Inauguration of Barack Obama

Yesterday's inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama led me to think about the road we have traveled...and the many miles we still have to go...

We grew up in the 50s in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where my father was the dean of the law school at South Carolina State College. Orangeburg was as segregated a city as you could find in the Deep South. As children we somehow navigated that treacherous landscape and survived its unforgiving times; from the "colored" and "white only" water fountains and restrooms to the segregated schools and movie theaters. Whites worked hard to instill fear in those who longed to undo segregation and years of legal disenfranchisement. The police were legally empowered to "keep people in their place" and use brute force to maintain the status quo. It was segregation de jure.

But there were those who were undaunted by the daily threats they encountered and continued to march in the face of danger. They fought for the basic freedoms guaranteed by our constitution. Some died fighting yet others stood ready to carry their cause forward. Their courage inspired people everywhere to embrace that spirit and to move forward and accomplish feats they never thought they were capable of doing. My father was one of those people.

As a lawyer and writer, he was enlisted by the movement to craft powerful letters of protest and impassioned pleas for justice that were sent anonymously to the governor and to newspapers all over the state. However, I didn't learn that until many years later when I met and interviewed then Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., for a television show in Dayton, Ohio, just three months before he died. He knew it was me who would be interviewing him, and as I approached, my hand outstretched to meet his, he said, "You look just like your father, Dean Gay." I was stunned. "That's right," he said, "your father would type those letters and we destroyed the typewriters because the FBI and state police were looking for us. Didn't he ever tell you that?" No, he didn't. But at that moment I finally knew why my mother whisked her children back to the relative safety of our hometown Detroit, fleeing the constant threats my father and others in the struggle received from the KKK. My father stayed behind in Orangeburg and continued to work in the civil rights movement and fight for justice. With others, he defended students who were spat upon during the sit-ins at the lunch counters and who were beaten and hauled off to jail. Years later, in 1968, police fired on a group of students from South Carolina State who were protesting segregation, leaving three students dead and 27 injured. It became known as the Orangeburg Massacre.

My father and so many others who fought for justice have passed from this world, but their spirit lives on in us. Their struggle is a old as our country itself. After hundreds of years we have come a long way, but still have so much farther to travel. Yesterday, that journey started anew, and now it's become a movement beyond any that preceded it.

President Barack Hussein Obama is a man who inspires people: Black and White, Asian and Hispanic, Native Americans, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian, Jews and Gentiles...people the world over. He is a catalyst for change and brings so much hope at a time when the world desperately needs it. We must seize the moment so we can help him. We must vigilantly defend that dream every day. Right is right, wrong is wrong. And after eight years of a woefully incompetent administration, Obama is ready to show us there is a much better way. But he can't do it alone. No, we must spread the word as his disciples, helping others to embrace the challenge he has put before us. Together we can realize his dream, which, after all, is the dream of the whole world ...Yes We Can.

The 'Big Three' lose their cache...

As a native Detroiter, it's sad to see the "Big Three" now reduced to the "Detroit Three," traveling to Washington, hat in hand, fighting for their very survival. But the predicament they find themselves in and the story that continues to unfold is really one of their own making...and one they've been writing for years.

There was a time when their automobiles were distinctive, the styling superb. People couldn't wait until the new cars were unveiled every fall. My uncles and many of their fellow black factory workers throughout the city jokingly referred to October 13 as the "first national Negro holiday," because that's when the new Cadillacs hit the showrooms. None of them went to work that day; they were all in the showrooms instead. So what happened? Why is there not that same excitement and anticipation about Detroit's cars today? The Pontiac Chieftains and Oldsmobile 98s that allowed families to comfortably travel down the highway between the northern industrial cities to which they had migrated and the southern states from which they had come are no longer to be found.

More later...

"I'm glad they killed that nigger"

Last fall when Obama was sworn in as the country's first black president, I couldn't help but think back to a time long ago when I was in college. A very different kind of day comes to my mind.

"I'm glad they killed that nigger," he said to me as the elevator doors opened on the sixth floor of the dorm where we lived. Henry was standing there with a smile on his face, celebrating the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was 1968 on the campus of Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. Henry was the most racist person on campus where only twelve of the 2,500 students were black.

He was a senior that year and I was a junior. He always tried to bait me into a fight and was known around campus for dousing small animals, cats or dogs, with lighter fluid, setting them on fire and throwing them, flaming, out of the sixth-floor window. So, I knew any fight with him would would be a fight to the death, and I wasn't prepared to go there. But get us on a football field playing intramural football and it was different.

The whole campus knew there was a bounty on my head payable to whomever was able to put me in the hospital. My friends feared for my safety and warned me not to take the field whenever we played. But I was determined that Henry and his friends would never hurt me and, except for one day when I was blindsided by two of the "bounty hunters" and briefly winded, they never did. Instead, I made sure they paid a physical price themselves whenever they tried.

One night I was with some of my friends at a local pub near campus that was frequented by students. Henry and his friends were celebrating their upcoming graduation. He came toward me and I was certain the "fight to the death" was at hand. Instead, Henry said, "You know, we wanted to really kill you on the football field, but every time we tried you hurt us instead. I like that. But I still hate "fucking niggers." I wonder where Henry is today?

Better to ask than assume...

It is always better to ask questions and know for sure rather than to assume we know. The former allows us to better understand one another and work together in partnership. The latter leads to confusion and mistrust and can only divide.

"Life..."

LIFE...

is not measured

by the number of

breaths we take,

but my the number

of moments that

take our breath away.

Kendra Grice-Brunson

"She's very smart..."

"She's very smart," one colleague said to the other, "and she can easily come up with some alternative approaches to this problem." "Yeah, you're right," the other replied, "but she has become a bit complacent in her thinking these days and keeps giving us the 'same old same old.' Continuing to do what we did for our clients yesterday or even today may no longer be effective in view of the current economic climate. The choice for our clients of "more of the same vs. change" is an easy one. Consumers are spending less and clients are competing harder to win customers. As our clients' partner, we must try things we never before tried or even thought possible; not with reckless abandon but based upon judgment and insight that is consumer informed and idea led. We must find more interesting and innovative ways to deliver messaging that resonates with the consumer. It is a "choice of the past vs. the future," as Obama said to his supporters after winning the Iowa caucus. The world is indeed changing and we must evolve and change with it. Our very survival as an advertising agency is dependent upon our vision of the future. So, as we kick off the New Year, let's adopt as our mantra what we heard over and over again from the American people in response to Obama's message of change (see link below): "Yes we can."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7RRBlng8fg

"Good is the enemy of excellence."

The whole is greater...

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The person who acknowledges what he or she doesn't know and turns to others for help and advice, is really the smart one; more likely to be successful. The person who pretends to know everything and shuns the counsel of others embarks blindly on a path that is destined to fail.

Difficult times = Opportunities...

Difficult economic times present challenges to our clients and their brands. Opportunities as well, but only if we think and act differently on their behalf. We have to be even more passionate in the pursuit of nuances that emotionally connect our clients' brands to their customers; and relentless in developing innovative solutions that engender long-term trust between them.