Successful entrepreneurs are celebrated for their vision, steadfastness and willingness to take risks, so it is fitting that one of the St. Louis American Foundation’s 2007 Entrepreneurs of the Year took the biggest risks at the awards podium Thursday afternoon and expressed the most daring vision.
Cliff Franklin, president of FUSE Advertising, said he supported all of the St. Louis American’s Salute to Excellence programs – Education, Health Care and Business – but said it was time for a new one: Salute to Excellence in Politics and Social Activism.
“I’ll buy a table for that,” Franklin said, with Mayor Francis G. Slay and the mayor’s chief of staff, Jeff Rainford, seated literally at Franklin’s feet.
There was an implicit challenge in Franklin’s choosing this moment and this occasion to call for excellence in political leadership.
Franklin made this challenge explicit: “Who can bring some vision to St. Louis, the way Freeman and Virvus did?” Franklin asked.
He was referring to Freeman Bosley Jr. and Virvus Jones, St. Louis’ first black mayor and most outspoken black comptroller, respectively.
As everyone in the room was well aware, Slay recently demoted St. Louis’ first black fire chief, Sherman George. George then sued Slay for racial discrimination and illegal job action.
Activists have started a recall effort against Slay, and Slay has been courting African-American allies to defuse the situation. Other than state Rep. Jamilah Nasheed, who has been visibly active against Slay, black elected officials who represent the city have shown little or no public leadership on this issue – despite a widespread sense in the black community that George was handled badly and Slay should be held accountable and punished for it.
“Who is going to overcome the good-old-boy, back-slapping, country-club atmosphere in St. Louis?” Franklin thundered, to a very diverse, sold-out Salute to Excellence in Business audience of more than 530.
This, clearly, was not your typical St. Louis business awards luncheon.
All in the family
“I do not take your belief in me lightly,” said Malik Ahmed, president and CEO of Better Family Life, Inc., after thanking the St. Louis American Foundation, St. Louis RCGA and the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis for awarding him as 2007 Nonprofit Executive of the Year.
“Know that I will remain steadfast in my zeal to build a better family life for all of humanity by continuing the thrust of making Better Family Life one of the finest agencies serving the African-American community.”
Fittingly for an organization that strives to improve the community from the roots of the family, BFL’s moment in the awards spotlight had a strong family feeling. Ahmed dedicated his award to his mother, who had celebrated her 88th birthday the day before. He shared his award with his wife of 26 years, DeBorah Ahmed, who serves as senior vice president of cultural arts for BFL.
When the Ahmeds returned to the Better Family Life table, they fellowshipped with their longtime colleagues Carolyn Seward, BFL chief operating officer, Jermal Seward, BFL senior vice president of youth and clinical services, plus other staff and board members.
Their group resembled nothing so much as a happy, loving family.
The 2007 Corporate Executive of the Year, Patricia Smith-Thurman, vice president and group head of financial services systems for MasterCard Worldwide, said her sense of leadership began with her own family.
“My first lessons in leadership came from my mother,” Smith-Thurman said.
“She was a great storyteller, and she would share her experiences with me and that put me on a road. When you share your experience, you share a part of yourself and you are giving someone else an opportunity to be on the road to success.”
Smith-Thurman seemed to turn the entire ballroom at the Renaissance Grand Hotel into her temporary family. The excellence of her example, rising to the top of corporate America, inspired a surprise standing ovation. Standing ovations became standard throughout the ceremony, and at times felt perfunctory, but the response to Smith-Thurman’s award and her self-assured presentation was genuine.
William McNamara, chairman and CEO of Macy’s Midwest, spoke of the diverse Macy’s family and made a point to salute a table of local Macy’s sales associates, one of the younger and more diverse groups at the sold-out Salute.
“We are committed to having a more diverse and inclusive workforce and customer base,” McNamara said.
The Franklins, of course, are a family affair. Awarded along with Cliff Franklin were his wife, Sharilyn Franklin, executive vice president and chief operating officer, and his brother, Michael Franklin, senior vice president and chief creative officer.
Michael Franklin said FUSE aims “not so much to give back to the community, but to recycle the human capital in the community.”
The Franklins spoke of their difficulty gaining momentum as a minority-owned advertising agency in St. Louis. Cliff Franklin said the agency had been ghettoized in their industry, as media buyers and clients – especially in St. Louis – often have tried to relegate them only to campaigns aimed at a black audience.
That helps to explain his frustration with what he called “the good-old-boy, back-slapping, country-club atmosphere in St. Louis.” He certainly disrupted that complacent atmosphere with the phrase he used to praise Donald M. Suggs, president of the St. Louis American Foundation and publisher of the St. Louis American.
Franklin said, “Donald Suggs is a free black man.”
This was another reference to the black community’s stand-off with the mayor, as Suggs has taken a strong, consistent public stand that many other black leaders thus far have proved willing to endorse only privately.
The edition of the American that greeted guests, including the mayor, in the lobby of the Business Salute had on its front page a story describing door-to-door canvassing to recall Slay.
That paper’s political column suggested that Rainford, the mayor’s chief of staff who attended Salute with Slay, needed to find another job if St. Louis is to advance further in racial respect and cooperation.
Though Franklin’s remarks were highly timely, he made a point about St. Louis in 2007 by choosing a phrase that dates from slave times and the struggle for abolition: “a free black man.”
Emcee Carol Daniel, news anchor for KMOX Radio and a columnist for the American, took up this strong, strident language
“Donald Suggs is a free black man,” Daniel said. “We need more free black men. Are you a free black man?”
After the luncheon concluded, as awardees, guests and hosts were walking out into streets of Downtown St. Louis, Daniel continued to thunder these magic words.
“Free – black – man!”