Earl G. Graves: on the record

Black Enterprise, August, 1995 by Alfred Jr. Edmonds

EDMOND: THE YEAR WAS 1969, WHERE were you when the idea for BLACK ENTERPRISE first hit you? What were the circumstances?

GRAVES: Well, BLACK ENTERPRISE really came out of a concept for a newsletter. The newsletter idea evolved during my membership on an advisory bard that the director of the SBA had put together. Then when we started talking about the concept, he encouraged me to give some thought to the idea of a magazine. It was broader, more ambitious; I thought it had some possibilities. I talked with some people I knew in advertising because, while I didn't know a lot about advertising, it was clear to me that advertising could make the magazine pay for itself. And, as a husband and father of three young boys, making money was always a priority.

Gradually, the magazine took an identity of its own. It gained a head of steam in terms of people being interested and wanting to see this thing make it. The bottom line was, there was a need for BLACK ENTERPRISE.

EDMOND: Ann Fudge [president of the Maxwell House Coffee Co.] has said she remembers BE coming out as she was completing her first year of college, and using it as an inspiration and a sort of blueprint for what was possible for her in business. You hear stories like that over and over again. How does that make you feel, and how does that fit into your earliest vision of what BE could be?

GRAVES: I saw the magazine in 1970 as a how-to. I used to say all the time, "If we're not saying how to, we're not doing our job." That job was to help, to teach, to encourage our readers, whether it was in getting a job or keeping one, acquiring money to start a business or to expand one, saving money or investing it. We have to speak to all those foundational aspects of building and developing a strong black consumer market, and show our readers a better way. I think that vision has been met. And in the process, we have contributed to showing a more positive side of where [black people] are in this country, while pushing for more inroads to where we can be in the future.

EDMOND: What were some of he challenges you faced?

GRAVES: One challenge, from the very first issue, was to make a profit. Without that, it would be hollow for us to be telling people how to run their businesses. How would it look if someone were to ask, "How's your business going?" and I were to answer, "Well, I'm having a little trouble, we're not making the payroll."

What has given us credibility out there in the marketplace is that we're out there ourselves. You have budgets to meet? So do we. Personnel to deal with? Us too. Trying to put money aside for your kid's education? Dealing with subtle, but powerful, racist barriers to your rise? We are too. Our staff and our readers identify with and help each other in every issue, every month--that's the mission.

EDMOND: Did you expect that 25 years later the magazine would still be not only going, but larger and more critical? Did you see it leading you personally into the realms of economic advisory boards for U.S. presidents or onto major corporate and educational boards?

GRAVES: There was no doubt in my mind that we had to make the thing go. Obviously, the vision of where it could go and seeing the need more and more each year for what it could achieve--that evolved. I did not see myself serving on several boards--corporate or otherwise. My sense then was to get the magazine up-and-running and make it a success. It was probably year five when it became clear that we were going to make a contribution far greater than what I might have envisioned when starting out--that we were, in fact, going to make an enormous difference.

EDMOND: Let's talk about corporate America. When BE was launched in 1970, it was reported that out of 3,000 senior-level executives at Fortune 500 companies, three were African American: Cliff Wharton at the Equitable, at the time; Thomas Wood, who I believe was at Chase Manhattan Bank; and Robert Weaver, who was at Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. So, in a very real sense, BE had to almost show the way to the creation of the African American corporate professional.

GRAVES: You're right. Having just made a pledge to my alma mater of $1 million, I was thinking a lot about those years. When I was at Morgan State, from 1953 to 1957, people would ask me, "Why are you majoring in business?" I would reply, "I have a vision of making a lot of money." That was a joke then. [Blacks looking] to make a lot of money needed to become doctors or may undertakers. But certainly not work with a corporation or build their own. You literally had no [corporate] jobs being offered to the students. Tragically, there are still not enough jobs being offered to black graduates] by major corporations. So, part of starting BLACK ENTERPRISE meant having the vision to say, here's where we can be and here's where we can develop.

EDMOND: Tell me about the challenge of convincing advertisers to take your vision and that of a thriving black consumer market seriously.

GRAVES: Back in 1970, there was clearly an environment that said, Brotherwood Week." There were laws in place that made it illegal for [white] people to turn us away and, for the first time, they recognized that our green dollar was the same as the next person's. That worked to our advantage in starting BLACK ENTERPRISE.