Dennis Dowdell On Mentoring (Section 5)

Why do you believe the need for mentoring is particularly strong in the African-American community?

Well, there are a lot of reasons. One of which is the growing disparity between those who have succeeded and those who have not, and I use those terms in quotes, not financially. Before the black community was relegated to a distinct area of town, but with the emergence of blacks into the middle class at a growing number, the doctors and the lawyers and the preachers and the teachers and other professionals who used to live next door moved out to the suburbs or to different areas. So you don't have the role models in the community as they existed before.

That took place over a 20, 25 year odd period, following affirmative action and the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, Title VII and all those kinds of initiatives and statutes, but what happened was we got out there and then we began to find single parent families, drugs and crime happening in our inner-cities, and with that growing trend, organizations began to spring up to counter these trends--Fraternities, sororities, One Hundred Black Men, coalition of a hundred black women and others, who were dedicated to saying we have to give back in order to make it. We can't be successful if we've left two-thirds of the African-Americans in the United States poverty stricken, drug infested, we just can't allow that to happen. I think that giving back in that regard has become particularly among black corporate executives, almost a passion. Ninety-five percent I would say have it as a passion, the others know damn well they'd better do it, develop the passion, because if we don't, then our own success makes no difference.

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