American publisher ’04 Citizen of the Year
For the St. Louis American
Donald M. Suggs, oral surgeon, publisher of the St. Louis American and president of the St. Louis American Foundation, called the region’s corporate community to create more opportunities for aspiring young black professionals and focus on early childhood education after receiving the 2005 St. Louis Citizen of the Year Award.
The award is sponsored by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many past recipients attended the ceremony at Harris Stowe State College.
Suggs is the second African American to win the prestigious award. Ozzie Smith was named Citizen of the Year in 199x.
After being introduced by Sam Fox, Suggs delivered the following speech:
Thank you so much, Sam, for that wonderful introduction. I consider it – and this entire occasion – all the more wonderful because I can’t help but notice certain contrasts between the group that has chosen me for this award — and myself.
I’m not talking about the fact that many of them are captains of industry who command large institutions with enormous resources, whereas I’m an oral surgeon who has morphed into a community newspaper publisher. I’m not talking about the fact that many of them live in the county, whereas I live in the city.
I’m talking about the fact that most of them vote a certain way -and I vote Democrat!
So, thank you for being so gracious to me, a political, non-compliant-and to others who might share my political inclinations — Go Democrats who, Lord knows, need all the help they can get!
I would like to thank the past honorees and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for this award from the bottom of my heart. I am hugely gratified to receive this prestigious and completely unexpected award. It is, indeed, a great honor. I have had the opportunity to work closely with many of the former honorees who over the years have contributed so much to civic betterment in St. Louis. And I have come to love St. Louis and what this city can become. It has been my home for nearly 50 years. This award means a great deal to my family and me. My son Donald, and my daughters Dawn and Dina are here today but I also want to acknowledge their mother, my former spouse and long-time partner and supporter, Betty. I must acknowledge that I stand here in the stead of dozens of St. Louisans who do essential civic work in this community that is largely unheralded. I would be remiss if I did not mention three truly remarkable women who came to St. Louis and did work that left an indelible, positive mark on this community and deeply influenced me. Ruth Porter in fair housing and improved educational facilities-Marguerite Ross Barnett, who helped take the University of Missouri St. Louis to a much higher level and provided a bridge for students from high school to higher education, and Charmaine Chapman who enhanced the effectiveness of the United Way and broadened its base of support and its services.
This award is a milestone in a personal journey similar to that of many individuals. It hasn’t been altogether easy, and didn’t necessarily have to lead where it did. I have been extremely fortunate. Let me explain.
I was born and raised in East Chicago, Indiana. It’s a smoky, blue-collar suburb of Chicago, where my father was a steel mill worker and my mother a devoutly religious woman. The longer I live the more I appreciate the kind of solid, caring people they were and the sacrifices they made to raise my brother, sister and me. We celebrated my mother’s 92nd birthday on Saturday and reminisced about my father who I could not thank enough when he was alive and I cannot now.
Much of my adult life has been about trying to help realize the largely untapped human possibilities in the African-American community as well as the underutilized potential in the St. Louis region as a whole. I know my parents had a great deal to do with that. My father was a natural intellectual, a man with a remarkable scientific mind, who had a passion for learning. Self taught, he knew an astonishing amount about such matters as astronomy and particle physics. Yet my father for all of his intellectual capacity received only a third grade education. He was relegated to do mundane, even harsh, work because it was necessary to support his family.
Despite the odds against me, my parents saw to it that I received a good education. After I graduated from dental school at Indiana University, I accepted a training position at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis. That was in 1957, and that’s how I happened to come to St. Louis. I came to a completely strange city because of a black institution, a black institution, where I was made to feel comfortable and part of a community. The men and women of Homer Phillips exemplified for me individuals who had achieved and were committed to serving their community with intelligence, skill, discipline and seriousness of purpose.
Two years after I arrived in St. Louis, the U.S. Air Force summoned and sent me to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware via Montgomery, Alabama, a crucible of the civil rights movement. I was always attracted to the East Coast, and when my stint in the service was over, I planned to stay there with my family. However, once again an institution brought me back. I received an attractive offer to teach at Washington University’s Dental School where I had received some of my training. But the dental school rescinded the offer because it was not willing to accept an African-American on its faculty. But once again, an institution brought me back here.
So I ended up making my life here, and raising my three children here, and I’m glad I did. Growing up in St. Louis gave my kids a great foundation for their further education, travel and life journey. I’ve had access to a meaningful, but challenging life here.
But let’s look at what’s happened to St. Louis over the years that I’ve been here.
Let’s start with population. In 1960, the metropolitan area had 2.2 million people, according to the U. S. Census Bureau. St. Louis was the 9th largest metro area in the country.
Meanwhile Atlanta had 1.3 million people, and ranked 24th. Atlanta was not quite 60 percent of the size of St. Louis. Looking north instead of south, Minneapolis-St. Paul had 1.6 million people. It ranked 14th in the country.
But 40 years later — in 2000 — Atlanta had 4.1 million people and was the 11th largest metropolitan area. The Twin Cities had 3 million people and comprised the 15th largest.
St. Louis, in 2000, had 2.6 million. Our rank had fallen to 18th.
The national shift from an industrial based economy to a service based one accounts for some of the change. The response by Atlanta and the Twin Cities respectively been exceptional. However, let me take this a step further.
When I came here in the late 1950s, and for some years in the 1960’s St. Louis was still in the grips of segregation, but there was a certain dynamism in the African American community. Homer G. Phillips was a leading medical institution that drew talented African-American physicians from all over the country who were unable to obtain coveted surgical training elsewhere. There was a vibrant civil rights movement against the status quo that engaged many of my friends and colleagues. This energizing experience was an epiphany for many of us that shaped the rest of our lives. Ironically, this same contentious period brought many blacks and whites together.
Yet over the years, much of that cooperative spirit has faded, I’m afraid. Or at least the perception is that it has faded. Among ambitious, talented, sought-after young African-Americans and others the conventional wisdom is that St. Louis is not the place to be. During my early years in St. Louis the battle of race relations was fought in the courts and in the streets. Today, the challenges lie in gaining access to a quality education, adequate housing, safe environment, health care and jobs as well as opportunity to start and grow businesses among underrepresented groups. St. Louis loses many who are not place bound to Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., anywhere where the economic and social environment is considered better for young, black people.
This problem is by no means unique to blacks. We have the same challenge in the white community. However, experts tell us the phenomenon is far more common in the African-American community here. At least some of the best and the brightest young white people stay here. Very few of the best and brightest African-Americans do – very few.
If you ask some of these people why they’re leaving, or why they want to leave, some of them will tell you it’s due to social reasons, that they haven’t been able to establish a satisfying network of friends, that there are too many cliques – the same kinds of things some young whites say. However, many of them will also tell you that there are just not enough professional opportunities here, that there’s more opportunity for advancement in other communities.
I did some fact checking to compare the black communities in St. Louis and Atlanta. What I found was eye-opening.
The data show that 9.2 percent of the black families in Atlanta have annual incomes of more than $100,000, while only 5.8 percent of the black families in St. Louis do. For the whole United States the figure is 7 percent. So Atlanta is above the national average, and we’re below.
Median income shows the same pattern. In Atlanta median income for blacks is nearly $43,000. In St. Louis it’s $31,000. The median income for blacks in Atlanta is 38 percent higher. This is huge.
What’s the story for whites? Entirely different. The census data show that whites in Atlanta have almost exactly the same median income as whites in St. Louis.
These numbers reveal a real problem because money talks.
This disparity is something we must better address. Reversing it must become a priority for our area, if we intend to attract and retain talented, young African-Americans and other diverse groups. If we are serious, we’ve got to provide them with more substantive opportunities. And believe me, St. Louis does want to attract and retain talented, young African Americans-or least it should. If we resolve to do this in St. Louis, and do what it takes to make it happen, we’ll be well on our way to creating the kind of vibrant, diverse community that attracts all kinds of talented young people who are essential to driving economic prosperity in the 21st century’s competitive global economy-white, black, Hispanic, Asian, you name it.
We have attracted some highly capable professionals to St. Louis such as nephrologist Dr. Will Ross, gerontologist Dr. Consuelo Wilkins, and pediatric hematology oncologist and researcher Dr. Michael DeBaun at the Washington University School of Medicine. And there are organizations seeking to address the expressed professional, business and social needs of young African-Americans.
But we must do more. Much more and much better.
For leadership we must expect more from our established institutions. They bring so many young and talented people here. They brought me here when I was young. They’re powerful magnets.
Atlanta has the advantage of having some fine established black colleges and universities such as Spelman and Morehouse and an organized and insistent black political and business community. Atlanta’s black higher educational institutions are larger, in aggregate, than, for example, Harris Stowe State University that itself provides an excellent case in point.
Despite a history roiled by racial division and funding uncertainty, Dr. Henry Givens and his colleagues are bringing their vision to fruition with hard work and determination. A public-private effort has helped to build an institution with an expanded mission, bolstered by additional physical facilities that make a quality higher education available to many who would otherwise be excluded.
Wash. U., St. Louis U., the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and other higher education institutions in this area need to step up to the plate. Our private corporations must sincerely step up, too.
I challenge these institutions to be more creative. The words of Albert Einstein are instructive. “We will not solve the problems of the world,” he said, “from the same level of thinking that created them.”
My intent is not to attack these institutions. To the contrary. Bill Danforth and now Mark Wrighton have led Washington. University to international, elite status. In the last 25 years or so, Wash. U.’s stature has afforded this community greater opportunity including technology transfer, which leads to economic growth. Similarly, St. Louis University has achieved remarkable growth under Father Biondi. BJC, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis Zoo, St. Louis Science Center, St. Louis Art Museum, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Black Repertory Theatre, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Forest Park Forever, the Museum for Contemporary Art and the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis are all leaders in their respective fields.
That’s the point. They show what we can do here when we have committed, effective leadership and broad community support. We can be world-class.
I urge the non-profit institutions, and private sector corporations — which also recruit nationally and internationally – and their boards to give higher priority to this goal. They are the natural leaders in attracting and retaining the cream of the crop in our minority populations, and putting creative minds to work to accomplish this.
Of course this is difficult. Regions all over the country are competing for the same people. But we have got to get our share. And right now, we are not doing it.
With so much going for us, we should be able to do much more to reverse the exodus of talented, young people from St. Louis. We have a city with incredible cultural assets, a user-friendly city where you get more bang for your buck-we have a very family-friendly city. We have a community where you can easily get involved, or pursue some special area that interests you. I’m an example. I don’t know if I could have revived the St. Louis American in Chicago. The logistics there are much more difficult. In St. Louis, the scale is more manageable. You can gain access more easily here. The line is not as long.
Do we have mountains or an ocean? Not at last check, but neither do the freezing Twin Cities, nor broiling Dallas.
It’s economic opportunity we need more of here, economic opportunity for people of all races and ethnicities. To achieve it, as we all know, we have to create a more inclusive business and social climate.
There is some good news. I want to cite an example of the tough-minded, rigorous action needed. The Regional Business Council has brought 18 of their largest members together and these companies are collectively measuring themselves on variables relating to their hiring and contracting performance. They have committed to improving their record over the next two years. They are setting the pace by taking the initiative to track themselves. These enlightened companies realize that purely for business reasons they must do this in order to thrive. In fact, Arnold Donald, chairman of Merisant, feels so passionately about moving this agenda forward, that he has agreed to personally mentor six or more CEOs and to help them develop a plan of action to diversify their employee base at all levels. EasyŠNoŠ This is very hard work, but we must be determined to rigorously and honestly address these issues.
I’m pleased that Arnold, a highly regarded and experienced corporate executive has agreed to offer his services to interested CEOs to help them figure out exactly how to attract and retain more diverse talent in this community. This is a very positive step. I sincerely hope the broader business community steps forward and takes full advantage of what Arnold is offering. But making change means more than simply wanting more diversity; it means being committed to achieving diversity. And if you don’t know what it takes, you learn what it takes and commit to do what it takes, which often means moving beyond your comfort zone.
If we are going to create a more diverse, inclusive community here, the changes in the business community can’t just come from the top; they have to come from across the spectrum. The recent emphasis on fostering a more entrepreneurial mentality in St. Louis is absolutely on target. Dave Nicklaus of the Post-Dispatch got it exactly right in one of his recent columns. “If you want to criticize St. Louis,” he wrote, “it shouldn’t be for losing companies in mature industries. Where the region falls short is in creating new companies in vibrant, fast-growing industries.”
Five of our seven remaining Fortune 500 companies in the St. Louis area are more than a century old, Nicklaus wrote. The two exceptions are Express Scripts and Charter Communications.
Now once again, we have many examples in this town of what entrepreneurs can accomplish. Think of Joe Edwards in the University City Loop, Don Breckenridge with the Sheraton Hotel downtown and soon Kiel Auditorium. Think of Bob Cassilly and the Taylor Family, Sam Fox and David Steward, Arnold Donald and John Steffen, the Roberts brothers, Tony Thompson and Brenda Newberry.
Think about what we are doing in the plant and life sciences, where the progress we’ve made has been terrific. I’m extremely excited about what some of the very institutions I mentioned earlier have done in creating the Danforth Plant Life Center and CORTEX, the Center of Research, Technology & Entrepreneurial Exchange, which has undertaken one of the most ambitious efforts in the United States to develop infrastructure for the life sciences. Both are perfect examples of creative public-private partnerships that offer us great hope for the future. We’ve made considerable progress, with business incubators and venture capital and in other essential areas. But we’ve got to ratchet up the progress. With hope the Missouri Legislature and our Governor will not spoil it all with misguided concerns about embryonic stem cell research. At least the runaway train to criminalize SCNT research and any ensuing therapies by those who see the issue as revelation over research has been delayed for now.
If we’re going to attract and retain minority group members who can participate directly in these emerging high tech industries, we’re going to have to create the kind of welcoming climate that the St. Louis area needs overall to build excitement and momentum for this region. We need more African-American and other minority entrepreneurs and knowledge workers. Again, we need more David Stewards, Steve Cousins, Arnold Donalds, Kelvin Westbrooks, Tony Thompsons, Brenda Newberrys, Michael Holmeses, Larry Thomases and Jerry Hunters.
How do we get them? It starts with creating a larger pool of minorities in the city’s existing business community. This is where many of our entrepreneurs will come from.
I don’t want to give the impression, though, that I believe the problems of our region can be solved entirely by the large institutions, by what we used to call the “white power structure”. They have a major role to play, but the black community has to step up too. Racism continues to plague, taking a wretched toll on black life and it must be fought. However, we cannot wait for racism to end before we act more proactively with tough love against the problems that tear at the very fabric of the black community. Although we have seen some signs of progress, the black community itself must re-embrace more fervently the traditional values that lead to success in this country. I’m talking about the kinds of values my parents stressed-family, faith, education, hard work, discipline, self-reliance and concern for others.
Education has been discussed by a number of those who have preceded me in receiving this honor. I want to make two observations.
First, improving public education in the city is going to take many years, and we must vigorously continue to improve the system.
Second, a key area for us to concentrate on is early childhood education. There is intriguing evidence that investing in kids’ education in the toddler years pays lifetime dividends, and offers a better economic development tool than some of the traditional incentives we use. France, Japan and Sweden have good early childhood education nationwide regardless of economic status. The Committee for Economic Development (CED), an independent, nonpartisan organization of business and education leaders, is taking a strong interest in this area, and it recognizes that the first few years are extraordinarily important.
I propose that the business community here focus on this issue, the issue of Early Childhood Education and that we take inventory of what’s already being done-there are some efforts already under way-and invite the CED to St. Louis to help us carve out a path.
In the beginning of this talk I mentioned my father, and the need for this society to get more from all of our human capital. I did a few back of the envelope calculations to get a sense of the impact we’d have here if we could just find ways to bring the unemployment rate in the city of St. Louis to the regional average. If we could improve education to make more people employable and foster a more entrepreneurial climate, we’d accomplish that.
What I found is this: In 2004, the unemployment rate in the city was 10.4 percent. In the region it was 6.2 percent. The difference was about 6,700 jobs. If 6,700 more city residents had been employed, the unemployment rates would have been the same.
And it turns out that if we could just employ 6,700 more people, at the city’s average full-time wage of $42,500, the benefits to the whole region would be profound. We’d have $137 million worth of additional regional household spending – nearly half of that would be outside the city. We’d have higher property values, more stable neighborhoods, and less crime, all of which mean a better-financed schools and city government.
It is in the interest of this whole region to focus on creating economic opportunity for the residents of the city. Developing our human capital is critical. This starts with education – early education.
Before I close, I’d like to put everything I have said in context. I do not want my words here today to be misunderstood. I don’t want to be unduly critical of my adopted city and its leadership. We can be too self-critical in this town. Some of the forces we face are at a macro level, out of our immediate control and difficult to overcome. We were the Gateway to the West, but the West has now been settled. Air conditioning has been invented. Stuff changes. We cannot remain mired in the thinking of the past.
The world is changing fast. Not just St. Louis – the whole nation is facing huge economic challenges. China and India have rapidly emerged as economic competitors. In the words of Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, “it’s a flat world, after all” — the internet and broadband infrastructure have leveled the playing field and made it possible for people over the world to be connected and to rigorously compete. We need to function at a higher level to claim our share of a global pie that is both expanding and increasingly more complex.
Yet, Friedman writes, Americans seem not to recognize the challenge, or at least are acting as though they don’t. Our kids largely cannot do math and science and shun engineering. China has six times as many college graduates majoring in engineering as the United States; we are doing a very poor job of preparing our country for the next level. This won’t cut it.
The world is transforming rapidly. If we want to participate in the change, if we want St. Louis to keep up and move ahead, we have to re-invigorate-early childhood education, high tech recruiting, and other cutting edge programs that will attract, nurture and retain the bright young minds who will become the diverse leaders of this millennium. This is not a matter of political correctness; this is fundamental to St. Louis’ overall well being.
Thank you, thank you so very much.
