Starting from Scratch

New York, 1969

It was evening when our airport taxi pulled up to the famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the final stop of a long afternoon of travel from Willow Run Airport in suburban Detroit to the heart of midtown Manhattan. My wife, Betty, and I were excited about our first trip together to New York City. But beyond our understandable fascination with the fast pace, the street traffic, the skyscrapers, and high-end retail stores, we were thinking mostly about the business transaction coming the next day—one that would change our lives forever. However, in the chilly darkness of December 9, 1969, we quickly realized that there was more excitement waiting for us on the street. Beneath the granite-and-metal canopy of the Waldorf’s Park Avenue entrance was a large crowd of angry protesters. They filled the narrow sidewalk between East Forty-Ninth and East Fiftieth Streets, in front of the hotel’s main doors. This particular demonstration was against President Richard Nixon, and to our surprise, we learned he was staying at the Waldorf that night. We didn’t know at the time that there was a presidential suite on the hotel’s 35th floor, and that U.S. presidents traditionally stayed at the Waldorf during visits to New York. The enormous main lobby offered a number of fascinating distractions as we walked to the front desk: marble columns and floors, a ceiling full of ornate designs, and historic wall murals. At the center of the lobby was a grand, nine-foot- clock in the center that was part of the original Waldorf-Astoria once situated on Fifth Avenue between Thirty-Third and Thirty-Fourth Streets, where the Empire State Building now stands. We finally arrived at the check-in desk, where we were told the protestors hoping to confront Nixon would be disappointed; he had already entered the hotel from a rear entrance. Indeed, news services later reported that President Nixon entered the hotel from a side garage on Forty-Ninth Street, then spoke to a banquet in the hotel at 7 p.m. How about that, I thought to myself. The President of the United States was hustled into the building through a back door, while Betty and I, African-American small business owners from the Midwest, walked boldly through the front entrance of New York’s most famous hotel, and were treated respectfully. I couldn’t miss the irony, not as a forty-two-year-old native of the segregated South, still fighting to earn respect in the color-conscious world of American business. How often had my parents and grandparents, my other family members and friends, and I been directed to the back door of a bus, a restaurant, or a theater because we were considered second class, even after paying first-class admission! But that night we were treated to courtesies that even President Nixon could not enjoy: entering through the lobby, approaching the front desk, quietly registering, and being assisted to our room by the highly trained wait staff. A familiar portion of a Bible verse came to mind. The last shall be first and the first last (Matt. 20:16).

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We were already enthusiastic, but being on the streets of Manhattan the next day energized us even more. The city had hosted the World’s Fair in 1964 and 1965, and it was still magical in 1969. This was a city that was building in a big way. At a time when civil unrest made people question the future of large cities, New York was symbolically investing in its future by constructing the World Trade Center, a sixteen-acre development in lower Manhattan that would feature the world’s two tallest buildings. The first of its twin towers was rising high up in the skyline during our visit, and would open for business in December 1970. The second tower opened in January 1972. In addition, while the nation remained numb and somewhat disillusioned over the loss of two visionary leaders a year earlier—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968, and Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York in June 1968—the city still knew how to celebrate America’s winners. New York City held three major ticker-tape parades in 1969. The first, in January, recognized the Apollo 8 astronauts, who became the first to orbit the moon in December 1968. The second parade, in August, honored the Apollo 11 astronauts and their first successful moon landing a month earlier. The third big parade of 1969 was held in October for the New York Mets’ unlikely, first-ever World Series title. There was no parade waiting for us, but we felt triumphant as we rode through the city. We were young achievers enjoying America’s premier center of achievement. Our transaction in New York involved the sale of our janitorial firm, Barfield Cleaning Company, to International Telephone and Telegraph Company. ITT was a titanic American corporation that had been on a buying spree throughout the 1960s, expanding into industries far removed from the telecommunications industry. * * * * *

We savored the moment. We had worked very hard for a decade and a half —much of it involving gritty manual labor—and been rewarded for it at a relatively young age. I was forty-two, Betty, thirty-seven. We had built and sold a company, and now we had financial security. These were things that rarely happened for black people in those days. In addition, we had made a small contribution to African-American advancement at a time when the path to economic and social uplift for our people was the subject of serious debate. The Civil Rights Movement was still being discussed in the present tense; Affirmative Action and diversity programs in education and the workplace were in the conceptual stage, and corporate purchasing initiatives to help develop a socially diverse supplier base did not yet exist. The sale of Barfield Cleaning Company to ITT was one of the first meaningful transactions between African-American entrepreneurs and a major U.S. corporation. It prepared us for our future involvement in the creation of the earliest minority business development programs, as well as the development of Bartech, an innovative international firm my family runs today. Years later, I recognized that without the benefit of a college education or many other advantages, and without consciously aspiring to any position of leadership, my wife and I had made history.