Parren James Mitchell, a civil rights warrior, ex-chair of a key Congressional committee, and a fierce advocate of minority business would have been pleased by two articles that bracketed the news of his death at age 85.
On May 23, Boeing Corp. joined roughly a dozen U. S. industrial companies that purchase at least $1 billion worth of goods and services from minority- and women-owned suppliers. The aerospace giant's faith in these contractors vindicates the support that Mitchell, who had chaired the House Small Business Committee, had in them.
And shortly after Mitchell’s death, the Washington Post published an article about how college and university recruiters are actively pursuing talented minority high-school students. Hopefully, many of these young men and women will be captains of industry by 2050, when the Census Bureau projects that United States will be a majority-minority country.
Throughout his life, Mitchell fought to increase civil, political, and commercial opportunities for the country's minorities. As a young man, he won a suit to attend the University of Maryland at College Park.The victory made him the school's first black graduate student and he went on to earn a master's degree in sociology.
In 1971, he took his belief that minorities matter to the House of Representatives, where he served until 1987. During his tenure, he co-founded the Congressional Black Caucus and served on the Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee. Under him, the latter body was as a bulwark protecting the interests of minority-owned businesses.
At its essence, Mitchell knew that civil rights and political victories do not mean much if minority men and women do not achieve an equal measure of economic success. The goal of working men and women should not be to just earn a salary but to also build capital that can assist their children to grasp opportunities that Parren Mitchell could only dream of.
