As the NAACP celebrates its 100^th anniversary this week, African Americans must ask:  How relevant are civil rights organizations today?

Undoubtedly, civil rights organizations were instrumental in gaining major victories for blacks during the 20^th century.  From their nationwide protest of D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” to their attention aimed at the lynching of African Americans, to their apex which included the passing of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the mid 1960s, civil rights organizations should always be remembered for their amazing accomplishments.  Supporters of these organizations willingly put their lives on the line in order to see equality manifest.

However, as African Americans today, the questions that must be raised are:  What are the issues? and Would African Americans be better served by utilizing a different approach to the issues?

With that said, let’s look at some of the major inequalities that exist:

1-      African American businesses only account for four-tenths of 1% of this country’s total business revenues (note:  this is important because 3 out of 4 (or 75%) of new jobs here in the United States are created by small businesses).

2-      The unemployment rate for African Americans is twice as high as the national unemployment rate (note:  unemployment rates for males between the ages of 22 – 29 are as high as 50% and 72%; or in other words, significant portions of the black community live in conditions that are two and nearly three times worse than the conditions of the Great Depression).

3-      The biggest divide between blacks and whites is economic status, nearly 20% worse than any other category

4-      In inner cities, finishing high school is the exception—half of all black men do not finish high school.  Legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine as incarceration rates for blacks have increased despite an overall decline in urban crime.

5-      The median net worth—including home values—for blacks is ten times less than for whites ($6,100 vs. $67,000)

6-      In 1999, nearly one in four African Americans lived in poverty.  Studies have found an association between higher AIDS incidence and lower income.  The socioeconomic problems associated with poverty, including limited access to high-quality healthcare and HIV prevention education, directly or indirectly increase HIV risk.

Now that we have listed some of the issues, do you believe that civil rights organizations are capable of dealing with such intractable problems?  Personally, I don’t believe so and let me explain.

First of all, organizations or companies that are looking to provide solutions to our communities’ issues MUST revolve around youth and economics.  When one thinks of civil rights organizations, images of the Bull Connor days emerge with dogs biting African Americans and firemen using water hoses to quell protests.  This is called positioning and, unfortunately, this is the position that civil rights organizations have in the minds of people, especially our youth.  Civil rights organizations cannot have a mass appeal to our young people because they believe these organizations are not focused on their issues and that they are a thing of the past.  (Think about it…how many of our young people even know what the letters N-A-A-C-P stand for?)  This sounds unfair to civil rights organizations but that’s their position and it will be nearly impossible for young African Americans to rally around whatever solutions they may offer.

Secondly, to deal with the inequality in the marketplace and provide economic empowerment to African Americans, every tactic will have to be considered and if necessary used.  This includes such things as boycotts and transparency.  Transparency asks corporations tough questions such as:  How many African Americans are in the overall company?  How many African Americans are in management?  How much of the company’s advertising dollar is going towards African-American owned media outlets?  And, if the answers from corporations that rely on the one trillion dollar buying power of African Americans are not sufficient, then boycotting must seriously be considered.    

Civil rights organizations will not be able to fulfill these very important mandates.  The reason being is that many times civil rights organizations get their funding from the very corporations that should be scrutinized. 

Now, to further prove my point, it’s important to highlight The Madison Avenue Project done by the NAACP, Mehri & Skalet.  This study, which was launched in January of 2009, took a look at the inequality in the advertising industry and found the following disparities:

• Black college graduates working in advertising earn $.80 for every dollar earned by their equally-qualified White counterparts.
  
  
• Based on national demographic data, 9.6 percent of advertising managers and professionals should be African-Americans.  The actual percentage in 2008 is 5.3 percent, representing a difference of 7,200 executive-level jobs.
  
  
• About 16 percent of large advertising firms employ NO black managers or professionals, a rate 60 percent higher than in the overall labor market.
  
  
• Black managers and professionals in the industry are only one-tenth as likely as their White counterparts to earn $100,000 a year.
  
  
• Blacks are only 62 percent as likely as their white counterparts to work in the powerful “creative” and “client contact” functions in advertising agencies.
  
  
• Eliminating the industry’s current black-white employment gap would require tripling its Black managers and professionals.
  
  
• At today’s rate of progress, Black numbers among advertising managers and professionals will not reach their expected level for another 71 years.

Wouldn’t it be best to use this study to get a solution formulized and tell people from our communities about these great disparities?  I consider myself to be one that’s well informed regarding the advertising business, and I did not even hear about this study until recently.  Let’s face it:  Non-profit organizations, like African-American civil rights organizations, rely too much on the funding from the very corporations they should be policing.  This is why—I believe—those who will provide solutions to economic inequality will have to be self-sustaining, for-profit ventures.  Furthermore, if tactics such as transparency and boycotts are used, I don’t believe it would take 71 years for equality to take place within advertising firms.

In closing, I am often asked:  How is your for-profit company (FAMDO, Inc.) going to empower African Americans?  Well, I would like to inform everyone that other than the comprehensive plan FAMDO has to give money back to equip effective non-profit organizations for success, FAMDO will further be a part of whatever transparency issues and boycotts that may be needed to hold corporations accountable.  This includes advertising firms.

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