DiversityInc
MEETING IN A BOX
Black History Month
For All Employees
T
his year, in light of the continuing racial strife after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric
Garner, Black History Month is particularly important. Understanding how to handle racial
issues in the workplace is critical for all your managers. We are giving you extra content
to help you create more meaningful dialogue within your workplace, as well as Facts & Figures
demonstrating the importance of Blacks in the United States and a historic Timeline.
This information should be distributed to your entire workforce and also should be used by your
Black employee resource group and your diversity council all year round.
© 2014 DiversityInc
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DiversityInc
MEETING IN A BOX
Black History Month
For All Employees
1 HISTORIC TIMELINE
We recommend you start your employees’ cultural-competence lesson by using this historic Timeline. The unique history of Blacks in
the United States is the clearest indication of evolving human-rights values and represents a moral and economic battle that split this
nation. The remarkable progress of African-Americans is a testament to the power of democracy, culminating in the nation’s first Black
President, Barack Obama. The timeline shown here illustrates significant dates in U.S. Black history and major historic figures.
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Discussion Questions for Employees
 Black History Month started in 1926. Is it still relevant to have a month-long celebration?
Your guided discussion should focus on the many contributions Blacks have made to U.S. history (see http://www.history.com/
topics/black-history-month) and the continued debate about whether one month is sufficient. Beverly Robinson, President of the
National Civil Rights Museum, notes: “Instead of Black history being recognized one month out of the year, it’s something that needs
to be recognized throughout the year. And I think [Black history museums] are particularly significant because you must remember
that so much African-American history, so much history about the civil-rights movement and the accomplishments of AfricanAmericans, are not studied in our schools.”
 Why are “firsts” important to note? What other barrier breakers have you witnessed in your lifetime?
This is a personal discussion designed to help the employee note other barrier breakers historically (cite Barack Obama and Black
CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, available at http://www.diversityinc.com/fortune-500-ceos/). This discussion can be further
explored after the Facts & Figures section below is discussed.
 How does understanding the past help us deal with the present?
Why is it important to study history, particularly painful history? Does understanding what previous generations went through help us
see their perspectives today?
© 2015 DiversityInc
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DiversityInc
MEETING IN A BOX
Black History Month
For All Employees
2 FACTS & FIGURES
Review available data and understand areas where Blacks are making significant progress in the United States and where major
opportunities remain.
The data we have chosen to present here represents information of relevance to corporate America, such as education (available
labor pool), buying power (emerging consumer markets) and progress in gaining executive and management positions. Where
applicable, national data are compared with DiversityInc Top 50 data to show what progress the leading companies are making.
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Discussion Questions for Employees
 What does it take to move into the senior-executive pipeline at your company? Do you think it’s important for younger managers
to have role models who look like them?
Discuss the role of resource groups and cross-cultural mentoring in developing and retaining talent, and what employees see as the
best ways to increase the pipeline.
 The Black community represents an increasing share of the consumer marketplace. Whether your company is B-to-B or B-to-C,
what efforts are you undertaking to reach Black consumers or clients?
Discuss how critical it is to have client/customer-facing staff members who mirror the communities. How active are your resource
groups in community, marketplace and client outreach?
© 2015 DiversityInc
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DiversityInc
MEETING IN A BOX
Black History Month
For All Employees
3 RACIAL DISCUSSIONS IN THE OFFICE
After the recent issues over the murders of young Black men and the ensuing community protests, helping your managers and staff
handle racial discussions in the office is particularly important. Start by making sure your employees are familiar with our Things NOT
to Say to Blacks.
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Discussion Questions for Employees
 Are you acknowledging or ignoring racial tensions?
As After Ferguson, How Do You Handle Racial Tension in the Workplace demonstrates, it’s important to discuss, respectfully, why
people feel the way they do without rancor. Understanding each other’s perspectives leads to healthier working environments.
 How Are Your Employee Resource Groups Involved?
Use the initiatives of resource groups and diversity councils cited in Frank Office Talk About Race—How ERGs Can Help to set up
focused discussions and educate your workforce. These groups are conduits to the general employee population.
 Are Senior Executives Leading the Discussion?
As Diversity Management in Ferguson: What Didn’t Happen, What Needs to Happen Now illustrates, knowing the demographics of
your area and your company—and having your senior leaders at the forefront of addressing gaps and challenges as well as racial
tensions—helps employees understand their leadership commitment and appreciate their inclusive workplace.
NEXT
MONTH
© 2015 DiversityInc
Women’s History Month for all employees and Talent Development for D&I staff, executive
leadership council, HR leaders and business partners, employee-resource-group leaders,
mentors/mentees and sponsors/protégés.
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DiversityInc
MEETING IN A BOX
Black History Month
For All Employees
Timeline
1868
Fourteenth Amendment is ratified,
allowing Blacks to become citizens
1870
Fifteenth Amendment is ratified,
guaranteeing that right to vote cannot
be denied because of race, color or
previous condition of servitude
making it a federal crime to assist a
slave trying to escape
1870
Hiram Revels becomes first Black
member of Congress
1808
Congress bans importation of slaves
1896
1820
Missouri Compromise bans slavery
above the southern border of the state
U.S. Supreme Court rules in Plessy v.
Ferguson that segregation doesn’t
violate the 14th Amendment’s equalprotection clause as long as conditions
provided are “separate but equal”
1831
Nat Turner leads largest slave
rebellion prior to Civil War
1900
William H. Carney becomes first Black
to be awarded Medal of Honor
1619
Dutch ship brings 20 Africans to
Jamestown, Va., the first enslaved
Africans in the U.S.
1793 Eli Whitney’s new cotton gin increases
demand for slaves
1793 Congress passes Fugitive Slave Act,
1793
1849
Harriet Tubman escapes to
Philadelphia and subsequently
helps about 300 enslaved people to
freedom via the Underground Railroad
1909 NAACP is founded
1926
Carter G. Woodson establishes
“Negro History Week”
1857In Dred Scott v. Sanford, U.S. Supreme
Court declares that Blacks are not
citizens of the U.S. and that Congress
cannot prohibit slavery
1940 Hattie McDaniel becomes first Black
to win an Academy Award
1947
1859
John Brown leads raid of U.S. Armory
and Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, W.Va.
Jackie Robinson becomes first Black
to play Major League Baseball
1950 Ralph J. Bunche becomes first Black
to win the Nobel Peace Prize
1861 South secedes from Union and
Civil War begins
1849
1953
1863 President Lincoln issues the
Emancipation Proclamation, declaring
“all persons held as slaves within any
State or designated part of a State,
the people whereof shall then be in
rebellion against the United States,
shall be then, thenceforward, and
forever free”
1954In Brown v. the Board of Education of
Topeka, U.S. Supreme Court rules that
racial segregation in public schools
violates the 14th Amendment
1955
1865
Civil War ends
1865 Thirteenth Amendment is ratified,
1950
© 2015 DiversityInc
prohibiting slavery
Willie Thrower becomes first Black
to play quarterback in the National
Football League
Two white men who confessed to
murdering a 14-year-old Black boy,
Emmett Till, for allegedly whistling at
a white woman are acquitted by an
all-white jury
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1955
Black History Month
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her
seat on a bus to a white man in
Montgomery, Ala., leading to the
Montgomery Bus Boycott
1967In Loving v. Virginia ruling, Supreme
1957
Little Rock Nine integrate Little Rock
Central High School in Arkansas
1968
1960
Four Black students stage famous sitin at a whites-only Woolworth’s lunch
counter in Greensboro, N.C.
For All Employees
Court declares law prohibiting
interracial marriages to be
unconstitutional
Dr. King is assassinated
1968 President Johnson signs Civil
1961
Freedom rides begin from Washington,
D.C.
1962
James Meredith becomes first Black
student to enroll at the University
of Mississippi. Violence prompts
President Kennedy to send in 5,000
federal troops
1963
More than 200,000 people march on
Washington, D.C., in the largest civilrights demonstration in U.S. history;
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gives his
“I Have a Dream” speech
Rights Act of 1968, which prohibits
discrimination in the sale, rental and
financing of housing
1972
Shirley Chisholm becomes first
major-party Black candidate to run for
president
1983
Vanessa Williams becomes first Black
Miss America
1984
Reverend Jesse Jackson becomes
first Black to make serious bid for
presidency
1986
First observation of Dr. King’s birthday
as a national holiday
1963
1965
1990 Douglas Wilder of Virginia becomes
1963
Four young Black girls are killed in the
bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church
1964
President Johnson signs Civil Rights
Act of 1964, giving the government
more power to protect citizens against
race, religion, sex or national-origin
discrimination
first Black to be elected governor
1991 President George H.W. Bush signs Civil
1965
1965
Malcolm X, former minister in the
Nation of Islam and civil-rights activist,
is assassinated
Thousands participate in three protest
marches from Selma to Montgomery,
Ala., for Black voting rights
1965
President Johnson signs Voting Rights
Act of 1965
1967
Thurgood Marshall becomes first Black
U.S. Supreme Court justice
© 2015 DiversityInc
Rights Act of 1991, which strengthens
laws on employment discrimination
1993
Dr. Joycelyn Elders becomes first Black
Surgeon General
2001 General Colin Powell becomes first
1993
Black Secretary of State
2009
Barack Obama becomes first Black
president
2014
Hundreds gather in various protests
across the country after grand juries
decline to indict Michael Brown’s and
Eric Garner’s killers
2014
PAGE 6
Black History Month
DiversityInc
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Facts & Figures
For All Employees
FINANCES
Median Income
$100,000
DEMOGRAPHICS
$72,472
$80,000
$57,684
$60,000
Black U.S. Population
$41,508
$34,815
$40,000
$36,641
$20,000
41.6 million
0
Asians
Blacks in Management
9.3%
Asians
40%
2.9%
32.1%
30%
Blacks on Boards of Directors
31.5%
29.2%
23.4%
20%
21.3%
10%
0
10.9%
Blacks
7.4%
Latinos
Asians
American Indians Total Population
10 States With Most Black Buying Power
Fortune 500 CEOs (1% Black)
Kenneth C. Frazier, Merck & Co.
Roger Ferguson, TIAA-CREF
Kenneth I. Chenault, American Express
Don Thompson*, McDonald’s
Ursula M. Burns, Xerox
*Will retire March 1
Washington
Oregon
DiversityInc Top 50 CEOs (6% Black)
Nevada
California
New York
Texas
California
Georgia
Montana
Florida
IdahoMaryland
Wyoming
North Carolina
Illinois
Virginia
Utah
Colorado
New Jersey
$103.8 billion
$99.1 billion
$80.5 billion
Minnesota
North Dakotabillion
$78.6
$78.5 billion
Wisconsin
$66.9
South Dakotabillion
$52.5 billion
Iowa
$48.1
billion
Nebraska
Illinois
$47.5 billion
$41.9Kansas
billion Missouri
New Hampshire
Vermont
New York
Michigan
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Indiana
West
Virginia
Kentucky
Arizona
Oklahoma
New Mexico
Texas
© 2015 DiversityInc
Kenneth C. Frazier,
Merck & Co.
(No. 14)
Louisiana
Alabama
Massachusetts
Rhode
Island
Connecticut
New Jersey
Delaware
Virginia
Maryland
South
Carolina
Arkansas
Mississippi
Maine
North Carolina
Tennessee
Bernard Tyson,
Kaiser Permanente
(No. 4)
$15.7 T
$12.9 T
American Indians Total Population
50%
6.8%
DiversityInc Top 50
Fortune 500 Latinos
Projected Percent Change in Buying Power (2014–2019)
Blacks in Senior Management
DiversityInc Top 50
U.S. Blacks
6.4%
2014
2019
$100.1 B
$129.4 B
2014
2019
$500 billion
DiversityInc Top 50
U.S. American Indians
2014
2019
$1.0 T
$769.5 B
$1.7 T
2014
2019
$1 trillion
BUSINESS
Latinos
Buying Power
$500 trillion
$1.3 T
2060
Whites
$1.4 T
2013
(14.7% of total population)
*projected
$1.1 T
61.8 million*
Blacks
2014
2019
(13.2% of total population)
Georgia
Florida
Roger Ferguson,
TIAA-CREF
(No. 36)
PAGE 7
Black History Month
DiversityInc
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For All Employees
EDUCATION
2003 2013
Age 25 and Up With at Least a High-School Diploma
50%
40%
88.2%
84.6%
89.4%
82.2%
77.2%
90.2%
87.8%
57.0%
60%
66.2%
70%
85.9%
80%
80.3%
90%
92.9%
100%
30%
20%
10%
Blacks
Latinos
Asian-Americans
American
Indians
Whites
Total
Population
2003 2013
Age 25 and Up With at Least a Bachelor’s Degree
100%
90%
80%
70%
Blacks
Asian-Americans
American
Indians
Whites
31.7%
35.2%
30.0%
12.6%
15.1%
Latinos
27.2%
10%
17.4%
20%
22.0%
30%
11.4%
40%
15.4%
50.0%
50%
53.9%
60%
Total
Population
HEALTH DISPARITIES
Life Expectancy
74.7
years
Blacks
81.4
years
Latinos
78.8
years
Whites
78.7
years
Total Population
Sources: Alliance for Board Diversity, Centers for Disease Control, DiversityInc, Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, Fortune, National Center for Education Statistics, Selig Center for Economic Growth, U.S. Census
Bureau’s 2013 American Community Survey
© 2015 DiversityInc
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