Jackson’s Role in Corporate World

* “When Jackson Presses, Funds Tend to Follow” (March 13) may lead readers to believe there is no historical basis for the need to develop mutually beneficial trade agreements between corporations and businesses that have been underutilized and undercapitalized and communities that have been underserved. Today, businesses owned by people of color are growing at six times the rate of all businesses, yet they receive only 2% of the equity investments awarded to all businesses--undercapitalization. The Rainbow/PUSH Wall Street Project (as well as our nine other bureaus around the country) seeks to expand the corporate marketplace by connecting corporations with qualified businesses that otherwise would be locked out of opportunity.

A five-step process is employed to engage corporations as trading partners: research, education, negotiation, reconciliation and, lastly, demonstration. Through negotiation, enlightened corporations recognize the self-interest in partnering with qualified businesses that have been denied access to compete in the marketplace. After 40 years of dedicated public work, the Rev. Jesse Jackson has attained the unique position of being able to negotiate with many of the most powerful companies in business today. Consequently, he can raise issues that would otherwise be left unaddressed.

Rainbow/PUSH is proud to challenge American corporations to view inclusion as a means to growth. We will not adjust to the margins of the mainstream and will continue our struggle comforted by the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

TRACY K. RICE

Los Angeles Bureau Chief

Rainbow/PUSH Coalition