Houston Chron

May 1, 2001, 12:22AM

Jackson opens Houston project office

Rainbow/PUSH leader sees owning stock as entryway for minorities

By DAVID KAPLAN Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle

Corporate America without the full participation of minorities is like baseball without Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Bob Gibson.

"We did not know how good baseball could be until everybody could play," civil rights activist Jesse Jackson said Monday in Houston, comparing the corporate world to the great American pastime.

Jackson was in town to mark the opening of the Texas bureau of the Wall Street Project, at 1600 Smith, as part of a national Rainbow/PUSH Coalition initiative to increase minority involvement in the corporate world.

The Wall Street Project, which has 10 offices nationwide, lobbies corporations to hire more minorities, name more minorities to corporate boards and award more business to minority companies.

In a matter of days, Jackson said, the project intends to purchase $2,000 worth of stock in each of the 50 major energy companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., Texaco, Enron Corp., Reliant Energy and Dynegy Corp.

Begun in 1997, the Wall Street Project has offices in Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D.C, Los Angeles, Detroit and New York.

By securing the stock, Jackson said his group will help nurture the attainment of economic equity for minorities. Such an effort, he said, is the next phase of the civil rights movement.

Jackson noted that most major energy companies have few minorities or women on their boards. By buying stock ownership, he said, those groups will have a greater voice in corporate decision making.

"We will attend their meetings not as sharecroppers but as shareholders," he said.

Within the past few years, labor and environmental groups have employed similar strategies. Joining Jackson in opening ceremonies at the Wall Street Project's offices were City Councilman Jew Don Boney and the project's local bureau chief, William-Paul Thomas.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001

Answers

How soon before caucasians are the minority?

In Miami we already are.....

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2001