It begins — households are a big part of it, but it goes much further.
CAPEHART: Mm-hmm. MR. One of those areas I wanted you to address is financial literacy and Ariel Investments is partnering with schools in financial literacy. Discuss why financial literacy is so important. cars
MR. ROGERS: Well, I think this is crucial. When I was 12 years old, my dad taught me about the stock market. He bought me stock instead of toys every birthday and every Christmas after I was 12, and it was $250 worth of General Motors, or IBM, blue chip stocks, so he let me keep the dividend checks. And he just wanted that exposure for me. He was a Tuskegee Airman and just thought it was so important for his son to be exposed to whatever White Americans are exposed to and to the stock market.
Today, financial literacy is more important than ever. When you think about this, as we have replaced the pension funds with defined contribution schemes in this country, each individual in their workplace must be able to participate in their defined contribution plan, 401(k), 403(b), and 457. They have to make sure that they spend as much money and spend as possible on the programs and then have the proper capital allocation within them, how much in shares, how much in fixed income, what in money market funds. You must be your own financial expert, to put your retirement money efficiently. That’s so critically important, I think.
Naturally, because we lacked financial literacy, we have seen the worst mortgages during the financial crisis and these nonethical lending institutions that have been benefiting numerous African American families as we didn’t always know the correct questions to ask. We were not well placed to be our own wealth managers, because in the last 400 years this country has not permitted us to build wealth. You become a wealth management expert if you have wealth to handle, but discrimination, Jim Crow laws and the remnants of slavery have prevented us, so we are behind.
What we tried to do is not complain about the problem, Ariel. We established a small public school with former education secretary Arne Duncan, called the Ariel Community Academy, about 25 years ago. It is a public school on the South Side of Chicago, about 500 American children, and all children get real funds to invest in real stocks, to do research, to be comfortable on the markets and when they graduate from the 8th grade into the 529 programme, we get $500 to give young people an importation education.
We really believe that financial literacy is very, very important. I chaired President Obama’s Financial Capacity Council for Young Americans and the report we presented to the President suggested we wanted to find ways to get more financial institutions partnering with urban public schools and to use the Ariel Community Academy model, where young people can get actual dollars to invest in real stocks and look at role models like t
Dr. CAPEHART: Mr. You know, John, you, and I spoke about the killing of George Floyd a year ago, and it was just a few weeks after the nationwide protests broke out. You said, You said, “That brought America’s worst on domestic TV,” the video of George Floyd’s murder, “maked it a worldwide event, and it’s brutal. I believe the only brilliant light is that there is some hope now that we can tell our story and hear more people than ever before. And hopefully this is a chance for us to transform America, to get us back on the right track, where everyone can respect each other, trust each other and create equal opportunities for all.”
A year later, do you think you’re happy about the progress we made, and what else needs to be done?
M. ROGERS: M. Well, definitely not — certainly not satisfied, but we are progressing. We are making real headway. The information is clear. We are more — more African Americans join the boards. Here in Chicagoland, you look at Walgreens. We’ve got an African American woman CEO now. We’ve got Valerie Jarrett, our good friend joining the Walgreens board. There was none of that a year ago. It was just something that was transformative in corporate America.
Here in Chicago, our Civic Committee, representing our 84 largest companies, we now have a genuine commitment to do business throughout the company by using the term “business diversity” rather than “supplier diversity.” This is real progress and they borrowed this concept of the business diversity from the University of Chicago instead of the diversity of suppliers. You are beginning to see real and sustained change.
We also see it more in political empowerment where more politicians think about these questions. Our house speaker, Chris Welch, in Illinois, created legislation forcing all corporations to make their boards transparent, where diversity is not there, and that puts pressure on corporations that looked like corporations of the 1940s to do the right thing.
We now have leadership in Congress, such as Maxine Waters and Joyce Beatty on the House Financial Services Committee, which of course holds Maxine and Joyce chairs the Diversity and Inclusion Sub-Committee. They have a profound impact and are pushing banks and financial institutions to do the right job when it comes to working with Black companies and ensuring that we have the opportunity to get the kind of loans and opportunities that we really deserve.
Today is a much better day, and I think it will continue in the future. I think there’s momentum. People are gaining the same economic opportunity and many of the challenges facing our urban communities will start dissipating when we have real equal economic opportunities in this country.
Dr. CAPEHART: Mr. John, we have less than two minutes left, but since you have raised company boards, I recently interview Mark Mason, CFO of Citi, and he has given corporate America a “D,” a “D” as in David, to work towards corporate diversity, inclusion and racial equality. What’s your grade and what is it going to take to get an A? In 90 seconds, tell me. Tell me.
MR. ROGERS: Oh, that’s it. Well, I would probably give corporate America a c, a c minus, because they still do too much business as they always did, and the economic possibilities are mainly for white mankind.
But I believe there are some models. McDonald’s here in Chicago has a long history of working with Black franchisees and building up big Black suppliers for McDonald’s. The Northern Trust Bank has made two African-Americans, their top ten Northern Trust Bank officers, part of their management team for the first time. Exelon Corporation works fantastically. There are some really great role models out there that do things in the right way and have not just senior Afro-Americans in senior positions and business with Black businesses and all of us, but also put African Americans in a position where once you are in the leadership roles, you become more and more willing to speak out and to fight for economic justice.
The people have heard about John Lewis and understand that you have a responsibility to make a good deal of trouble in those leadership roles and to point out things that are not right, that are not fair, which I think is changing the business America as well. In these leadership roles, we are getting more fighters who will make a difference for us all.
MR. CAPEHART: John W. Rogers Jr., chairman and CEO of Ariel Investments, thank you very much for returning to Post Live in Washington. Great to see you. Great to see you. Have a great weekend. Great weekend.
