SCLC Fights Corporate Racism

By Jerry Thomas

ATLANTA - Officials from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization co-founded and first led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has ended protests against Nielsen, the global data and measurement corporation, saying the racial discrimination lawsuit filed by longtime senior Black executive Cheryl Grace has been amicably settled.

“This is a breakthrough moment,” Dr. Steele said. “We wrote to the chairman and CEO of Nielsen. We meet with them via the Internet, and we urged them to settle this lawsuit filed by Ms. Grace, and, in just a few months, Nielsen has decided to resolve it. I commend Nielsen for doing the right thing. I think they took the SCLC and the movement very seriously. We followed the six steps of direct action as introduced by Dr. King, which is still effective today.”

Dr. Steele said the SCLC will now move to the next phrase of its new campaign called ‘‘From the Streets to the Suites,” an initiative where the social justice organization targets corporations that have been hit with discrimination lawsuits. As part of the campaign, SCLC officials meet with corporate leaders with the goal of settling the lawsuits, but also assisting them in addressing systemic racism and discrimination within the corporate culture. That culture, Dr. Steele said, is historically linked to the gaps in employment, income, education, healthcare, housing and other areas.

Last June, a few days following the social justice protests that occurred in many communities across the nation, some corporate leaders committed to righting the wrongs inside their companies by announcing programs, many with financial contributions.

“Those corporations are doing what they should have been doing,” Dr. Steele said. “But the Streets to the Suites Initiative is to monitor those corporations and make sure they are delivering on their commitments, and it is to place the spotlight on other corporations that refuse to do what is right when it comes to being fair and just to all of its employees and consumers.”

We congratulate the SCLC’s efforts to improve world peace and equality for all.

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