happy. By any standard, this was an exciting management opportunity and I thoroughly enjoyed managing this program. In the course of managing it, my division chiefs and I had considerable opportunity to travel the world. Most of my travel was concentrated in Africa by choice. In fact, I traveled to over twenty-two African countries; i.e., from Tunisia on the North to South Africa on the South and from Liberia on the West to Ethiopia on the East. Because there were no direct had the privilege of traveling to and visiting London, where I was able to see the famous changing of the guard; Rome, Italy, where I was able to see the ruins from the fall of the Roman Empire; Saudi Arabia, where I was able to see Mecca; Paris, where I was able to see

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the Eiffel Tower (the Eiffel Tower was not even constructed when Marie Antoinette was executed). I traveled to Frankfurt, Germany, where I was able to see some of the results of the redevelopment which was the U.S.’s program to rebuild Europe following its destruction in World War II. In Liberia, I was able to see a social structure created by former U.S. slaves in which approximately 3-percent of population controlled the other 97-percent, and in which that 3-percent who were descendants of U.S. slaves, were the political and economic leaders of that country. In addition, I was surprised to see normal he-men walking down the street holding hands; I later learned that there were no homosexual implications in that behavior. Also, as was true in all the African countries, I was able to observe sculptors carve wooden low except that which was in their minds. Similarly, I observed seamstresses creating garments with ornate designs, again with no pattern to follow except that which was in their minds. I also observed that the vast raw materials owned by these countries were often siphoned off by poachers from other countries, primarily European, a process which drained the wealth base of these countries. Further, I learned that while the political reins were in the hands of indigenous citizens of those countries, the economics was largely dominated by East Indians and European former colonial powers. There were obvious exceptions to this pattern, however. For example, in Zambia I encountered a furniture manufacturer that made bamboo furniture for patios that had a world market and required only two sales persons to market the product of this company that had

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over 400 employees and employed an assembly line for its manufacturing process. In South Africa I met several very wealthy Africans who owned bus transportation systems. These systems were made possible by the apartheid design of where the indigenous South Africans had to live. The South African landscape was designed like a giant wagon wheel with the hub being the place controlled by white South Africans, primarily British and Dutch and East Indians. This hub was the site of all major cities and commerce of the country. These cities were as modern as any major city in the U.S. But at the end of the business day, during the period of apartheid, the blacks who worked in the city had to board buses and go back to their homes. Their homes were situated in geographic areas called homelands and were populated in some of the world’s most destitute ghettos. Generally, there was only one highway from the hub of South Africa to each of these 12 homelands and those entrepreneurs who owned the buses that provided the transportation for the workers who were going to and from home to the cities of South Africa, accumulated great wealth from their monopolistic transportation system. A number of interesting scenarios transpired during my stay in South Africa. One noteworthy incident occurred in the hotel in Pretoria (the capital of South Africa), where I was living. Historically, the hotel did not permit indigenous Africans to come into the lobby or to be guests in the hotel. As a representative of the U.S. State Department, I stayed in that hotel. The Africans who had shown me around Pretoria, took me back to the hotel at the end of the day; whereupon, I invited them to come into the lobby and have a drink with me. The waitress came to us after we had sat down at a table

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in the lobby and while she obviously appeared extremely nervous, I gave her an order with obvious authority in my voice, “ I want you to give these men the drink that they order and I want a scotch and soda for myself.” While she appeared reluctant, she brought the drinks as they were ordered. After we had consumed our drinks these men in that hotel.” Another incident in South Africa that may be worth sharing is built around my effort to be served in the dining room of that hotel at indicating that I was alone and needed a table for one person. The maître d’ appeared quite nervous and said, “We are sold out.” Since I was early I could see that there was no one else in the dining room at that time, so I told the maître d’, “Whether you are sold out or not I want you to give me a seat at a table now.” I guess he noted my American accent and nervously complied and seated me at a table near the entrance to the kitchen. He brought me a menu and I ordered and ate my dinner as I had planned. After leaving the dining room and going to bed, I turned and twisted all night wondering if she might have put something in my food that might have been harmful to me. Given the circumstances, however, I had to take that chance. The next morning I was scheduled to go to Cape Town. When I went down to the dining room from my hotel room to order breakfast, the maître d’, greeted me graciously, “Good morning, Dr. Irons.” Obviously, I had not seen or been introduced to the maître d’ since this

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graciously and I wondered what had caused the dramatic change in the behavior of the hotel personnel in South Africa. I may never know, but I would guess that they had checked me out and found that I was a member of the U.S. State Department. So they no longer treated me in the same manner that they did in Pretoria. Finally, amazingly, following a reception at the home of the dean of the Business School at Cape Town University, I was invited to speak to a group of students. As it turned out, predictably, all the students were white males. It so happened that this was during the time that the world was boycotting South Africa to motivate them to get rid of their apartheid system. So following my speech, I was asked my attitude towards the boycott of South Africa. My response was, “The world disagrees with your apartheid system and the manner in which you treat your African citizens. So after repeated negotiations between the indigenous African community and the political leaders of South Africa, to no avail, this appears to be the last resort of the world to persuade South Africa to get rid of its apartheid system.” After I had responded similarly to a number of questions on this issue, the bell rang to end the class and without exception, all these young men stood to their feet, and I looked for the nearest window. I thought they were going to attack me for my views. Instead, they gave me a standing ovation.

the school who had invited me to speak, remembered me as a graduate student at Harvard, during which time he was a junior professor there. And even more surprisingly, he offered me a job teaching at

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by the offer, I declined and told him that as long as apartheid was the legal social system in South Africa, I could not accept a teaching position at Cape Town University Business School. He accepted my response graciously. He then asked whether I would consider coming back to teach at Cape Town University if apartheid were abolished in the future. I told him that I would surely consider it because I had enjoyed my interaction with the students during my speech and the pleasant manner in which I was treated at a cocktail reception the night before in his home; which, incidentally was the time that he had asked me to speak at the university. The incidents set forth above are only a tiny morsel of the experiences I had traveling throughout continental Africa. In addition to these rich experiences, I thoroughly enjoyed working with the bankers and the industrialists in the U.S. who took advantage of the proeconomic and organizational behavioral skills that I had learned over the years, both in universities and in other organizations. Approximately 50-percent of the industrialists who sought investment opportunities under the Investment Survey Division program, did in fact, make investments. For the other 50-percent I had to approve feasibility studies and issue reimbursement checks to them. By the end of the third year of managing the program, I had made many friends among the industrialists and bankers and, without exception, they respected me without regard to race. Also, at about the end of the third year, a gentleman named Dr. Frank Snowden, of Howard University, paid me a visit and during our discussion, he asked whether I would consider accepting an offer

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from Howard University to organize a business school. Dr. Snowden was an alumnus of the Columbia and Harvard University schools of education, and currently dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Howard University. He stated that Howard University was 102 years old and did not have a business school. It had a sizable department of business but not a business school per se. I asked him how he got my name as a possible candidate to organize the school, to which he responded, “I called the Harvard University Graduate School of Business and they told me that there is a person right there in Washington in the State Department who could do the job; so I have come to see whether I could persuade you to become a faculty member at Howard University to organize the business school and become its humbled by your offer, but I am quite happy here. I happen to be to travel the world at the expense of the State Department; my constituents are multinational banks and multinational industrialists and I am at the top of the civil service salary scale. So to leave this job and come to Howard University to organize a business school would

“What are the incentives that you would require, Dr. Irons?” To which I replied, “I would need to come in as a full professor at the top of the professorial salary range with a commitment that the University Administration would neutralize the bureaucracy that could inhibit my ability to organize the school.” To which he replied, “Those are some steep incentives but I believe we can meet them. Give me a week and I will get back to you.”

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As promised, within a week he came back to see me. He said, “We’ve never made an offer quite like this, but we are prepared to accommoyou can get the job done. So if you accept this offer, how much time will you have to give the State Department in order to accept this job?” To which I replied, “I am at the division level and I need to give at least a month’s notice for AID to replace me. I would like to leave a good taste in the mouth of the Assistant Secretary for the Agency for International Development because it is conceivable that I might need them in the future. AID makes grants to a lot of universities throughout the country and there may come a time when Howard University may want a grant from this agency, and I want a positive environment within which to request such a grant.” His response was, “That sounds reasonable. Give me another week and I’ll have a

pired in my life since I left Harvard University Graduate School of years, one year less than the average, with all white peers, half of offer to teach at a university in a state that would serve my purpose, without having to complete an application; after arriving at the institution in which I was going to teach, I was able to get the University of Texas to agree to publish my thesis in a book [and they did] and having successfully organized Riverside National Bank, and served

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National Bank and while it did not materialize, through no fault of mine, I ultimately was offered a job that had worldwide responsibility the country and now to be offered an opportunity to create a business school in a university that was 102-years old, that is considered the number one HBCU in the country, I asked myself the question, “What else but the grace of God could make all these events happen?” I alone surely could not have. The fact that I was removed from the presidency of Riverside National as a result of a power-play within the board deserves a bit of a corporation resides with those who control the stock. Obviously, I knew that. At the time that we were selling the stock for the bank, however, I had just gotten out of school and the most I could borrow to purchase my stock was $20,000, which was only 4-percent of the stock of the bank. So there was no way that I could command the power to control the bank, given the share of stock that I owned. I knew that I could be pushed aside by those who controlled the majority of the shares of the bank when we were selling it. But the most important thing to me at that time was to get the bank off the ground, not whether or not I could control it. Thus, I was willing to take the risk that I could be pushed aside as a part of my objective to demonstrate that black people could organize and manage a bank successfully. The lesson I learned from this experience, was when greed or the pursuit of power becomes a part of any organization, integrity takes a backseat, no matter what the relationships of the players are in the situation. In this regard, with respect to the relationships in this scenario, when I importuned the medical doctor to

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become a part of the board of the bank, he insisted that he did not know anything about banking or business, in general, at that time. However, he indicated that he could learn and he was honored that I asked him to become a part of the organizing group of Riverside believe that a person could transform from such a lack of business experience and a state of expressed humility, to one with a mind“Vengeance is mine.” At that point I obviously did not know how it and that group ultimately lost control of the bank. I obviously was not happy about this, because “my baby” [the bank] was badly managed and thus it suffered. Maybe this was the vengeance that I did not have to seek. Fortunately, the bank had been successfully opened and it was trending towards a highly successful business venture. Under these conditions I could’ve gone public with what had transpired and perhaps derailed the bank, but this would have undergirded the myth that black people could not organize and manage a commercial bank. Thus, I opted not to go public with what had happened. Instead, I would sell my stock, let the bank continue to prosper and move on. community was this was “Ed Irons’ baby.” I reasoned that it was better to allow the bank to succeed than to seek vengeance. While my vision had not fully materialized by the time I left Houston, that is, to establish a Renaissance in black-owned banks throughout the United States, as I write these memoirs (2011), I can look back

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with considerable pride because my vision has materialized beyond my wildest dreams. For example, before the end of 1964, three additional black-controlled banks had come on stream. And while there were ten State Banks that were in existence when Riverside National Bank was launched that had total assets of $77-million, by the end of 1996, there were 110 minority banks with assets totaling $21-billion. Of that number, black banks had increased from eleven when Riverside National Bank was launched to a high of forty-seven in 1980. However, because of the change in bank regulations in 1980, black banks decreased in number to thirty-four. Thus, 28-percent put the failure of black banks into perspective, before the change of bank regulations by Congress in 1933, there were 30,000 banks in the U.S. During the crash of the 1930s and following the change in bank regulations in 1933, approximately 50-percent of banks in the United States failed, going from 30,000 to 15,000. Similarly, when Regulation Q was repealed in 1980, the Glass-Steegle Act was abolished in 1980, during the next ten years, 1460 banks had failed. I provide this perspective because critics of black banks in the 1960s led by Governor Andrew Brimmer of the Federal Reserve Systems, opined in a speech to the American Economic Association that black banks could be little more than ‘ornaments’ in their communities with little potential for economic development.” After an analysis of the operating statements of newly chartered banks, or less than three years old, with mature banks without distinguishing between the dif-

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ferences of those two groups. This obviously, caused his conclusions member of the Federal Reserve System, his opinions carried a lot of order to neutralize the impact of his opinion, I submitted an article to the Washington Post, pointing out that Gov. Brimmer’s analysis of Washington Post spread my article across the front page of the business section of the paper. Given that the Washington Post was second only to the in coverage throughout the nation and the world, my article was giv-

black leaders who took issue with Governor Brimmer. Thus, while we launched the Bank Renaissance for banks primarily in the black community, by 1996 there were 105 minority commercial banks in the U.S. with total assets of $21 billion, including Asians, Hispanics, women, American Indian and black controlled banks. Before the launching of Riverside National Bank, there were no other minority-controlled banks in the US. From the above it is clear that the launching of Riverside National Bank opened opportunities not only for the black community, but also for Asians, Hispanics, women and the American Indian. Also, the Hispanic share of bank assets was enhanced by the fact that they had billion dollar banks in Puerto Rico, which is a sovereign country, yet U.S. regulators, I if Puerto Rican banks were based in the U.S., they would be considered minority but in their own country, they are not minority. Not surprisingly, the Asian banks’ assets were enhanced by the Japanese

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community on the West Coast, which was the site of most of the Japanese banks. The Japanese community in California has considerable commercial and banking assets. This then, is the upshot of the launching of Riverside National Bank. Now that I was moving on to another assignment, when I submitted they asked why I would leave a job like this after having invested so much into it. My response was, “I have enjoyed my tenure here, but I made to myself when I left Harvard University.”

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There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will, all of your life, spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.

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15 Howard University Calls: To Create a Business School Fortunately, I did not have to start from scratch at Howard. The Business Department, though not a school, was one of the largest departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. The faculty, with notable exceptions, was generally of high class. So my major responsibility was to update the curriculum, create a high level advisory board; seek accreditation from the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business, and plan to raise funds for special projects or program enhancement. So I called the faculty and the students together and shared my vision with them. I also sought their vision for the school as faculty and students of Howard University. Without exception, when I raised the prospects of having a Business School at Howard, their response was, the sooner we could get it done, the better they would feel. I appointed a group of ad hoc faculty committees with at least two students on each committee. I wanted the faculty and the students to be of one accord as we sought to create a business school at the number one HBCU in the U.S.

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As fate would have it, I had gotten nationwide news coverage when we opened Riverside National Bank for business in Houston. I was also in the national news when I accepted the position at AID, given that I was going to be a banker in Nigeria for the U.S. State Department. Now that I have accepted an opportunity to create a business school at Howard University, I was in the national news again. Being in the national news allows people whom you don’t know to learn things about you without your knowing it. At any rate, as soon as I had settled in at Howard, I received a call from an organization called COGME, the Congress of Graduate Management Education. As I was to learn, this was an organization of Ivy League Deans of Business Schools who had come together to facilitate an increase in minorities to Ivy League Business Schools. They were inviting me to become a member of their group. Sigsolicit black and other minority applicants to the business schools that were members of COGME. No one ever told me how they got my name. I could only guess that it was Larry Forakker, who was dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business at that time. Someone from Harvard had told Dean Snowden of Howard University that I was in the State Department and that I could do the job of organizing a new business school. So I’m assuming it was Larry who recommended me. In any event, I felt honored to become a member of this distinguished group of deans. The applicants would apply to COGME the point organization for the group of business schools, where they would be screened and their applications forwarded to the respective

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schools as designated by the applicants. As all the schools had high standards, the applicants were uniformly of high quality. As a result, we frequently would have 10 applicants for one slot. After going through all ten applicants, we sometimes had to draw straws because ing decisions; having to reject nine good applicants simply because we did not have open slots for them. I was often emotionally drained following the screening of a group of applicants. Since this responsibility at COGME was gratis, I sometimes felt that I was giving my service to deans who really did not need me. Nonetheless, I diligently persevered in the service of this organization. As fate would have it, however, I was going to need one or more deans National Advisory Board at Howard University. As it turned out, I was able to get two such deans, each of whom had been president of the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, which is the accrediting agency for business schools in the U.S., to serve on my Business Advisory Board. Thus, I was able to kill two birds with one stone. These men were knowledgeable business educators and they also knew the accrediting standards that we were going to have to meet in our efforts to become accredited. My objective was to go for accreditation as soon as we reasonably could qualify. While the criteria for accreditation were quite extensive and the evaluation were: setting of a vision for the school and structuring a curriculum pline; a curriculum that complies with the standards of a high-quality

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budget to carry out the responsibility of a well-managed school. Having established a National Business Advisory Board, complete with two former presidents of the accreditation agency on that board, I felt that we had taken a major step in the launching of the Howard University Business School. The next major step was the evaluation and upgrading of the curriculum. Within a year the Ad Hoc faculty/student committees that I had appointed at the beginning of this process, had reported their recommendations, which were accepted by the faculty. In addition, I had begun to evaluate the faculty, to recruit quality faculty where there were weaknesses and to weed out those who clearly did not have the potential to become strong faculty. cial commentaries to the Washington Post and economic consulting. This was the model that the faculty at the Harvard Business School followed. The premise was that this kind of outside activity enhanced their teaching ability. Also, the students enjoyed the fact that the faculty could convey to them what the real world was really about, which gave them a leg up in comparison with students who were taught by faculty who could use only the book as a basis of instruction. In other words, this type activity enabled the faculty to teach a combination theory and real-world business practice. Because of my widespread writing and public commentary on Washington Post frequently sought the newspaper from time to time.

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While Riverside National Bank is not related to my responsibilities at Howard University, it has been three years since we launched that bank, and it may be instructive to assess the degree to which our long-term objectives beyond Houston in general, and Riverside in particular, are being realized.

the total number of black-controlled banks in the U.S. was eleven. By the end of 1967, however, that number had more than doubled to twenty-seven and by the end of 1969 there were thirty-four blackside National Bank. It may be recalled that before Riverside National Bank was launched, there had been only two state banks and no national banks organized in the prior forty years. Given this new rate of growth and feeling a need to cross-fertilize their experiences; in 1967 the leaders of this group importuned me to accept the position of Executive Director of the National Bankers Association. This position had the authority of a CEO; however, because my job at Howard University was a full-time administrative position, I carried out this responsibility as a consultant rather than a 9-to-5 administrative job.

I needed to design the scope of the new program of the Association. The program included: 1. Financial Statement Research Function; 2. A Director Training Program; 3. An Annual Convention Planning and Execution Program;

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4. A New Bank Development Program; 5. A Management Training Program 6. A Deposit Development Program The research function was designed to provide a basis of comparposite operating results of all the members of the Association as well as comparison with banks of their same size of the American Bankers Association. This program was designed to shed light on their strengths and weaknesses in managing their respective banks. The convention planning function, while being fairly self-evident of what it was designed to do, in fact was designed to improve the quality of the program that was fostered annually in behalf of the membership. The convention program in the past had comprised mainly social functions. The emphasis in the new program would be based upon featuring speakers who could provide information that would improve the quality of management of the banks of the Association. The new bank development program was designed to encourage the organization of new banks and to assist in providing management talent for those banks. This was a critical function because until the social upheaval in the 1960s the banking industry had precluded the hiring of blacks as professional bankers in their organization; therefore, there was not a pool of experienced black bankers in the country from which minority banks could recruit their management talent. Thus, a management training curriculum was a critical component of the program of the National Bankers Association. As was set forth earlier, black-controlled banks were sprouting up all

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over the country, and the quality of their directors often left much to be desired. Many of those directors had not served in a policy position prior to becoming bank directors. They, therefore, were decal component of the Association. Most of the banks were located in minority communities, most of which had markets consisting of small and marginal businesses and consumers, many of whom did ket for deposits and loans for these banks was constrained by this economic base. The purpose of the deposit development program, therefore, was to seek to persuade major corporations who sold their wares in these communities, to deposit some of their funds in these banks. So by any stretch of the imagination, this program sought to initiate a quid pro quo between the major corporations who sold their wares in these communities and the banks that served this market. To get this program off the ground required funds which the National Bankers Association did not have at the time. Accordingly, I submitted a proposal to the Economic Development Administration and was successfully awarded $230,000 to launch this program. a minority trade association. Trade associations, such as the National Association of Minority Construction Contractors, the National Savings and Loan Association, the National Insurance Association, and the National Black Manufacturers Association, had never received time in history, these associations were beginning to receive funds

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from sources outside of their organization. Thus, my initiative of securing funding to operate the National Bankers Association was spreading throughout the nation and creating economic development activity that I could not have foreseen when I conceptualized this initiative.

statements of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC], I developed a spreadsheet for each of the banks that enabled them to compare themselves with the average of all of the NBA banks. It also enabled them to compare themselves with banks of a similar size of the American Bankers Association. This comparative analysis enabled these banks to see their strengths and weaknesses in the management of the assets of their respective banks. Predictably, this comparative analysis did in fact improve the bottom line of these respective banks. But the research showed that while those banks between $50 million and $300 million in assets compared favorably with the banks of the American Bankers Association of similar size. In fact, many of the NBA banks exceeded the return on assets and equity of their peer group in the American Bankers Association. This program did, in fact, work. The NBA Management Training Program The next major project that we undertook was the creation of a Management Training Program. As set forth earlier, the policies and practices of the American Banks in the U.S. until the social upheaval in this country in the 1960s denied black Americans from

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institutions. Thus, there was not a pool of experienced black bankers from which the newly created banks could draw. To address this issue, I formed a relationship with a number of major banks of the American Bankers Association. This relationship fostered a management training program in which young black men and women, who were college graduates and were working in some other discipline, would be recruited to spend a year in the major banks training in the fundamental management disciplines, following which they would be assigned to a junior management position in one of the NBA banks. This proved to be a highly successful program with many of these trainees achieving middle and senior management positions in NBA banks. While this program was successful, the number of growing NBA banks. Fortunately, major banks were beginning to of management talent from which the NBA banks could draw. The NBA $100 Million Deposit Development Program Perhaps the most exciting program that NBA undertook was the Deposit Development Program. Under this program we planned to raise $100 million from a consortium of organizations, including major businesses that were selling their products in the black community; departments of the federal government then led by the Secretary of Commerce, Maurice Stans; Abe Venable, director of Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Department of Treasury.

Roche, chairman of General Motors Corporation. This deposit was

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him from Jesse Jackson, of Operation Push, who told him that he was selling $9-billion worth of automobiles to black people in this country and that the industry, including General Motors, repeatedly rejected minority applications for automobile dealer franchises. Further, that unless General Motors agreed to award some franchises to black Americans, that he, Jesse Jackson, and his organization were going to initiate a nationwide boycott of General Motors with the objective of stopping black Americans from buying General Motors’ products. Not only did Jim Roche agree to award automobile dealerships to black and other minorities in this country, he also agreed to participate in the $100-million Deposit Development Program fostered by The National Bankers Association. Acting in good faith, Jim Roche brought a check for $5 million which he distributed to several NBA bankers and issued this statement: “Our investigations indicate that minority banks are making substantial contributions to economic development among minorities,” he continued, “and I hope that General Motors’ action today will stimulate other corporations to make similar deposits so that these banks can continue their important work.” We could not have asked for a better send-off for the $100-million Deposit Development Program. While we orchestrated the cooperano one but Jesse Jackson could have brought Jim Roche to Washington with a $5 million check to be issued at a press conference, which included the Secretary of Commerce, Maurice Stans; Abraham S.

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several NBA bankers and Dr. Edward Irons, representing the National Bankers Association. dents at the Clark Atlanta University School of Business Administration, was a benefactor of this initiative. He became a successful Detroit-area automobile franchise owner who serves on a number of local and national boards and organizations. ment Program, I personally called on corporate treasurers across the nation in an effort to persuade them to follow Jim Roche’s example. One such visit to a corporate treasurer produced a great surprise to ties and when I asked him if he would consider making a deposit in the NBA banks, he countered and asked if I would put together a consortium of banks that could lend several millions of dollars to Chrysler. What a surprise! But fortunately I was able to produce the consortium for Chrysler Corporation in accordance with his request. These kind of events elicited national newspaper coverage; as a result, major corporations began to deposit directly to these banks without going through the National Bankers Association. This is what we had hoped to achieve. Before I took on the full-time responsibility of managing the National Bankers Association and while I was still trying to get the Business School through the bureaucracy of Howard University, I was importuned to accept the presidency of the New York Urban

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Coalition Venture Capital Corporation. In fact, they wanted me to move to New York and become the full-time president of the New York Urban Coalition Venture Capital Corporation. I told them that I could not accept their offer; that I was in the process of developing a business school for Howard University, while at the same time, developing a program for the National Bankers Association. To further persuade me to accept the offer, they asked me to name my salary. My response to them was that salary was not the issue. The issue was my commitment to develop a business school for the number one HBCU in the country and to create a program for the National Bankers Association, the organization of black-controlled commercial banks in the country. No salary, no matter how big, could persuade me to abandon these commitments. He persisted by asking whether I would consider being President Pro Tem as a means of to assist them by agreeing to become President Pro Tem to help write their policies and procedures and recruit my replacement. This required me to commute from Washington, D.C. to New York City twice a week. To make sure that I would complete this agreement, the chairman of the board of this corporation whose primary job was Vice Chairman of Citibank, did everything he could to make me feel comfortable, including sending the limousine to meet me at the airport, each time I came to New York. This limousine was the transportation medium assigned to the Vice-Chairman of Citibank. Citibank was the largest commercial bank in the nation at that time. This responsibility required approximately 3 months of my time although it turned out to be more taxing than I had planned. But I did get it done and after three months, I was able to devote full time to Howard University, which was my primary responsibility and secondarily

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to The National Bankers Association, which I could do at my convenience. During this period and beyond, I was fortunate to have the services of a very high-quality Executive Assistant at Howard .

University. She would call me several times a day no matter where I was, to update me on what was going on at Howard, and if there were decisions to be made at that time. I had learned at the Harvard Business School that a skilled executive can multitask without too working for him. In addition, I had several years of empirical experience at Texas Southern and Florida A&M Universities as professor, author and executive, often simultaneously. Indicative of this multitasking process was the fact that each day that I was away from the campus of Howard University, I would call my assistant and in a joking tone, ask her whether the roof was still on at Howard. Her stock answer was, “Yes.” But one day while I was on an assignment in New York, when I asked her that question, her answer was, “As a matter of fact, it isn’t.” When I asked her what was going on, her response was, “The student leaders of every school president.” The business school had a very active student organization and I asked her whether our student leaders were involved, to ments at Howard University at that time, and she said all of them had representatives on the committee that occupied the president’s rush back to Washington, D.C. When I got back to the campus, I called our student leaders, the

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president of which was a young man named Carl Bassinet, to a meetThey told me that every school and department student leader had drafted a set of demands to which their students wanted the university to respond to. They said, “Our demand is that they produce a positive decision on the business school proposal and to do it without further delay.” My response to them was, “I can’t quarrel with that demand, although as you are aware, I can’t tell you what to do.” Ironically, while we had been waiting a year for a decision, within the week following the onset of the student boycott of the University, the business school had a positive decision regarding the creation of the Business School at Howard University. Already I could see the value of adding the students to the various committees that were created, to plan the future business school. In short, the wisdom gained from this experience was: If you want the energetic support of the members of any organization, you have to involve the members of that organization in the planning and execution of the goals and strategies. The amazing thing was that the board had already approved the creation of the business school and the document was sitting on somebody’s desk at the administrative level because some bureaucratic procedure had not been done. It was clear that the board was not a problem, because the board had been briefed on the plan to create a business school before I was hired. The university approved most of the demands of the students, but the student leaders, by and large, were expelled from the university. As the facts began to be revealed, the student leaders that were occupying

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were on the honor roll and were destined to have bright futures. The word from the student leaders was that Howard was 102-years old and so were its policies. Predictably, this student upheaval was covered by all the major media outlets; television stations, radio and print media, all were involved in telling the story from their perspective. Amazingly, the Washington Post editorialized on the side of the students. Meanwhile the president of the university, under whom I on in numerous universities across the country. So Howard University was not unique. While the lives of those students who were expelled from the university were disrupted, almost without exception, these students were given scholarships at other universities; and I was especially pleased that Carl Bassinet, who was the president of the business school club, was admitted to Harvard University Law School and ultimately became a successful lawyer in the District of Columbia. Obviously Carl was not the only success story of the students who were expelled, but I had the privilege of recommending him to Harvard and seeing him admitted and graduate. Following the resignation of the president, the board of trustees set in motion a process of recruiting a new president. Under normal conditions, given its perceived national reputation, Howard University would attract the highest quality of educator executive as its president. However, the fact that the students were exerting their try, including Howard, the most accomplished university educators

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would not apply for the job. So the board ended up hiring a replacement from a small HBCU that may not have made the short list under a different set of circumstances.

faculty members who had national reputations or were highly visible in the news. In this regard, the National Association of Mortgage Bankers had approached me to put a course in mortgage banking in our curriculum as a means of developing mortgage bankers for the industry. Since I was the only faculty member that had an extensive install this course and teach it. In preparation for this event, I enrolled in a short course at Northwestern University for the following summer. The New President Rides in on a Big White Horse During the time I was at Northwestern, I received a call from my wife who said, “You have a letter from the president, Jim Cheek. Do you want me to open it?” I said, “Yes.” She opened it and read it to me and this is what it stated: “Dear Dr. Irons, you have done a good an outside dean. I hope you will stay. Sincerely, James Cheek, President.” The letter was dated July 2, 1970. I reasoned that he picked July to apprise me of his decision, believing that at this late date in the academic calendar, most of the better Howard and to keep my mouth shut. On the contrary, I asked my wife to get a pen and paper and write my reply to the president. I

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replied with a two-sentence letter to him and this is what I said: “Dear Dr. Cheek, Please accept my resignation effective the end of this month. I hope you will have much success as president of Howard University. Sincerely, Edward Irons.” The Faculty/Student Reaction I stayed at Northwestern University until I completed the course in Mortgage Banking. By the time I got back to campus, word had leaked out that the president had hired another person to be dean of the business school and both the student body and faculty were up in arms. One-hundred-percent of the faculty had signed a petition to the president asking him to rescind his decision to bring in a new dean. The student body called a press conference and issued a public statement decrying what the president had done and vowing to get him to rescind his decision. However, I called a joint meeting of the faculty and the students and I told them that while the president’s action was not common among well-run universities in the nation, his behavior was indicative of the culture of HBCU leadership. And since the board had just hired him, they had to support him at this stage of his presidency whether they agreed with his actions or not. Secondly, I emphasize to the students and the faculty that if he did not want me to serve on his leadership team, I did not want to serve on that team because he would make sure that I did not succeed anyway. So my plans are to move on and I will be all right. Meanwhile my leaving Howard became national news primarily as a result of the students’ press conference.

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An Avalanche of Unsolicited Job Offers While I had not given any thought to where I would go next in my career, because of the national publicity surrounding my departure from Howard, I had more job offers than I knew what to do with. of Management and Budget of the Federal Government. He was the former dean of the College of Business at the University of Chicago and we knew each other quite well. He said, “Ed, I have two can have either one that you want.” I was humbled by his gracious offer, but I told him that I had decided to move in another direction. My real reason for turning down the offer was that I could not accept a position in the Nixon Administration. But I could not say that to him. After all, he was a part of the Nixon team and I knew that. So the better part of valor was to graciously decline the offer and move on, which is what I did. I was offered deanships at Texas Southern University, Ohio University and American University in Washington, D.C., which at that time didn’t have one black student. When asked why they wanted me to be dean of the school, they answered, “We want you to help us recruit some Black students.” My response was, “I’m honored that you would make this offer to me but I have made a binding commitment to go in another direction.” I had spoken at the University of Texas School of Business Distinguished Lecture Series, following which I received a call from the dean inviting me to accept a professorship at was from Larry Forraker, who was dean of the Business School at Harvard University Graduate School of Business at that time. Larry

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said to me, “Ed, why don’t you come on up to Harvard as a professor where you will be among highly productive colleagues like yourself.” He was aware that I was, at that time, considering a Chair in Banking and Financial Institutions at Atlanta University Graduate School of Business in Atlanta, Georgia. What he did not know country. It, therefore, would be one of the most prestigious professorships in the university and at any HBCU. Nonetheless, Larry said, “If you go down to Atlanta, you’re likely to be among people who are not doing research, publishing or any of the things that you’re accustomed to doing, and that we do at Harvard. Your consulting fees will be lower; you will be on fewer corporate boards and, therefore, you will make less money.” While Larry was quite persuasive, I told him that while I would like to make as much money as I could, that is not the motivating factor that led me to select the endowed professorship at Atlanta University Graduate School of Business. I then shared with him the decision I had made when I left Harvard that I would spend my career “giving back.” I also shared with him that I had rejected the offer from Chase Manhattan Bank before I left Harvard and that I have turned down numerous offers of this type since I left Harvard. Finally, I was offered the presidency of Central State University, Xenia, Ohio, my undergraduate alma mater. While this offer pulled at my heartstrings, I reluctantly and graciously declined it. With respect to the Howard University situation, here is how I summed it up. It was obvious to all concerned that I was eminently -

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nized. I have no evidence of what the new president thought of me not talk to me or anyone else associated with the school of business. I was aware that he was rapidly acquiring the reputation on the campus as the “Little Napoleon.” To wit: as long as you kept your head down, i.e., do not become too visible, you were safe. On the other hand if you were frequently in the public eye as a news commentator on radio, TV or print media, you were in danger. That obviously was my sin. This scenario reminded me of my experience as an undergraduate student at Wilberforce University, when Dr. Charles Wesley, presi-

Church and as such, was responsible to a board of ministers led by Bishop Reverdy C. Ransom, Senior Bishop of the First District of the AME Church.

the administration building of the University at that time, to Mitchell Hall which was a building across the ravine, a small stream that was the demarcation line between the buildings which the church had erected and the buildings that the State had erected. As it turned out, the state had built most of the buildings on the campus and was underwriting 79-percent of the cost of operating the University although the state had allowed the University to take full credit for the operating of the University. Dr. Wesley was empowered to create a new university under the umbrella of the State of Ohio.

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The second thing that happened as a result of the board action against Dr. Wesley, was what appeared to be 75-percent to-80-perRansom, soaked it in kerosene and marched en masse to the residence of Bishop Ransom, whose house was just off the edge of the

front porch, the students shouted and booed at him for breaking up burned out. I was one of the leaders of the students who marched on the Bishop along with Jackie Shropshire who, following graduate from the University of Arkansas Law School. Jackie and I were State University in 1948. Finally, the last thing that happened was 90-percent of the students, staff and faculty followed Dr. Wesley to the newly created school, which was ultimately named Central State University. The lesson from the scenario of this experience was that even when you are successful at what you do those in power with ulterior motives can derail you. However, if God is on your side, you will likely land on your feet. The evidence was pervasive that God was still in the blessing business for me, because as soon as the National Bankers Association Board of Directors heard that I had left Howard University, they changed my title from Executive Director to President of the National Bankers Association. In addition, I received a call from Dr. David Robins,

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dean of the business school at the University of Richmond, who had been a junior professor at Harvard while I was a doctoral student there. He offered me a professorship at that school. I told him that I had just agreed to a program with the National Bankers Association to travel throughout the country talking to corporate treasurers to persuade them to deposit part of their liquid cash in minority banks and that I could not commit to teaching on the days that I was scheduled to meet corporate treasurers. His statement was, “If you accept this job and cannot come on any given day, all you have to do is call and let me know and I will take your class.” So I accepted a professorship at the University of Richmond School of Business which required me to commute two days a week from Washington, D.C. to Richmond. And incidentally, there was not one black student in my classes. This proved to be a stimulating experience for me. While the students were constantly testing me to see what I knew, relaxed and gave me the respect with which any professor would be pleased. However, just as I had warned Dave that there would be many times when I could not meet my classes, there were more such days than I expected. When the year was over, my inclination was to resign because I did not feel comfortable receiving full salary and missing so many classes. Nonetheless, Dave insisted on sending me a second year contract and my contract salary was always at a premium level. This was possible because A.H. Robins Pharmaceutical Company had just given the University $40 million and the Dean indicated that he could meet my salary requirements no matter what it was.

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As fate would have it, however, I decided to accept the chair at Atlanta University Graduate School of Business rather than take a high-paid professorship at the University of Richmond. I thoroughly enjoyed my teaching experience at the University of Richmond Business School; however, the opportunity to ‘give back’ at a historically black university was pulling at my heartstrings just as I knew it would when I left Harvard. I, therefore, opted to go to Atlanta.

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The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.

- W. E. B. DuBois

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16 A Prestigious Professorship As my life unfolded, the evidence seemed to suggest that the position which I accepted at the Atlanta University Graduate School of Business, as the Mills B. Lane Professor, may have been the best position I had held to date. The life of an endowed professorship is the best life on any university campus. Endowed chairs are typically funded by entities outside of the university. They typically are paid premium salaries. They generally have a full-time secretary, together with one or more graduate research assistants. They generally have a research budget and travel budget. For this, they’re expected to publish widely and engage in corollary activities that bring credit to the university. Indicative of that life, as the holder of the Mills B. Lane Professorship of Banking and Financial Institutions, to which I was appointed in 1971, I taught only two courses, one graduate and one undergraduate (the class load for the normal professor was 3 to 4 courses dependent upon their research productivity at a typical HBCU School). I had a full-time secretary, several Graduate Research Atlanta Journal Constitution, a paper with the largest circulation in the Southeast at that time; I served on several corporate boards and sev-

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having been appointed by three governors and three mayors, all in Georgia. Additionally, I had also received a Governor’s appointment in the State of Oklahoma. As the Mills B. Lane Professor of Banking and Financial Institutions at Atlanta University, I published actively the Atlanta Journal Constitution. These columns required more diligent research than those in the scholarly journals. The refereed journals The weekly columns were read not only by the economic editors of the AJC and the economists throughout the country, they were also read by 200,000 other readers from coast to coast. As such, the facts and opinions in the column were scrutinized by numerous readers, some with expertise equal to or superior to mine. Accordingly, if the facts were wrong, somebody would write the editors. Concomitant with the risk of errors was the fact that the name of the university is seen in a positive light by all those persons each week. I carried on a modest consulting business and I published my second book, Black Managers: the Case of the Banking Industry, in 1986, which incidentally received the “Best Book of the Year Award” from the National Economic Association. In retrospect, it appears that turning down professorships at several prestigious universities, which included my alma mater, Harvard University Graduate School of Business; several deanships, a U.S. Government subcabinet post, and a college presidency, turned out to be good decisions as I left Howard University. Neither Jim Cheek, president of Howard University, nor I could have predicted this outcome. In fact, given the manner that he used to replace me after I

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had successfully organized the business school, and shepherded it through the university bureaucracy, and positioned it for early accreditation, I would surmise that he thought he had locked me in as an employee of Howard University, given that his letter informing me of his decision was dated July 2, 1970. I am sure he reasoned that all the jobs in which I would have an interest were probably already

As fate would dictate, however, he was wrong. While I could not have predicted it, I had more job offers than I could ever have dreamed of. Further, I was not the only high-visibility professor that he managed to get rid of from the university. A Historic Benefactor for the University and Me and Financial Institutions in Georgia. The chair was funded by Mills B. Lane, chairman of Citizens and Southern National Bank which, banking chairs in his name. The participating universities were: the University of Georgia, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Emory and Atlanta University. At that time, Mills B. Lane was one of the most highly respected for lunch monthly to discuss current issues in banking. This was a rich experience, having the opportunity to interact with one of the the Southeast. Obviously, because this was main-stream, I had to stay current and I did. There was a great deal of mutual respect among

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within that group. Because of my widespread publications, particAtlanta JournalConstitution, they had a good idea of my expertise and opinions and it was obvious that they respected both. Mills Lane, as he was generally referred to by his colleagues, was a gregarious and an informal guy with a number of idiosyncrasies. For example he typically answered his own phone. When his phone would ring, he would respond by saying, “Mills Lane.” He would often make major loans with a handshake. At luncheon meetings, he would open the meeting by saying, “What’s going on fellows?” This greeting would launch a lively discussion regarding what was each chair holder was engaged in research in selected aspects of the us. We then would turn the discussion towards Mills Lane to get his perspective. Thus, the learning curve was quite steep during those luncheon meetings for all of us, including Mills Lane himself. My experience as the Mills B. Lane Professor of at Atlanta University proved to be a rich one. During my tenure there, I was instruin the business school. In the process, because of my relationship with the National Bankers Association and the American Bankers Association, our students were recruited actively by the top bankers of the nation from Citicorp down. Citicorp was the largest bank in the nation at that time. My relationship with the top bankers of

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Bankers Association during which time, I was able to get the CEOs and other top executives of the major banks to serve as speakers at the annual conventions of the National Bankers Association. This enriched the members of the National Bankers Association and provided a ‘give back’ component for the contributing members of the American Bankers Association. Thus, I could call the CEOs and other top executives of the American Bankers Association and they would answer my call. Hugh McColl, a Benefactor and Friend Predictably, as is true in any job, there were good times and bad times. As for the good times, from 1971 until the mid-1980s, our students were actively recruited and were often paid premium salaThis was part of the legacy of the social upheaval in the 1960s. For an example of the good times, Hugh McColl, who was then chairman of North Carolina National Bank (NCNB), the largest bank in the South, but destined to become chairman of Bank of America, often lectured in my classes. Frequently, he would call and say, “Ed, I am coming to Atlanta, do you have a class that I could talk to?” Even if I didn’t have a class I would say yes to him. And, in fact, when I did that he could talk to because he was one of the most important bankers in the U.S. In preparation for his visit to my class, I always made sure my students prepared themselves by researching the current issues in the banking industry and researching everything that was published about NCNB. So that when he got to my classes, I always suggested

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to him that I wanted him to leave at least half of the time for questions from my students. At question-and-answer time, my students would frequently ‘back him into a corner’ with their questions. Judging from the look on his face, he was both surprised and amazed at the quality of the questions the students directed at him. When he are as good as any that I recruit from the Big Ten or Ivy League different colleges and universities from across the nation, including Ivy League, Big Ten and other quality schools, 18-percent of whom were from HBCU Schools. One of the most memorable occasions during Hugh McColl’s lectures, was his comment that he wanted to the U.S. when the laws change. NCNB grew rapidly through mergers and acquisitions. The annals of banking history will reveal that Hugh McColl was a shrewd and aggressive banker. An ex-marine, McColl considered adopting his marine motto as his approach to bank mergers and acquisition, “Crush the sons of bitches and have a nice day.” Because North Carolina was one of the states in the U.S., the laws of which were changed to permit statewide branching, NCNB out-grew Citizens & Southern Bank, of Georgia, which was constricted by law from branching beyond contiguous county borders. In this regard, I never shall forget when Hugh McColl made an initial independent C&S National Bank Board. It had been the largest bank in the South, and Bennett Brown, the chairman at that time, said no

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to Hugh McColl. However, McColl would not be denied. Instead, he told Bennett Brown that NCNB would just hunker down and wait for a more opportune time to make a run at C&S. This he did. When the next dip in C&S’s stock occurred, McColl made his successful run. In fact, there were rumors that C&S with all its powerful history, was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. C&S had gotten caught up in the real estate boom and had become overleveraged. As a result, when the bubble burst, it drove C&S stock down precipitously. Thus, C&S stock developed a pattern of volatility. It was at one of those low points that Hugh McColl, like a hunter waiting for his prey to appear, made an offer that Bennett Brown, his board and his stockholders could not refuse. Therefore, C&S became a part of NCNB. American Bank to achieve a National Geographic presence in U.S. History. When he made the revelation that he wanted to become the U.S. while in my class, neither he, the class nor I knew whether he would live to achieve that dream because it depended upon the change in the laws, and that was unpredictable. As fate would have it however, the laws did change in 1980 and he did, in fact, become both he and I, a sideline observer, lived to see it. This was not only a great moment in his life; it was also exciting for me to be able to watch his banking strategy unfold from the sideline.

day NCNB would acquire a west coast bank, the name of which was Bank of America. But one day, that is what happened. After the acquisition of Bank of America, NCNB adopted the name of Bank

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of America for its corporate name. Meanwhile, Bank of America became the largest bank in the nation. Because of widespread mergers and acquisitions throughout the industry, however, no one bank was likely to remain number one for an extended, predictable period. Instead, on any given day, one bank may be the largest in the nation,

One last thing about the good times involving my experience as the Mills B. Lane Professor, and my relationship with Hugh McColl, was that because NCNB actively recruited my graduates every year, McColl would sometimes send a corporate plane to take them to Charlotte for interviews. In addition, he would invite me to Charlotte intermittently to meet with my graduates and him over dinner. At those dinner meetings, he would encourage me to ask them what they had learned at the bank and what they thought would improve the curriculum at Atlanta University. So this was a learning experience for all of us. Institutional Racism Still At Work While legal slavery had been abolished for well over 100 years, the vestiges of slavery and racism are still prevalent in our economic system and in society, in general. It is still prevalent in our government, our industries, our universities and in all our social endeavors in this country. As an African American, one is subjected to this institutional racism irrespective of his accomplishments, educational level or economic circumstances. Since my experience is in the banking and spectives in this industry. My research, however, revealed that these experiences were prevalent throughout all our industries in the U.S.

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I could cite many instances; however, there were two outstanding examples that will illustrate the institutional racism to which our students were subjected, following their completion of an MBA degree at Atlanta University or a B.A degree at one of the undergraduate schools. Barry Sullivan, President of First Chicago Rides into Town When Barry Sullivan was not selected for the presidency of Chase Manhattan bank, he opted to assume the presidency of First National Bank of Chicago. I had known Barry and developed a relationship with him while he was at Chase. He knew that I was the Mills B. Lane Professor of Banking and Financial Institutions at Atlanta University, and he was aware of the reputation that Atlanta University had

When Barry assumed the presidency of First Chicago, he found that First Chicago had much to be desired to be referred to as a highquality banking operation. He, therefore, called me and said, “Ed, I am in a rebuilding mode here at First Chicago and I need the best to him was, “You need not look any further. We have some of the best young minds in this country graduating from undergraduate ing, accounting, whatever you need.” He then asked me to assemble a group of B.A. and MBA students who would be graduating that spring so that he could come down and share with them the kind of opportunities they have at First Chicago. As I was teaching one graduate and one undergraduate course

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and the undergraduates were from Spelman, Morehouse, Morris Brown and Clark College, I was able to assemble a good group of students to whom Barry could talk. When he came to the campus, he brought a number of his human resource people who interviewed several of our students. This event took place in the fall. The decisions concerning the bank’s new employees would be made the following spring. The Plight of the Black Male The following spring I sent him six high-quality MBA students who were scheduled to graduate in May of that year. There were three young men and three young women in this group. One young man prior to pursuing an MBA. A second young man had passed all but one of the CPA exams and he also had worked for one of the big six agement training program of Bankers Trust, a major bank in New York City, before studying for his MBA. All three of these young men had high-level academic records at Atlanta University. The three young ladies were very attractive to the eye and they had equally high academic records; but, neither young lady had any experience. However, they obviously had the capacity to learn anything about bank operations at First Chicago.

out who was selected by First Chicago to begin their career there. The three young men, almost in unison, pointed to the young ladies and said, “They selected them.” The young ladies looked at me with an expression of embarrassment on their faces, as if to say, “We

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don’t know why they selected us over the three men since their records were superior to ours.” Since I knew the technology of banking, I knew that the young ladies could learn anything that there was to do at First Chicago; so they the ground running and could have been productive almost as soon as they arrived at the bank. And I thought that was what Barry Sullivan wanted. Whether he wanted them are not, it was clear that his personnel people did not. The question in the minds of these young people, all of them, was why would the bank select these young la-

It was clear to me that I had to do something. So I picked up the phone and called Barry Sullivan. I told him I would like to come to Chicago to see him. He did not question me as to why I wanted to greetings, I told him why I wanted to talk to him. I told him what had happened to the six young people that I sent to him for consideration and I shared their respective backgrounds with him so that he ished sharing with him what had happened, he picked up the phone and called his Executive Vice President, to whom the personnel department reported. While I knew him personally since he had been a bank executive in Atlanta, his name is not germane in this context as this is not about him. So I will leave his name out.

anything about the decision to hire or not to hire six graduates of

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Atlanta University Graduate School of Business. First Chicago was the tenth largest bank in the United States at that time and had assets of approximately $20-billion. So it was not surprising that the EVP University applicants. At any rate, Barry turned to the EVP and said, “In the future, before you reject any applicants from Atlanta University Graduate School of Business, I want you to run the decision by me.”

quota of new employees. What grew out of this experience was that no matter what top management wanted, unless it is was clearly articulated and followed up by top management, the institutional racism would continue unabated. Obviously, Barry Sullivan was attempting to change a culture which dominated the bank and while it would not be changed overnight, with the type of leadership displayed by Barry Sullivan at First Chicago, institutional racism can ultimately be conUniversity Graduate School of Business and the feedback from our students was quite positive after that experience. The second example of institutional racism which our students experienced was that of a young black male who was recruited by Republic National Bank of Dallas, Texas. Like First Chicago and NCNB, this bank was one of the very active recruiters of Atlanta University graduates and was the largest bank in Dallas at that time. This young man, who earned a master’s degree in Finance and Accounting, was the son of the dean of Southern University Business

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Public Accountant. I personally had the privilege of studying under him when he was chairman of the Business Department of Central State University in Ohio. While Southern University had a business school, the father of this young man opted to send his son to study under me. As you could imagine, this young man grew up in an upper-middle-class family and, incidentally, he had never worked for anyone outside of the family. In fact he was a self-taught photographer and an entrepreneur in that discipline. He carried himself as though he believed that he could do whatever he put his mind to. In other words, he had a high self-image. He breezed through the curwith honors. He was recruited by Republic National Bank of Dallas, which was among the top-twenty largest banks in the country. After Hulon Harrison was at the bank about three months, I got a call from one of his fellow Atlanta University graduates who also worked at the

in my voice, I indicated that this could not be true; Hulon Harrison was one of the best accounting students at the school. Since I knew the president of the bank personally, I picked up the phone and called him and told him that I had heard that Hulon Hardent of the multibillion-dollar bank, as this bank was, the president would not know what happened to new recruits. I told him if he

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would make a proposal to him, as the president of the bank: I would pany in the United States from General Motors down (at that time General Motors was the largest corporation in the country) and give Hulon and your best white recruit those statements and put them in the room together or separately and if Hulon does not come out equal to or better than the white recruit, I will accept the fact that Ed, if you feel that strongly about it, we must’ve made a mistake.” I

nancial statement of any corporation in this country.” The upshot was that the president brought him back into the bank and placed him with one of his major banking subsidiaries. Within six months, Hulon was making news in the bank newsletter that was highly commendable, and it was clear that Hulon was well on his way to a highly successful banking career. What I discovered in this experience was that Hulon had never worked with a white person before and he was unaware of the white male attitude of self-assured young black males. In other words, Hulon did not understand how to negotiate his way through the culture of dominant white male superiors. This was not an isolated experience; there had been numerous young men who had similar experiences. This happened to have been one of the most obvious incidents and one that I felt I could do something about. Following

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that experience I began to include in my classes instructions on how young black males had to conduct themselves in order to survive in the culture dominated by white males. I did this often with tears in my eyes because what young black highly self-assured males were being castigated for were the characteristics sought in young white males. Again, institutional racism drove this scenario.

a conscientious effort to mitigate racism in the bank followed, as was the case at First Chicago. The conclusion, growing out of these experiences, suggests that to change a corporate or social culture requires dedicated and consistent leadership from the top, without which nothing changes. Employees take their behavioral cues from the observable behavior of top management, irrespective of what is written in the formal procedure manual of the organization. Beyond Teaching tionally respected industry leader, is that one gets invited to participate in a variety of endeavors beyond the classroom. Obviously, to be selected as the holder of an endowed chair, one has to distinguish himself in his educational discipline such that he is respected and honored not only by his peers but also by those organizations that he impacts by his service beyond the classroom. While Mills B. Lane, chairman of Citizens and Southern Bank of Atlanta, Georgia, was distinguished for having built the largest banking institution in the Southeast before the laws were changed permitting statewide banking by other states [exclusive of Georgia] and

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also laws that permitted nation-wide bank expansion, he was revered nationally, not only as a pioneering and skillful banker, but also as a at the top Georgia Business Schools, including this writer, felt privileged to wear the mantle, Mills B. Lane Professorship. In addition, the Chair at Atlanta University Graduate School of Business, which I

university, in the United States. The other Mills B. Lane professors were not quite as unique as the chair at Atlanta University Graduate School of Business, because they had a number of endowed chairs at their universities. As set forth earlier in this piece, I engaged in a number of nonteaching activities as the Mills B. Lane Professor. Below is a selected list of boards and commissions and other nonteaching activities in which I engaged during my tenure as Mills B. Lane Professor, principal of which were the following: CORPORATE BOARDS Lincoln National Financial Corporation: $50-billion in assets, at retirement in 1994; [$141 billion; 2011]. Atlanta Life Financial Group: The largest stock-controlled minority insurance corporation in the U.S. The Herndon Foundation, Chairman: Controlling stockholder of Atlanta Life Financial Group

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Black Enterprise Board of Economists: Publisher of Black Enterprise Magazine.

Medical Assistance Commission of Georgia: A $400 million Corporation; Managed Medicare/Medicaid of Ga. [Appointed by Gov. George Busby] Atlanta Economic Development Corporation [Appointed by Mayor Maynard Jackson of Atlanta, Ga.] Renaissance Capital Corporation [Appointed by Mayor Maynard Jackson] National Economic Association, Chairman [Elected by membership] Harvard Business Club of Atlanta [Elected by membership] 100 Black Men of Atlanta [Elected by membership] Black Enterprise Board of Economists; Black Enterprise Magazine Georgia Commission for Community and Economic Development: Chairman [Appointed by Governor Zell Miller; Atlanta, Ga.] Consortium of Graduate Management Education [COGME] A consortium of Ivy League Business Schools, the mission of which was to increase the number of minorities in Ivy League Business Schools. –––––––––––––––––

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The American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business; the Accreditation Agency of Business Schools in the U.S. In summary, I was privileged to be appointed by four mayors; namely: Mayors Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young, & Bill Campbell, all of Atlanta and Mayor Marion Barry of the District of Columbia; and two Georgia governors: George Busby and Zell Miller, and one Oklahoma Governor, Johnston Murray. In addition to the above appointments, I was privileged to be selected into the membership of the History Makers of America. This is an organization the mission of which is to record for posterity, the accomplishments of African tions to their respective profession and to the society at large. One of the most challenging and rewarding endeavors in which I was engaged while still serving as the Mills B. Lane Professor, was having been selected as a weekly Economic Columnist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a paper with the largest circulation in the Southeast, at that time. This assignment allowed me to write about that time. An Apparent Historic Opportunity ship was implicit in a letter which I received from the Mayor of the District of Columbia. In his letter the Mayor invited me to become the First Commissioner of Banking for the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia, unlike any other municipality in the United States, was responsible for a number of state functions, one of

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Institution Regulatory Act. In response to the letter from the Mayor of the District of Columbia ing for the District of Columbia, I reasoned that no one could do this job given the way the law was written. I then wrote the Mayor rejecting his offer while advising him that the only way I would accept the job was that they would agree to make the appropriate changes to the law such that the agency could be effectively managed by a competent executive.

and concluded that the Mayor, upon receipt of my letter would say to himself, “Who does he think he is?” And I thought he would then throw my letter into the wastebasket. As fate would have it, however, I received a letter from the Mayor approximately six weeks from the time I wrote him rejecting his offer, stating that the Council had considered my suggestion to make changes in the law and that they would do their best to make those changes and he offered me the job for the second time.

how valid their promise to make the appropriate changes in the law would be. If I accepted the job and they did not make the changes I would be unable to do the job. However, the historic nature of this opportunity led me to accept their promise to make the appropriate changes, I thus wrote the Mayor accepting the job under the condi-

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tions that the changes would be made. I then took a leave of absence Banking Commissioner for the District of Columbia. Part of the lure of the job was the fact that many of the multinational banks from Citicorp down were trying to establish a presence in the District of Columbia. The local banks on the other hand, did not want them to come in. This issue was destined to become a struggle between the Commissioner and the Council oversight person and the banks. In spite of this and other challenges, I set about organizing the new banking commission in a manner that would enable the Commissioner to do the job. Fortunately, I knew Paul Volcker who was chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Bill Seidman, Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Jim Smith, The Controller of Currency, the Chief National Bank Regulator. These were the three top bank regulators at the federal level.

a body of rules that would govern the behavior of the banks. I then needed to develop an organization that would be primarily composed of bank examiners. And for best results, I needed to keep the Council informed of my organizational goals and the progress that was Paul Volcker. I told him I was the new banking Commissioner in town for the District of Columbia and I needed to draft a set of rules. I thus needed his assistance. Paul then said, “Ed, why don’t you come over and let’s talk about your operation and I’ll see what we can do to help you.” –––––––––––––––––

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phone and called his general counsel and told him to come to his him to me and said, “Ed is the new banking commissioner for the District of Columbia and he needs his rules to be written. I would like you to put together a team of lawyers and write a set of banking rules for him.” Hearing what Paul had just said, shocked me to the point at which I was almost speechless. Because I knew that to between $150,000 and $200,000. When I asked Paul what this would cost us, he said, “This is our contribution to you as the new banking commissioner. We want you to succeed and we’re going to help you The next thing I did was contact Bill Seidman, Director of the FDIC. I told Bill that I was a new banking Commissioner for the District of Columbia and I needed to develop a bank examination organization and that I did not know where to start. Just as Paul Volcker had done,

recruit an experienced bank examiner that could build a Bank Examination Department for me. Bill’s response was, “I have an experienced young man that has had twenty-two years of bank examination experience, I can lend him to you for one year during which he can set up your bank examination department and train his successor.” I thus had accomplished now had the promise of a high-quality set of banking rules and an experienced bank examiner who could set up my bank examination department. –––––––––––––––––

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When I reported to the Mayor what Paul Volcker had promised to pected a highly commendatory response from the Mayor. However, the obvious tepid reaction to what I had shared with him, led me to believe that I was not playing with a full deck of cards. In fact, I concluded that I may be in a more precarious situation than even I had oversight committee, but I did not understand the Mayor’s reaction to what I thought was a major accomplishment. Not only had I been able to get Paul Volcker to write our rules and save us approximately $200,000 but the portent of future Counsel from the Chairman of tory function. Nonetheless, I had a four-year statutory appointment, so I set about trying to do the job the best I could with the view that the situation might change in the future. It didn’t. I knew going in that the ambiguity of the law under which the Comoversight committee.. The Mayor promised to try to change that, so I accepted the job with the assumption that the ambiguity would be removed from the law, thus permitting the Commissioner to do his job. And following the reaction of the Mayor to my report at what the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board had done for the city, I future. Thus, much like my position as CEO of the Consolidated State Institutions in Oklahoma, I had accepted the situation hoping I could do a creditable job under the circumstances. He May Not Come When You Want Him but He’s Always on Time

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I decided to bide my time while I pondered my next move because it certainly wouldn’t be there. As fate would have it, while I had planned to seriously begin to plan my next career move, I had not Provost of Clark Atlanta University.” Dr. Snowden introduced himself to me and told me that the students, faculty and alumni of Atlanta University had importuned the Administration and the Board to invite me back to the institution to become dean of the Business School. In this regard, I had heard that there was an interim dean of the Business School. He further explained that the school was not moving in the right direction, and they wanted somebody at the helm of the Business School who could turn it around. So those students and faculty and alumni recommended me to the president and to the board of trustees. I told Dr. Snowden that before I could sign a contract, I would need to come back to the university and talk with the president, the students and the faculty to make sure that the conditions were in place that would allow me to do an effective job. Figuratively, I was already in the frying pan I did not want to jump reasonable and that the university would reimburse my expenses for coming for an interview. In accordance with our agreement, I made a trip back to the University and had a series of meetings with the students, the faculty and the president. My assessment was that the situation was not ideal but I believed that I could do the job. The major impediments were a dispirited faculty; I would need to hire ten Ph.D.s who could be-

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resources to effectively do the job. As I had left Harvard, with a commitment to come back to the South and “give back,” it was easy to see that this was going to be a major “giving-back” challenge. Nonetheless, I decided to sign the contract and return to what had become Clark Atlanta University while I was on leave. So I submitted my resignation to the Mayor of the city of Washington, D.C., breathed a sigh of relief and said goodbye to my friends that I made during my tenure as Commissioner of Banking, particularly those who had assisted me in getting the Commission off the ground. As I said goodbye to my Washington, D.C. colleagues, I said to myself, “Atlanta, here I come.”

have taken that job in the same way that I never should have taken the job in the State of Oklahoma. The lesson from that experience when you are endeavoring to make a major decision. After you commit yourself to the situation, you lose your bargaining power and you become a victim of those who may or may not want

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Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebbles that cause you to stumble. you have crossed the mountain.

- [Unknown]

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17 Our Daughter Defies Death TRISHA HAS AN EVENTFUL YEAR

My oldest daughter, Trisha, experienced one of those rare years in one’s life. She had three major events occur in one year of her life. To wit: She successfully completed her MBA degree at the Sloan School of Business at MIT in May of that year. I had tried to persuade her to go to my alma mater, Harvard, but she opted for MIT instead. Secondly, she got married to her college sweetheart in August, and to top it off, she accepted a new job at IBM in October that same year. Not only did she accept a job with IBM, she told me that she named her salary. When she told me that she had done that, I admonished her to never do that again. I told her that in order to make the best impression on a potential employer she needs to indicate that salary, while important, is not the most important thing in her efforts to join the ranks of that company. I further told her that the most important thing from her perspective was to discern what she might be able to do to assist the company to reach its goals. I continued by stating to her that in order to do that, she needed to know as much about the company as possible. That’s what I counsel my graduates, who are also MBAs, to say, with respect to salary requirements. The –––––––––––––––––

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interviewer already knows your background, he or she knows what the company’s needs are, and they already have numerous employees with backgrounds similar to yours and know the salary scale that the Whether you will be paid at the top or the bottom of that range depends upon the impression you make on the interviewer. Nonetheless, they gave her the salary that she asked for and she was happy. And obviously I was happy for her. What she didn’t say and what she might not have known, was that in certain years when the demand for new employees is greater than the supply and if the potential new employee is from one of the Ivy League schools, the applicant sometimes has a little bargaining power with respect to salary, but that doesn’t happen every year and it doesn’t happen for graduates of all schools. This happened to be her year. To experience one of those life experiences was a blessing but to experience all three of them within the same year was a godsend. One event that took place while Trisha was at MIT may blow your mind as it did mine. Needing an inexpensive place to live while she was in school, she and her husband rented the same apartment that her mother and I had rented while I was studying for my doctorate at the Harvard Business School. It was also the same place from brother while her mother worked and I went to school. This is also respectively. Yet Trisha did not know this when she rented the apartment, for this was almost twenty years later. She found this out when she called home and gave us her address while she was in school there. You can imagine that we were all shocked and overwhelmed

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across the Charles River from Harvard Square. And MIT was just a couple of blocks away from Harvard Square. We, her parents, and while we were in school. A Tragic Turn in Trisha’s Life This clearly was her year. But as she was to learn, in the not too distant future, the vicissitudes of life are always unpredictable and changing. In this regard, it was on a Friday afternoon that I got a call from her husband, Gary, who told us that Trisha was in the hospital, that she had suffered an aneurysm the night before, and according to the doctors, the prognosis was that she could be dead before morning, that she may survive as a total vegetable or at best, she may survive as a partial vegetable. She was twenty-nine years old and I thought to myself how could such a young person experience such a massive aneurysm at her age? Fortunately, my wife, Lorean, had her own real estate company and plane to Boston to be with Trisha. After arriving at the hospital in Boston and conferring with the doctors, she telephoned me and said that the doctors had suggested that the best option was brain surgery to relieve the source of the hemorrhaging. Neither my wife nor I was comfortable with that recommendation. It may have been ignorance on our part, but we did not understand the state of the art of brain surgery at that time. So we vetoed surgery on her brain. The doctors then suggested that they could give her medication that might help,

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but they were not sure whether or not it would be effective. We hesitantly assured him that we would live with that risk. The doctors further told us, that if she recovered, she probably would never be able to have children. Divine Intervention Before she left for Boston, my wife had given me a deposit to make at that the bank to cover the payroll which she had already written to her employees. Unfortunately, it was too late for me to get to the bank before it closed. God always has a ram in the bush, so it was no accident that one of my graduates was branch manager of the bank where my wife banked. So I called her and told her of my dilemma hold a teller in place to take my deposit when I got there. When I got to the bank, she unlocked the door and let me in and I made my deposit and as I was going out the door, she asked me what the problem was. I told her of my daughter’s situation. You will not believe her response to me. She said, “I knew God was trying to tell me something. When I was on my way from the managers’ meeting downtown, a sudden light shone over my car and I almost lost control. I now know that it was God trying to tell me something.” She had never seen my daughter Trisha, thus she did not know her. But she looked me in the eye and said, “Trisha is going to be all right.” She then went back to her desk, pulled out her Bible and gave me a Scripture to read and she counseled me that I should insert Trisha’s name in every space where the biblical name appeared. She then re-assured me that Trisha was going to be all right. Both she and I had tears in our eyes but mine were more profuse, because I did

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not know how she knew that my daughter was going to be all right and she had never met her. But the serene look on her face and the was at work in this situation.

she had told me to do, there came a knock on the door. When I opened the door, it was my pastor, the Reverend Cornelius Henderson, pastor of Ben Hill United Methodist Church. Although he had a high regard for me, Rev. Henderson had never been to my house before. So I asked him, “What brings you to my house?” His response was, “I don’t know, but I drove out of my garage into the street and turned in the direction of your house without knowing that that’s where I was going. When I got to your house, I turned in the driveway and so here I am.” He asked me, “What is going on in your household, Ed?” I told him of my daughter’s situation, but he had never met her. She had gone to school at MIT which is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and had with the rest of the family. I then told him about my daughter’s situation. He then asked me if I had a current picture of Trisha. When I told him that I did, he suggested that I go get it. When I presented it to him, he put the picture in the palm of his hand with his hands extended in front of his chest. Next, he then told me to stand in front of him and take hold of his hands, which I did. As he looked crying and he said, “Trisha is going to be all right.” I told him what the banker had said, and he said, “I agree with her.” He then said goodbye and left my house. –––––––––––––––––

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You can imagine how my head was swimming, given the prophesy of those two people whom I respected, but did not understand going to be okay. Not only did they make the same prophecy, but they made them within thirty minutes of each other, without either knowing what the other had prophesied. One thing that makes Trisha’s story so compelling is that Trisha had been on the job for only thirty days when she experienced the aneurysm. When IBM learned of her illness, IBM not only continued to pay her salary, but also sent her full check to her by mail for a full year while she was recovering, because it took that long for her to recover. To give you an idea of how far Trisha had to come in her recovery, for example, Trisha could hear a two-sentence statement and she walk, and to write. She had to regain her cognitive skills. She could not add 2+2. A year later, when she was able to go back to work, and she did go back to work, IBM would not allow her to work on the high pressure sales job on which she had worked initially. Given that is the job she had trained for and wanted, she opted to leave IBM after one year following her recovery. We Serve an Awesome God The story doesn’t end there. One year following her recovery, Trisha was visiting her family in Atlanta and we were downtown walking in the food court in the CNN Center and we bumped into the banker who had predicted that Trisha was going to be all right. This was Trisha about her encounter with me when I had come to her bank to

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make a deposit, following the news that Trisha was near death. The banker had another lady with her and this lady spoke up and said, “When I heard about Trisha, I, too, prayed for her and I knew she was going to be all right.” As you would guess, this blew my mind, even beyond the point at which it had been blown by the previous events surrounding Trisha’s situation. Here were two strangers to Trisha who had prayed for her recovery without ever having seen her. It does not end there.

undergraduate and plans to be a doctor. So the medicine that the doctors gave her during her recovery apparently worked and those two beautiful girls are evidence that the doctors were off base when they predicted that she would never be able to have children, even if by some miracle she survived. The upshot of this situation is that operate on her brain,’ turned out to be a good decision. Obviously, the grace of God controlled Trisha’s fate and answered her parents’ prayers. How could anyone predict that when Trisha had a near death-experience, all three strangers, would predict correctly that she

Trisha, Gary and their two daughters, Stephanie and Renee, are living a normal life, following Trisha’s near death-experience and we, her parents, are forever thankful to God and couldn’t be happier.

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Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

- Will Rogers

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18 The Reluctant Banking Commissioner Predictably, small town boy that I was, I was excited when I opened the letter from the Mayor of the District of Columbia inviting me Columbia. What is not commonly known throughout the U.S. is that the District of Columbia has a number of state functions that it administers, the latest of which was the creation of a Bank Regulatory Agency. It was this agency for which I was being recruited to letter, my excitement quickly diminished. It was my assessment that under the legislation, as it was currently crafted, no one, no matter how skilled in the art of banking and the nuance of politics, could do this job. So, I drafted a letter to the mayor giving him my assessment of the legislation and declining his offer, unless this legislation could be changed to eliminate the ambiguity between the oversight committee of the City Council and the Commissioner.

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sioner for the District of Columbia. What is not widely known is that the District of Columbia is a municipality that has a number of powers that are typically administered by states. The Banking and Financial Institutions Regulatory Agency was the most recent of those powers to be administered by the District of Columbia. In spite of rience, both in the banking industry and in the political arena, led me to conclude that I could only fail if I accepted this position. I then went back to my knitting as the Mills B. Lane Professor, secure in the belief that the mayor would throw my letter into the wastebasket after he had read it. I assumed his reaction would be, “Who does he think he is, having the nerve to tell the Mayor of the District of Columbia, how to run his operation?” I already had a prestigious position with a premium professorial salary, supplemented by board fees, limited consulting income, and a cultural environment which afforded me considerable autonomy, so I really didn’t need another job, particularly one at which I was likely to fail. But to my surprise, thirty days after I had written my letter to the mayor, I received a letter from him, saying that he and the Council had agreed to do everything in their power to modify the Legislation as I had suggested and for the second time, he offered me the position of Commissioner of Banking for the District of Columbia. It became apparent that “in their power,” was a hedge phrase which, of course, meant they may or may not modify the legislation. None-

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District of Columbia was stronger than the negativity of the hedge. You guessed it, I decided to accept the offer with the full knowledge that I might not be able to carry out the mission of the legislation. However, as a tenured professor, I also had a hedge. If it didn’t work, I could always return to the university. The position was a four year statutory appointment. I would have four years of job security. Even if I were highly successful in carrying out the mission of the legislation, my plans were to return to the university, as is common in university circles. So I accepted the offer.

knew each of three Federal Bank Regulators, i.e., Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; Bill Seidman, director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC], that insured all banks, both National and State Chartered; and Bob Clarke, the Comptroller of the Currency, that was the overseer of all national banks. To round out my support group among the regulators, I called on Bob Clarke, the Comptroller of Currency, the regulator of national regulated The National Banks of the country, I was certain that he could be of help to me because the problems that he faced in managing the National Banks would be the same as those I would face in managing the banks of the District of Columbia. Just as the other two regulators did, Bob assured me that anything I needed of him, all I had to do was pick up the phone and call and he

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would see that it was done. While I had no prior dealings with Bob Clarke, I had worked with two of his predecessors, Jim Saxon and Jim Smith. Jim Saxon was Comptroller of the Currency when we opened Riverside National Bank in Houston, Texas, in 1964. It was unusual for Jim Saxon to attend the opening ceremony of Riverside National Bank because there were so many new banks opening in the country at that time. However, the fact that Riverside National prior forty years, he decided to participate in the opening of this bank. He was keynote speaker at the opening and dedication of the bank. Similarly, Jim Smith, the Comptroller in the 1970s, asked me to do an in-depth analysis of minority banks of the nation, most of which were state banks. And I did that. So the senior personnel at the Oftionship with these two predecessors of Bob Clarke paved the way for me to develop a smooth relationship with him. After assembling my staff and putting my bank rules in place, the next major step was to begin developing a relationship with the institutions of the District of Columbia to an informal reception at each other in an informal setting, which paved the way for our of-

In addition to the normal bank regulations, the City Council had enacted regulations that required the banks to lend money for

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housing and small businesses without discrimination. In addition to this regulation, the Council had enacted regulations that permitted banks from without the District of Columbia to be chartered in the District. Because the District was an attractive banking market, the major banks from across the country were interested in establishing branches within the District. These two issues became the basis of contention between the chairman of the oversight committee and the Commissioner. I could have taken a laissez-faire approach to these issues, which would’ve guaranteed that the banks would ignore these regulations. These were the primary reasons for which I objected to the ambiguity between the oversight committee of the Council and the Commissioner when I received the original offer. It was not my nature to be charged with a responsibility and make no attempt to carry out that responsibility. Even if I failed, I did not believe that such a failure would seriously damage the reputation I had acquired in my career up to this point. Therefore, fully aware of the risk inherent in this approach, I decided to attempt to carry out these two regulations. Local banks were strongly opposed to admitting the major banks from across the country into the District. The chairman of the oversight committee of the Council routinely overrode the recommendation of the Commissioner who supported allowing the major banks to set up branches in the District. The major banks were frustrated by the machinations they had to endure. As a result, most of them withdrew their applications to establish branches in the D.C. market. Therefore, no major banks could enter the District under these regulations. This action by the Council Chair was precisely the

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Thus, one of the key attractions that this position afforded had been

Another key attraction was the monitoring of the lending practices by these banks as prescribed by the D.C. Regulations. As I tried to Institutions conducted a two-year study of the lending practices of these banks in the area of housing. The purpose of this two-year nancing housing in the underserved areas of the District Columbia. This analysis revealed the district banks had made $955-million in housing during this period. Of this amount, only 6-percent had been allocated to the underserved areas of the District of Columbia. Seventy-one-percent of these loans were made in one district, the residents of which were predominantly white. The study, thus, revealed that the banks were not abiding by the regulations of the District of Columbia. When the results of this study hit the press, the banks vigorously objected to its conclusion. All the data from which this study was velopment, where all mortgages that are executed in the District of Columbia are recorded. The banks, therefore, were attempting to stitutions, the Commissioner was a convenient scapegoat for having

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chairman of the oversight committee came down on the side of the banks and was rancorously critical of the Commissioner, all of which was carried in detail by the Washington Post. Given the machinations I have just described, I was certain that I the Mayor at that time, that no one could do this job, given the way the law was written; and I had given credence to that judgment during my 3-1/2 years in the position. Fortunately, as I was pondering whether or not to accept the position, I reasoned that I had a hedge in case it did not work. It is clear that it has not worked but before I would leave the position, the Mayor asked me to draft a set of

this and presented it to the Mayor, who submitted it to the Council for approval. Following that meeting, I took him to lunch and after lunch I had my driver take him to the airport. As Commissioner, I had a driver at my disposal during the day and for any function I needed to attend after business hours. He picked me up in the morning and brought me home in the evening. As I was contemplating returning to the University, I thought to myself, this was the only perk that I will miss as I leave the District for Atlanta University. I will also miss my interSeidman and Paul Volcker. After my trip to talk to the president, during which I negotiated my salary, the starting date and of the other relevant issues that would

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require the support of the president, I had the greatest of pleasure writing my resignation to the Mayor and wishing him all the best Institutions. For it was clear to me that the chairman of the City Commission Oversight Committee was going to be an adversary to of Banking and Financial Institutions of the District of Columbia. As fate would have it, however, my reputation was still intact, given the fact that the university community from which I had come to this position, was elevating me to a higher rung on the reputation ladder. My concern regarding this issue was driven by the fact that I had built much of my reputation in the District of Columbia. To wit: for International Development, U.S. Department of State; I had organized the business school at Howard University; I served as Executive Director of the National Bankers Association where I created a training program for minority bankers; I directed a $100-million Deposit Development Program for the National Bankers Association; I served as President Pro Tem of the New York Urban Coalition Venture Capital Corporation; following my departure from Howard University I was offered but rejected, the deanship of American University at a time when they had no black or other minority students. All these constituents were side line observers of the negativity I District of Columbia. It was for these reasons that I was concerned about the loss of reputation during my tenure as Commissioner of Banking for the District of Columbia.

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A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package.

- Benjamin Franklin

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19 Atlanta Beckons Again When I left Atlanta in 1986, the name of my employer was Atlanta University Graduate School of Business. The university was graduate only. When I returned after my stint as Commissioner of Banking for the District of Columbia in 1990, my employer was named Clark Atlanta University. The graduate school, Atlanta University, and the undergraduate school, Clark College had consolidated in 1988. The graduate school had developed a reputation as a Research University. The undergraduate school had a culture, primarily, of teaching faculty. The advent of the consolidation brought 800 new undergraduate students to the business school and no Ph.Ds. The graduate school was fully accredited by the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business; but the undergraduate department tion schedule during which both the graduate and the undergraduate schools had to meet accreditation standards or the graduate school would lose its accreditation. The graduate business school had been accredited since 1974. It was now 1990. The immediate challenge I faced as the new dean of the school, was

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that historically, the business school had a sterling national reputation, but was currently perceived as being in decline. There was an interim dean at the helm of the school who had occupied that position for several years. He clearly was in a ‘holding position’ with little leadership control of the faculty. The faculty, therefore, was doing what it wanted to do, often as little as possible, to the detriment of the school. The faculty appeared not to have a high degree of respect for the interim dean, all of which contributed to the downward thrust of the school. In addition, the salary schedule of the university was not competitive with salaries of business schools throughout the country. Thus, my biggest challenge would be trying to persuade professors in higher-paying disciplines, such as Finance, Accounting, Economics and Marketing, to accept a job with a relatively low salary with a promise of higher salaries down the road, with a concomitant risk of losing the accreditation of the school, at which time, all bets would be off. The upside of this scenario for the prospective faculty members was the possibility of being a faculty member of the only HBCU Business School, to be fully accredited with both graduate and undergraduate degree offerings. For those potential faculty members who had a propensity to work for HBCUs, this was a powerful incentive. For those faculty members whose loyalty was come to Clark Atlanta University School of Business.

preliminary conclusion was that with the exception of the adversarial environment with which I wrestled in my last job, this job carried a similar level of risk. The upside was that if I were successful in securing the accreditation of both the graduate and the undergraduate

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sity [HBCU] to be so accredited. The downside was that if we didn’t secure accreditation, we would lose the accreditation of our graduate school and we would not get the accreditation of the undergraduate school; so both schools would be unaccredited. Given that this would probably be my last job before retirement, a failure of this magnitude would be devastating to me as dean, to the university in general, to the business school faculty in particular and to the alumni of the school. It would be all the more devastating because it was the students, my alumni, and faculty who petitioned the university to bring me back as dean. My strategy for recruiting new faculty revolved around my ability to HBCU with both graduate and undergraduate schools accredited. The fact that I had a national reputation greatly enhanced my ability to sell our vision. Thus, most of the faculty prospects either knew me personally, professionally or had heard about me. Nonetheless, in spite of the fact that the business school was currently on somewhat of a decline, it’s national reputation was still intact. With these four factors in my ‘sales kit’, i.e., my reputation, the school’s reputation, undergraduate schools accredited and the promise of higher salaries in the predictable future, the recruitment process turned out not to be as arduous as I had originally envisioned. ous high-potential professors who had already begun to publish in their disciplines. In order to comply with the accreditation criteria,

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I needed to bring the additional eight faculty members on board begin publishing. The gods had to be on my side because I was able to meet that goal. Fortunately, the president was supportive when I had to exceed the university salary schedule. After all, he had a ‘dog

Since most of the new faculty was young and just beginning their publication process, there was no certainty that they could get their publications in the pipeline in time for the publication to become a part of our accreditation records. I emphasize that there was an ‘old boy’s network’ that controlled the academic publication industry at that time. Exacerbating that situation was the fact that there was more demand for publication space than there was publication space. I, therefore, prayed quite a bit. I have been in enough valleys to know that there are times in life when only God can rescue you. When all else fails, you pray. And pray I did. The gods must have answered my prayers because by the end of can Association of Collegiate Schools of Business invited me to become a member of their board. Thus, I would have the opportunity

process. Each board member had a vote on each candidate for accreditation which gave me the insight to the criteria on which the schools were evaluated. Given that I was the only black member of that board, I was particularly interested in how the HBCU Schools were evaluated. Predictably, there were not many such schools that

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came up for accreditation, but those that did come through, were treated equitably as all other schools.

a good feel for the evaluation process. But the process of evaluating all those schools during that period led me to believe that our application was likely to be considered marginal when it came through, because a number of the new faculty had not been successful in getting the suggested number of publications accepted by the various academic journals. When our application did come through, I obviously had to recuse myself from voting. Thus, I did not know how they evaluated our application. This was near the end of the academic year and my planned retirement was imminent. I was aware that my heart was beating somewhat faster most of the time. So, when their decision nally mustered enough nerve to open it and to my great surprise, we had been granted accreditation. You have no idea of the burden that was lifted from my shoulders when I read that letter. Our accreditaWe were safe for another ten years. With the letter in my hand, I called President Thomas Cole and told him that the business school had been fully accredited, whereupon he asked me to bring the letter to him so that he could see it. After a brief meeting with the president, he invited me to the impending board meeting so that I could share this news with the board. The board was keenly interested in the accreditation of the business

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school’ in the university, even by the board. At the meeting, I was given a standing ovation by the board members, after which I wrote my letter of retirement from the deanship. And I was considering retiring from the university. But I was pleasantly surprised that the president offered me a Distinguished Chair in Finance and Entrepreneurship. A beautiful part of this offer was that I would only have to teach two courses and I would be on full salary.

undergraduate students. The memorable part of that phase of my teaching was teaching young men and women who prepared business plans for viable businesses and to become bankers all across banks of the country. As for the Entrepreneurial Students, I would not accept business plans that were directed towards mom-and-pop businesses. Instead, they had to prepare business plans that were designed to be competitive in the main stream, within the industry of their choice. After thirty-nine years at the business school I retired and was given an engraved rocking chair by my business advisory board. They brought the chair to my retirement dinner at a downtown hotel, and placed it right in front of the dais on which I was sitting. I got up from the dais and sat in the chair for about ten seconds, during which the audience became deathly quiet. After about ten seconds I stood up and said, “This is about the amount of time I will spend in this chair.” True to my word, I keep it in my basement and every now and then I go down in the basement and sit in it. –––––––––––––––––

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When the world says “give up” hope whispers “try one more time.”

- Unknown

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20 Lazarus Wasn’t the Only One A ROUTINE HEALTH CHECK-UP

As a responsible adult, I have always practiced preventive health. An annual physical examination is my normal routine. In this regard, I and she asked me, “How would you feel about having surgery for a new heart valve?” As far as I knew, I was in good health but if I needed a new heart valve, I would take the surgery. So I told her, “If I need a new heart valve, schedule the surgery.”And she did. So surgery was scheduled for November 9, 2000, at one of the leading hospitals in Atlanta. The surgeon asked me whether I wanted a mechanical valve or a tissue valve. He explained to me that a mechanical valve was man-made and some patients say they can hear it ticking in their chest. The tissue valve would come from a pig. I clearly didn’t want to have a device in my heart that I could hear clicking 24-hours a day, but I was somewhat apprehensive about having a pig’s valve put in my heart. After the surgeon explained to me that pig valves have worked very well in his patients over the years and that there were no known side effects, with some trepidation, –––––––––––––––––

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placed in a private room after one day in the Intensive Care Ward. The Unexpected Happens On the morning of November 11th, I was scheduled to go home. However, early that morning I was discovered by a hospital orderly, pulled the tubes that were attached to my body and the machines around my bed, out of their moorings. This too set off an alarm to the monitoring station that pressed everyone into crisis mode. I was bleeding profusely and had lost consciousness.

where the nurses received the monitor alerts. They jumped into action and contacted the duty surgeon as well as the one who had done the surgery. Rather uncharacteristically, my surgeon was in the hospital at 7:00 A.M. that day. We later learned that, as a general rule, the surgeon was never in the hospital at that hour of the morning unless he had a scheduled surgery, and he was not scheduled for surgery that morning. He later remarked, “I do not know why I decided to come to the hospital at this time of morning.” The Life-and-Death Crisis the trauma and give me seven pints of blood in an effort to keep me alive. However, there was internal bleeding caused from the tubes having been pulled out of my body during the fall and, as a result, blood was gushing profusely from my side. As rapidly as they injectinternal bleeding. Thus, my heart was still beating. –––––––––––––––––

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The surgeon then went to the waiting room where my wife was waiting, and gave her a grave, disappointing update on the situation. My wife is a woman of enormous faith and she extends it to everyone she meets, so much that she has made service to others and the restoration of persons to wholeness, her life’s work as a behavioral physiologist. That morning her spirit was ripe for defying the odds. She, out of love and faith in God, was unwilling to allow sorrow to out where the bleeding was coming from and stop it. The surgeon said, in his opinion, it would take a miracle to save me, and that I would surely die if they went back into my chest. My wife repeated to him that they should go back into my body surgeon’s response was, “This man is 77-years old and he just had major surgery and he cannot survive a second surgery this soon. He will surely die.” He then suggested that my wife call our children, our minister and anyone else she felt should be there. He then said, “His chances of survival do not look good.” My wife followed his suggestion. However, the Reverend Michael McQueen, another minister at our church, Ben Hill United Methodist Church in Atlanta, was already there, and he asked the family to join hands in a circle. Amazingly, everyone else in the waiting room, both black and white, joined hands in that circle. As Rev. McQueen prayed, it was evident among those assembled that this young man had an enormously unique gift of praying—one borne out of a truly sacred ancestral connection. Old folks used to say that one with such

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a gift of calling on the Saviour had the gift of connecting with Him on “the main line.” Rev. McQueen was such a person, placed into a perfect storm where he became our guide through the storm we were passing through. It was my wife with her unwavering spirit, the children of course, along with the doctor who was placed in the right place to have his spiritual wisdom connected in accord with his medical acumen. Additionally, it was the others in the room who contributed to the prayer circle that embraced the heavenly energy that permeated the room and claimed positive results in this as well as their own loved tion. Near the end of his prayer Rev. McQueen made one statement that seemed to resonate with everybody in the room. He said, “The miracle has already happened. God has spoken, and Dr. Irons is going to be okay.” Little did we know that God had dispatched another angel to this matter also. Most of the people in the circle had tears in their eyes as they heard that prayer. As the surgeon witnessed that prayer, he said, “It would take a miracle for this man to survive a second surgery at this time.” My wife then said, “I believe in miracles, don’t you?” The surgeon then looked at her and said, “You asked me if I believe in miracles, my response is I am a scientist. If you insist, we will go back into him, but we will promise you nothing.” My wife said to him, “What do we have to lose? You said that he is dying anyway. I just do not want my last memory of him to be the gushing of blood out of his body.”

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They allowed my wife to come back to the prep room prior to the operation, and she whispered softly in my ear while I was still unconscious, and said, “Sweetheart, I am about to make the biggest decision that I have ever made, and either way it turns out, I will have no regrets. But I need you to help me.” Then she said, “If you can hear me, gently squeeze my hand.”

he had no other choice but to go into my chest and try to stop that bleeding. Two hours later, the surgeon came back to the waiting room and announced, “We have done the surgery but he died for 10 minutes while he was on the table. Normally, if a patient dies on the table, we stop massaging his heart after three minutes. But my assistant continued to massage his heart for ten minutes, and slowly it began to resume beating. He is now breathing on his own without an oxygen tank and he therefore is alive. I caution you, however, that we do not know what impact from the lack of blood to his brain during those ten minutes while he was dead, will have on him. He may be paralyzed. We just don’t know.” My wife then said, “That’s alright. I’ll push him in a wheelchair if I have to. I just want him alive.” The surgeon then added, “I now believe in miracles.” I, obviously, do not remember any of this; however, while I was still on the operating table, I hazily remember hearing a female voice, which was a nurse saying, “Can somebody pray? This man seems to be such a nice person.” I was still on the operating table. I don’t know how she could conclude that I was a nice person. God must

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have been speaking to her. I think that Rev. McQueen was either

Following surgery, I was sent to Intensive Care where I remained for a couple of days, after which I was placed in another private room. Rev. McQueen’s spiritual growth is elevated not by just his seminary training in all disciplines but also by his gift of prayer, faith and healing. He is such a marvelous person that he considers intercessory prayer a true sign of obedience and true honor. He was mentored by the late Reverend Dr. Cornelius Henderson, his senior pastor and a marvelous theologian and human being. Dr. Henderson became a Bishop in the United Methodist Church and has the Student Center named for him at Clark Atlanta University. Bishop Henderson has gone on to glory but his legacy in ministry is one at which to marvel. He was an impressive Christian servant-leader, pastor, activist, mentor, teacher and family man. He became Bishop of 340,000 United Methodists of North Florida. The connection with Bishop Henderson appears twice in my family’s life, each instance being a cause that could forever change a person’s perspective on the power of the Almighty. We are very grateful witnesses to the power of prayer and worship. After my discharge, I was required by the surgeon to come back always say, “How is my miracle man?” When I got out of the hospital, Dr. Thomas W. Cole, Jr. president of Clark Atlanta University, wrote me a letter and congratulated me for having survived the ordeal through which I had come, and he told me that I would have unlimited sick leave and that I need not worry about my classes. –––––––––––––––––

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In fact, I convalesced for a year and the university paid my full salary during that period. It is now 2013. I still get my annual comprehensive physical examinations; and I have survived during this period, and as far as I know, I am in good health. Unlike Lazarus, I did not have two dedicated sisters [Mary and Martha] to fend for me as Lazarus did, but I had a God-fearing wife that refused to give up on me, even when the surgeon was apprehensive that I could survive a second major surgery within two days. I don’t need to raise the role of the Grace of God in this scenario. By now it must be self-evident to all who have read this that only by grace was I able to survive this valley experience. I am grateful for every opportunity I have had to achieve, but more importantly, to serve, to inspire and equip business persons to take their rightful place as prepared professionals in the global marketplace.

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It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.

- Benjamin Elijah Mays

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epilogue Throughout my professional career, from the time I entered the workforce to the time I retired, I held fourteen jobs—none of which I sought after. I didn’t go looking for these jobs; the jobs came lookthroughout my entire career. Being born during a time and into a culture where the odds were, seemingly, stacked against me, the chronicle of my life is a perpetual testimony of how God can and will sustain and propel you through adversity and opposition.

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DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH 252

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