by Dan Perkins

On Thursday, November 17, 2005, Diversity Best Practices and the Business Women's Network hosted the 2005 Diversity Leadership Awards Gala and Dinner, an event that honors distinguished leaders with CEO Diversity Leadership Awards.

The honorees are leaders of progressive businesses, government agencies, and organizations that celebrate differences and promote equal opportunity.

Diversity Best Practices was founded by Edie Frasier, President and CEO of the Public Affairs Group, Inc.  For Frasier, a strategist specializing in best practices, benchmarking, workforce and market trends, the awards are a way to promote greater acceptance of diversity across organizations.

This year, leaders were recognized for championing diversity leadership, growing diversity as a business imperative, creating truly progressive diversity initiatives in all areas of business, and providing outstanding community philanthropic activities. 

Among the honorees was Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner, Major League Baseball (MLB).  The decision to honor Selig is especially noteworthy because of his persistent declarations that Major League Baseball is a social institution with - as he puts it - "enormous social responsibility."

At the gala, Selig shared his perspective both in print and in his address. The following statement from the Commissioner was featured in the gala brochure:

I have always believed that Baseball is a social institution with enormous social responsibility.  As the Commissioner of Major League Baseball it is my job to accept that social responsibility and make sure that what we do is not only good and right for the sport but for its fans here in the United States and throughout the world.  Baseball is a game that brings people together.

Doing what's right for the sport and its fans has resulted in several remarkable initiatives that have yielded significant social outcomes.  Those outcomes include business opportunities for minority and women entrepreneurs, expanded employment and promotion prospects for minorities and women in Baseball, and enhanced opportunities for urban youth to discover and participate in the sport.

Baseball's commitment to increase procurement opportunities for minority and women entrepreneurs has greatly increased the flow of economic resources from the sport to diverse communities.  Under Commissioner Selig's guidance, Wendy Lewis has led efforts to establish and expand the Diverse Business Partners (DBP) Program, which is widely regarded as the premiere supplier diversity program in professional sports.  Lewis is vice president of strategic planning for diversity and recruitment at MLB. Since the DBP Program was formed in 1998, MLB has spent hundreds of millions of dollars with thousands of minority- and women-owned businesses.

Attending the gala were several of Baseball's most senior managers, including Jonathan Mariner, executive vice president of finance, and Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president of baseball operations.  Although Mariner and Solomon are Baseball's highest ranking African American executives, the evening's spotlight settled on another group of distinguished  African Americans in Baseball, namely, members of the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame. 

After the commissioner accepted his award, the hosts of the gala gave special recognition to several legendary Negro League players including three former members of the Washington Homestead Grays: outfielders Frank Evans and William Randall, and catcher James Tillman, Sr.  Two other Hall of Famers were also in attendance: "Bucky" Williams, a shortstop with the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and Bert Simons, a pitcher and outfielder with the Baltimore Elite Giants.

The tribute highlighted the special connection between Baseball and evolution of America as a more inclusive society.  While Selig spoke convincingly of the need to pursue what he regards as Baseball's social responsibilities, the presence of the Negro Leaguers provided a powerful reminder of why formal diversity initiatives are needed in corporate America.

Although Major League Baseball was the first professional sports franchise to open its ranks to African Americans, and eventually to players of all races and nationalities, the sport will forever be haunted by a troubling legacy of discrimination and exclusion.

Baseball evolved as a professional sport amidst the social upheavals of post-Reconstruction America, a period marked by profound racial violence and segregation.  African Americans were banned from the Major Leagues and forced to compete in a league of their own - the Negro Leagues.

One gala attendee privately wondered whether the history and struggles of the Negro Leaguers would be remembered in another twenty years.  It was a provocative, but important question.  As the number of men and women who once played in the Negro Leagues steadily declines, the risk increases that knowledge of their historic accomplishments and struggles will also fade away.

Remembrance requires education, and one educator committed to diversity and remembering is Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, president of Bennett College for Women and founder of the Johnnetta B. Cole Global Diversity and Inclusion Institute. Cole was one of two women to receive the CEO Diversity Leadership Award this year - and the first recipient of the event's Academic Award. 

Cole is a dynamic leader who has achieved many notable firsts.  In 1987, she became the first African American woman to serve as president of Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.  In May 2004, she became the first African American to serve as chair of the board of United Way of America.

As president of Bennett College, one of only two historically Black Colleges for women, Cole oversees a faculty that is diligently preparing young Black women to live lives noted for excellence and contributions to society.

In her acceptance speech, Cole referenced several Black "sheros" in the struggle for equality.  She also said it was not enough to talk about diversity and inclusion.  She said society must also talk about discrimination and exclusion.  According to Cole, such frank discussions are needed to dismantle the constructs of privilege.

The other female honoree of the evening was Linda Lingle, Hawaii's sixth elected governor, who was the recipient of the Government Award.  Lingle is the first female and the first Jewish person to serve as Hawaii's governor.   

During her presentation, Lingle described Hawaii as the most diverse state in the United States. She presented a cozy image of diverse peoples comfortably co-existing on the eight major islands that make up America's fiftieth state.  But for those familiar with the state's history, the presentation was unsettling in its failure to acknowledge the tragic disenfranchisement of Hawaii's indigenous people, or the persistent economic and social disparities that have arisen in the wake of that disenfranchisement.

To Cole's point, the glaring exclusion of Hawaii's dark past underscored the need to acknowledge the link between past discrimination and privilege and present day disparities among diverse peoples living in America. 

For the governor to show a presentation of Hawaii’s diversity without mentioning the fact that the last woman to govern Hawaii was an indigenous woman of color, Queen Lili’uokalani, who succeeded her kingdom at gunpoint, or the fact that many of the diverse people who came to Hawaii came in support of the sugar and pineapple industries that ultimately undermined the independence of the indigenous population is as inexcusable as it would be for Baseball to celebrate its current diversity, both on an off the field, without mentioning Jackie Robinson, or the fact that Baseball grew up with two leagues separated not by ability, but by race.

While the video presentation might have required tweaking, there is no question as to the importance of the work Governor Lingle is doing for the people of Hawaii.  Her administration is credited with launching initiatives to expand long-term healthcare, provide more affordable housing, extend medical coverage to more children and pregnant women, protect at-risk youth and fulfill the state's obligations to Native Hawaiians.

While most of the presentations and acceptance speeches focused on issues of workforce diversity, Richard Kovacevich, chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company, addressed the issue of supplier diversity head on.  Kovacevich told the gala audience that his company has committed to a supplier diversity goal of $1 billion in spending by 2010. 

If Wells Fargo achieves its goal, it will join the Billion Dollar Roundtable, an exclusive club made up of U.S. companies that annually spend in excess of $1 billion with diverse businesses.

While large monetary procurement goals are noteworthy, many social activists are eager to examine how such large monetary commitments are allocated across the spectrum of diverse communities.

Leading supplier diversity advocates believe that the remedy to the multi-generational effects of racial discrimination and privilege requires broad pursuit of a combination of diversity and developmental initiatives, such as those being advanced by Major League Baseball.

The organizers of the 2005 Diversity Leadership Awards Gala understand that their event, which not only celebrates the diversity best practices of progressive organizations, but shares them so that others can learn and adopt them, is a specific but important step towards achieving a lasting remedy to the ills of the past.

No one, during the evening, connected the dots more succinctly or eloquently than the third woman honored during the gala, Dr. Dorothy Height, a passionate Civil Rights champion and former president of the National Council of Negro Women - a post she held from 1957 to 1998.  Height told the audience that as more people and organizations pursue the best practices of diversity and inclusion, America will eventually achieve "not only law and order, but equality and justice."

The End

Note: From 1998 to 2003, Dan Perkins was a consultant to MLB regarding the DBP Program.