In 1964, The New York Times reported that Ruder-Finn had established an on-the-job PR training program for college graduates. One trainee was a ’Negro,’ although the paper noted several advertising agencies had already been recruiting young blacks.
In 1964, The New York Times reported that Ruder-Finn had
established an on-the-job PR training program for college graduates. One
trainee was a ’Negro,’ although the paper noted several advertising
agencies had already been recruiting young blacks.
But rather than waiting for the doors of major PR firms to swing open,
some African-American entrepreneurs had already been creating their own
opportunities.
Joseph Vardrey Baker, Moss Hyles Kendrix and D. Parke Gibson stressed
the importance of communicating to African-Americans at a time when
white-managed corporations were only waking up to the power wielded by
black consumers. ’What they tried to accomplish at a time when
resistance and racism were so blatant was an amazing feat,’ says Lon
Walls, the president of Washington-based Walls Communications, and chair
of the recently formed African- American Public Relations Alliance.
In a book co-authored with PR pro Robert Farrell, Blacks and Public
Relations: History and Bibliography, Dr. George Hill suggested that
blacks had started performing PR functions by the late 19th century for
black-run businesses and colleges: ’Even if the person did not have the
title, he performed the function.’
One trailblazer
But the PR trailblazer was Baker, whom The New York Times noted was
called ’the dean of Negro public-relations men.’ Headquartered in
Philadelphia, Baker started working in 1934 as a PR consultant to the
Pennsylvania Railroad.
Over time, his firm’s client list included Western Union, Chrysler and
the Association of American Railroads.
Kendall Wilson, now with the Philadelphia Tribune, worked for both
Gibson and Baker. Wilson recalls that Baker had a huge mailing list of
influential people in the black community. In 1965, when the civil
rights movement had created more awareness of the importance of the
black community, Baker told The Wall Street Journal: ’What we do mostly
is create a relationship between our clients and Negro leaders.’ His
advice included counseling clients to avoid saying ’you people’ when
talking to black audiences.
’It’s divisive,’ explained Baker, ’suggesting you, the Negro, are
different from us, the whites.’
Kendrix started working for Coca-Cola in the 1940s, a time when many
blacks preferred other soft drinks such as Nehi, says Audrey Davis,
curator of the Alexandria Black History Resource Center, where Kendrix’s
papers are housed. Kendrix worked to persuade soda bottlers in the South
to have blacks become route salesmen to stores serving the black
community, not just the porters who loaded and unloaded trucks. He
arranged to have Coke booths at black-oriented conventions and to have
black celebrities photographed holding a Coke.
His son, Moss Kendrix, Jr., recalls his father declaring that he came up
with one good idea every day. One of his proposals was that Coke launch
’Jackie Robinson Coke Clubs and Good Citizenship Corps’ to help prevent
juvenile delinquency, predicting that the company ’would profit through
the creation of present and future markets.’ (Coke’s reaction to this
could not be determined from the papers available.)
Kendrix, like other black PR professionals, had to deal with rejection
from large corporations. Conrad Hilton, for instance, responding in 1950
to a letter from Kendrix, agreed that the idea of ’Negro hotels’ could
be a ’paying proposition’ but rejected becoming involved in such a
venture because his company’s policy was to have ’large hotels in large
cities.’
Baker had once mentored Gibson, but the younger practitioner opened his
office in New York City. ’Because there were so many corporate
headquarters in New York, it made sense,’ recalls management consultant
Randolph Cameron, who had worked at Gibson’s firm. ’If Baker cracked the
market, Gibson took it to another level.’
Cameron says it was difficult even in 1960 for fledgling black
businesses to rent downtown office space. Starting in Harlem, Gibson
worked tirelessly and secured accounts such as Avon, Columbia Pictures
and the National Guard. He eventually moved his offices to Fifth
Avenue.
Both Cameron and Wilson recall that Gibson had close relationships with
leading corporate executives. ’Baker taught Gibson: ’You talk to the
highest man,’’ said Wilson. In doing so, Gibson earned respect from
white executives; when he died in 1979 at the age of 48, the
mostly-white Avon executive team attended his funeral in Harlem.
Gibson wrote in his book, dollars 70 Billion in the Black, that ’at one
time, the non-white could be led via white-oriented leadership,
white-oriented media, and the spill-off of some public relations effort.
It is doubtful if this would work today.’ PR pros, counseled Gibson,
needed to include the black media in their campaigns, and reach out to
important institutions in the black community.
’You have no idea how ignorant these worldly, sophisticated, corporate
giants are on the elementary questions concerning race,’ The New York
Times Sunday magazine quoted Gibson in 1970.
When the World’s Fair was held in Montreal in 1967, Gibson helped the
Expo ’67 leadership overcome charges of discrimination made by the New
York Urban League. The charges were largely without merit, but
organizers had been appealing to ’all Americans’ not realizing that many
blacks would have special concerns as to their travel and housing
arrangements.
Small group, big influence
Baker, Kendrix and Gibson were just three influential members of a small
but important profession within the black community at a time when old
barriers were falling. Each practitioner possessed a strong sense of
confidence, and developed close ties to the black press. Each apparently
viewed their roles as PR professionals in the broadest sense - albeit
almost invariably, and probably not willingly, confined to the black
community - going beyond publicity to advise the client about more
substantive matters, such as staffing, that related to corporate
image.
Alliance vice chair Patricia Tobin insists that pros such as Baker,
Kendrix and Gibson ’were the pioneers, and without them we probably
would not be where we are today.’ Tobin’s knowledge comes first-hand:
Her mentor, Barbara Harris, now the Bishop Suffragan for the Episcopal
Diocese of Massachusetts, had been president of Baker’s company and
later managed PR at Sun Oil. Tobin credits Harris with helping to show
her how to succeed professionally. ’In the African-American world,’
stresses Tobin, ’we are standing on the shoulders of those who came
before us.’
