The Inside View
BY WELDON LATHAM
Remembering the
Civil-Rights Era
A product of the civil-rights era, Weldon Latham
watched attentively on Election
Day to see history in the making
as our first Black president
was elected. As a child of the
’60s, Latham saw the trials and
tribulations of the many who
paved the way for Barack Obama
come full circle. Now, as the world
embraces the new president,
lessons from the civil-rights era
echo in the distance.
DIVERSITYINC: What was the
most impactful thing you learned
from the civil-rights era and does
it still affect your life today?
LATHAM: It affects my life every
day. I was lucky enough to grow up
in the ’60s and have parents who
never told me there was anything
I couldn’t do. Often, I would get to
a door that had been closed and it
opened as I arrived.
I could give you several things
that took place for me step-by-step
in my career that was a first. I was
never held back by thinking, “Gee,
when I get there, they won’t let me
do it.” I was always told I can do it,
and by trying hard, getting a good
education and working hard, these
doors opened.
I have nothing but the greatest
admiration, praise—you name
it—for Barack Obama. He, like me,
at the next-higher level, thought,
“Hey, there’s nothing stopping me
from being president of the United
States even though nobody else
has done it before.” And he just
did it.
DIVERSITYINC: Unfortunately,
many young Americans are
still not educated on the civil-rights era. What lessons from
that time are still applicable
to this generation?
LATHAM: (laughs) All of them!
DIVERSITYINC: How so?
LATHAM: Three presidents—John
F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson,
Richard Nixon—all played a
key role in establishing the
base of equality and power that
culminated in being able to elect a
Sen. Obama.
While [Kennedy] proposed all
kinds of interesting legislation to
enhance civil rights in America,
most people forget the fact that
[what] really got them enacted
was a combination of President
Kennedy’s untimely death and
Lyndon Johnson’s skill as a former
legislator and leader, [resulting in]
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the
Fair Housing Act of 1968, among
many others.
People also forget that
Richard Nixon played a key role
in continuing that revolution
from inside of government by
his executive order that created
the Office of Federal Contract
Compliance programs. It’s the
only executive order and probably
the only place in the law where
the term “affirmative action” was
developed. In Nixon’s words, “You
can’t have equality until you allow
minorities and women access to
the economic power bases of our
country”—entrepreneurship, small
business, minority business.
DIVERSITYINC: How can the history you just spoke of be applied
to young lives and in the workplace today?
LATHAM: It took outside agitation
[along with] leaders within government who pushed to change and
make things more equitable and
available so that a Barack Obama
could rise as he did. The likes of
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and
Martin Luther King and Malcolm
X, outside agitators who insisted
on pushing and pushing the
system until the system began to
produce greater fairness.
