Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories from WRAL TechWire focusing on the calls to action by African American executives in the Research Triangle technology sector following the death of George Floyd.
RALEIGH – After peaceful protests turned violent on Sunday night in Raleigh, Johnny Hackett was among a handful of business owners standing guard to protect property.
On the corner of Blount and Cabarrus Streets, he stood in the same spot for eight hours, warding off potential looters.
“It was scary at times,” the 36-year-old founder of #BlackDollarNC wrote in a Facebook post chronicling the night. “After a certain hour, you had no idea of knowing which car coming by would just decide to open fire, or what group would decide to test you.”
Across the nation, protests erupted over the past week in response to the killing of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of police. On Thursday, local business owners across downtown Raleigh were continuing to pick up the pieces after waves of rioting over the weekend left a slew of businesses damaged.
In the end, Hackett says, he was lucky. He walked away unscathed and believes just his presence was enough to deter some crime. Looking ahead, however, he’s determined to move beyond this “watershed” moment. He, along with other African American business leaders in the community, are calling for lasting change.
African American tech leaders in Triangle demand change – Donald Thompson, Walk West, speaks out
“We’ve got to start the rebuild – literally and figuratively,” said Hackett, pressing for police reform. “We don’t want to ever be the city where a case like this happens again.”
Education as action
Donald Thompson, CEO of Walk West, one of the fastest growing digital marketing agencies in the Triangle, is also reeling from the events of the past week.
He compared the killing of Floyd to “an earthquake in our society” and said the event has taken the conversation about race in the US to a global level.
“It cannot be underestimated how powerful our response has to be as a nation,” he said. “Everybody is watching, and as business leaders you, you cannot walk the middle on this. You are either against it, or you’re for it. There’s no in between.”
Donald Thompson
On a local level, he is actively working to bring about change. In April, he launched The Diversity Movement, a set of online courses, videos, podcasts, events and consulting offerings focused on diversity and inclusion course. He’s also initiating some “uncomfortable” conversations about race and diversity with the podcast, “Ask a Black Guy/Ask a White Guy.”
And as far as businesses are concerned, diversity and inclusion must now be an extension of a company’s brand, he said. “As an African American business owner and African American consumer, I’m watching who’s behaving in a manner that aligns with my principles and values.”
William “Bill” Spruill, CEO of Global Data Consortium, also believes real change starts with the individual.
“We have to remove the biases that we infect [in] our youth,” he said in an email. “I’m programmed to respond a certain way when I see a cop or when a woman clutches her purse tighter when I walk by.
“I see it in tech as well. I had a banker once tell me they wouldn’t invest with my company unless I had a local angel like a Scott Moody or Scot Wingo backing me. What he didn’t know is that I was friends with both of them and they saw me as a peer/equal. That bias isn’t going to go away anytime soon. It’s deeply rooted.”
William “Bill” Spruill
Dismantling ‘structural racism’
Margaret Brunson, CEO of Illumined Leadership Solutions, wants more accountability and a commitment to dismantle the “structural racism” within society.
Among her demands: to develop and implement regulatory frameworks that include standardized expectations for organizational equity, quality measures and key performance indicators, mechanisms to monitor and enforce the expectations, scorecards and a system of accountability that penalizes a lack of adherence to the standards.
Margaret Brunson, CEO of Illumined Leadership Solutions
“These scorecards should be used in the same ways that we use other regulations across the public and private sectors (e.g. restaurant health and safety regulations). We can no longer expect racial equity to happen as a result of a task force or committee dedicated to talking through the issue. We have enough research, data and brilliance within our local communities to start pushing and moving a little faster.”
Angela Connor, founder and CEO of Change Agent Communications, is also demanding action.
“It’s critical to understand who we are electing into office at all levels, particularly those with authority over law enforcement,” said Connor, who wrote an extensively on the subject in blog post earlier this week. “We have to hold the people who make laws accountable, learn how to get involved in that process and exercise the right to vote at every opportunity.
She added: “It’s also critical that Corporate America puts action behind all of the statements we’ve been seeing issued and shared all over social media.”
Amie Thompson, CEO of Creative Allies, said we will only know if this is a “watershed moment” if we can look back in a year and see things have changed.
“I don’t think anyone has answers right now,” she said. “At Creative Allies, we’ve been trying to find ways to use our platform and our community to do something. Doing something positive, no matter how small, is the only thing I know how to do right now.”
Other stories in the series
