Client:
Milton Irvin, Managing Director, UBS Securities
Project:
Speech to a professional organization, November 2004, “What Can Whitney M. Young Jr. Teach Businesses in the 21st Century?”
My Role:
Eleven years after I wrote his powerful speech to the National Black MBA Association, Mr. Irvin tracked me down and asked me to write for him again. He was speaking at the 31st anniversary of a conference he had helped to organize when he was a student at Wharton Business School in the 1970s. The conference was named after civil rights leader Whitney M. Young, Jr. – who was quite a speaker himself. I found a speech Mr. Young had given to the American Institute of Architects in 1968 and was so impressed with it that I used it as the backbone of this speech. (If you’d like to read Mr. Young’s speech, email me and I’ll send you a copy.) Here are three excerpts from the speech I wrote.

First Excerpt

I am very pleased to be here this afternoon. And I’m incredibly gratified to see the Conference is still going strong, into its fourth decade.

Fourth decade? That’s hard to imagine. I helped to start this conference back in 1973 when I was a student here at Wharton. And I have to tell you – time flies. It doesn’t feel like I’m into my “fourth decade” after Wharton, my “fourth decade” in the world of business.

However, on some days, it feels like my fortieth decade. Those are the days I think, “Didn’t we fight this battle 20 years ago? Why am I the only person of color in a meeting – why is that still going on? Or why am I playing golf with the only African American member of the club?” The more things change, the more they remain the same. Of course, at least in 2004, we’re on the golf course. Thirty years ago, we wouldn’t have been let through the door. But why are we still so scarce wherever businesspeople congregate? Why do we still have such limited access to the halls of power?....
> Second Excerpt > The Conclusion of the Speech > Next Speech
       

ELAINE BENNETT
Bennett Ink LLC

Box 213 Maplewood, NJ 07040
Phone: 973.763.1932

elaine@bennettink.com