He’s gone from being a young civil rights leader in the South to presidential candidate to someone who appears in times of crisis such as most recently in Ferguson, Mo. and Baltimore, Md. And he continues to press corporate America on the ethnic and racial make-up of its boards.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow PUSH Coalition, for more than a year, have been pushing Silicon Valley on the less visible issue of the demographics of its workforce.
“He doesn’t always come when you want him, but he’s always right on time,” said Ben Jealous, a partner at Kapor Capital and former president and CEO of the NAACP.
Jackson took the issue of race and workplace demographics to tech firms’ shareholders. Companies responded, with Google and others releasing their demographics in the past year.
“I wish Dr. King were here today,” said Jackson, 73, looking out to the more than 200 people at his organization’s first Silicon Valley summit, called Push Tech2020, held in San Francisco. “You are the fruits of his dreams.”
“There is an unbroken line from Selma to Silicon Valley,” he said, something of a refrain for his effort in the tech industry.
Jackson called his effort in Silicon Valley the four stages of the civil rights symphony. He called this stage “access to capital.”
It’s “not a talent deficit but an opportunity deficit,” he said, another refrain.
He lauded Intel, which proposed spending $300 million to improve its diversity numbers by 2020.
“While every company can’t match Intel’s ambitious plan they can set targets and timetables,” he said.
He called on tech firms to again release their workforce demographics by Sept. 1.
“This day fulfills one of our dreams, our hopes,” he said. “We have come to the valley today to make the valley grow.”
Above: Jesse Jackson. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
