Dr. Clement Price
Rutgers University Institute on Ethnicity,
Culture and the Modern Experience
Despite an impressive list of prestigious awards and national
accomplishments, Rutgers University’s Dr. Clement Alexander Price
is a remarkably down-to-earth person.
A Black historian and community activist, Price is the Rutgers Board
of Governors Distinguished Service Professor of History at the Newark,
N.J., campus. Price is most known for founding the Institute on Ethnicity,
Culture and the Modern Experience 12 years ago “to plow the choppy,
interesting waters of diversity,” he says.
Price also cofounded the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series in
1981, one of the nation’s oldest Black History Month conferences that has
since attracted some of the world’s most notable scholars and historians
to the region. (Local legend Marion Thompson Wright was one of the
first professionally trained Black women historians in the country.)
“We launched the lecture series to re-center the history in Black History
Month,” he says. “It was our concern that it had become increasingly dedicated to entertainment and less to [its
founding principles]—historical literacy.”
To ensure the continuation of the lecture series, “which over the last 10 years has drawn an increasingly
diverse audience,” Price’s recent gift of $100,000 to the university will establish an endowment. He played a piv-
otal role in helping to recognize the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Newark summer riots and hosted the award-
winning “The Once and Future Newark” documentary.
He sits on the New Jersey state steering committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, responsible for
reporting civil-rights issues in the Garden State. And last year, Price served on President Obama’s
transition team, chairing the National Endowment for the Humanities. GAIL ZOPPO
Donna Alligood Johnson
MasterCard Worldwide
One of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies
MasterCard’s Chief Diversity Officer Donna Alligood Johnson loves to discuss
diversity management during family get-togethers. Her father is the chief
diversity officer at a major advertising agency; her sister, an attorney, sits on
the diversity council at a prestigious law firm; and Johnson’s brother is actively
involved in the diversity program at the architectural firm where he’s a partner.
© 2010 DIVERSIT YINC
“It’s something we all feel really passionate about,”
she says, “having worked in industries that tended to be
less than integrated.”
Johnson began her career as an account manager at
BBDO ad agency. She then moved into marketing man-
agement at Citicorp before joining MasterCard in 1995 as
director of retail acceptance development, where she has
since taken on positions of increasing responsibility.
Three years ago, during the formation of MasterCard’s
refocused diversity strategy, Johnson was asked to help
start the company’s resource group for Black employees,
called LEAD (Lifting Employees of African Descent). She
developed the business plan, created the charter and pre-
sented it to senior management, and since its inception,
she has watched membership grow from five to more
than 200 people with chapters nationwide. Not only did
this opportunity showcase Johnson as a valuable leader,
it steered her career toward diversity management.
