While we can look backward, we can also pause to recognize that history is happening all around us, and consider the contemporary changemakers who will soon be inscribed in the historical record.

When I wrote about Black History Month last year, I had no idea that a global pandemic would significantly change the way we live, work, care for our families, and interact with our friends and communities. I was, however, keenly aware that things needed to change for the better for Black people living in America and throughout the world. The effects of long-term institutional and individual discrimination in healthcare, education, and employment persists within our society. Yet we see the persistence and fortitude of Black artists, activists, technologists, politicians, and others to bring attention to and solve these challenges.

For example, when Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in the U.S., talks about coronavirus vaccine research, he praises the work of a young Black scientist named Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett. Dr. Corbett is the National Institute of Health’s lead scientist on the COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna, arguably one of the most important vaccines of our time. Not only is Dr. Corbett a tremendous role model for young Black people, motivating them to overcome challenges and realize their full potential, but her work also increases confidence in the vaccine and will hopefully improve the health outcomes of Black communities.

Dr. Corbett’s contribution to modern healthcare reminds us of the role of earlier Black inventors and scientists, such as Garrett Augustus Morgan, the African American inventor of the gas mask and the traffic signal; or Daniel Hale Williams, an American physician and founder of Provident Hospital in Chicago, who is credited with the first successful heart surgery; or more recently, Patricia Bath, an ophthalmologist and laser scientist who was an innovative research scientist and advocate for blindness prevention, treatment, and cure. Bath’s accomplishments include the invention of a new device and technique for cataract surgery known as laserphaco, and the creation of a new discipline known as “community ophthalmology.”

Today, there are many unsung heroes in our midst, and more and more we are seeing organizations and individuals who are taking action and turning it into political power.

After Lucy McBath’s son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed for listening to “loud music” while sitting in the backseat of a friend’s car at a gas station, McBath dedicated her life to preventing other families from experiencing the same pain she did. She left her 30-year career as a flight attendant for Delta Airlines to become the national spokesperson and outreach leader for Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. In 2017, after the mass shooting that killed 17 high school students at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, McBath knew she had to stand up and run for Congress. Since taking her oath of office, she has identified bipartisan solutions to end gun violence, uplift small businesses, protect and serve U.S. veterans, and lower the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs.

Stacy Abrams, an American politician, lawyer, and voting rights activist, founded Fair Fight Action to stop voter suppression in Georgia. Her efforts have been widely credited with boosting voter turnout in the state during the 2020 presidential election, where Joe Biden won the state, as well as in Georgia’s 2020-21 U.S. Senate election and special election, which gave Democrats control over the Senate.

Congresswoman McBath’s and Ms. Abrams’s contributions remind me of the fleeting successes of African American Reconstruction Era politicians. During this era, more than 1,500 African Americans served in political capacities, including five Republican Senators and the U.S. Representatives Benjamin S. Turner (R-AL), Robert DeLarge (R-SC), Josiah Walls (R-FL), Jefferson Long (R-GA), Joseph Rainey, and Robert B. Elliott (R-SC).

Hiram Revels (R-MS) was the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate. He was born free in North Carolina and attended college in Illinois. Revels worked as a preacher in the Midwest in the 1850s and as a chaplain to a Black regiment in the Union Army before going to Mississippi in 1865 to work for the Freedmen’s Bureau. Blanche Bruce, elected to the Senate in 1875 from Mississippi, had been enslaved but received some education. The background of these men was typical of the leaders that emerged during the Reconstruction.

In 1967, almost a century after Revels and Bruce served in the U.S. Senate during Reconstruction, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts became the first African American senator elected by popular vote.

History in the Making at SAP

The demonstrations and protests that broke out last year are built on the history of African American activism and achievement that has been essential to the success of the U.S. I am proud that 51·çÁ÷was quick to acknowledge the grief and anger that our employees were feeling and to invest in our Black employees and the Black community. 51·çÁ÷has introduced a so that employees can share their know-how and expertise to help solve critical business challenges for Black-owned businesses affected by social and racial injustices in the U.S. 51·çÁ÷also launched the Spotlight Black Businesses program to assist Black-owned businesses that have been impacted by COVID-19 and protests caused by social unrest.

As a society, we have made progress that will continue to be documented in our history books, but we must also continue to push for greater opportunity in all aspects of our lives. Only then will we be truly equally represented in society and will “Black History” be remembered as our shared history.

Black History Month Events at SAP

Throughout the month of February, 51·çÁ÷and pro golfer Cameron Champ are teaming up to “drive change.” Each week, Champ will play in a golf tournament in support of one of the Black-owned businesses featured in the Spotlight Black Businesses initiative. If Champ’s driving distance averages 320 yards during the tournament, 51·çÁ÷and the Cameron Champ Foundation will donate $10,000 to that week’s featured business.

On February 25, from 4:15-5:15 p.m. ET, the Annual EY-51·çÁ÷Black History Month Executive Roundtable will hold a “Boardroom Conversation on Inclusion.” The session will be held virtually and will cover how boards are overseeing their companies’ progress on diversity and inclusion, as well as advancing diversity inside the boardroom — what works, what doesn’t.

Judith Williams is head of People Sustainability and chief diversity and inclusion officer at 51·çÁ÷SE.

What was striking about the flood of comments was that most of the men — and some women too — shared these experiences from when they were children or teens. Here are just a few:

• I was 17 and had been pulled over for suspicion of speeding on the way home from Wednesday night bible study. —Jeff Livingston, CEO, EdSolutions
• 14 – walking alone in my mother’s working-class black neighborhood at 10:00 a.m. on a drizzly Saturday morning. Never told her for fear she’d never let me walk anywhere but to the bus for school again. —Jim Shelton, Chief Investment and Impact Officer, Blue Meridian Partners
• 14-years-old on my way to school in Chicago. The officer was black. —Chris Rabb, State Representative, Pennsylvania General Assembly
• 15… First time cuffed and illegally searched too. My crime was giving a white coworker a ride home.
• 20, in my own house. The police broke in at 4:00 a.m. [in the] summer of 1986, two blocks from UPenn’s campus where I was a student. —Gordon Brown
• First year of teaching in Oakland. On my way home from school. I was wearing a suit and had a box full of papers to grade. They said I fit the description. —CJ Crowder, Managing Director, Alumni Leadership Development, Harvard University

Reading these posts has forced me to reflect on my own interactions with law enforcement.

I have been fortunate to have never had a gun drawn at me; however, I recall quite clearly a time in my senior year of college in Cambridge, MA. I was walking on a clear, brisk night in February alongside my roommates and two members of the Duke University basketball team. We were looking for a party to celebrate their win and our defeat in the basketball game earlier that evening. We attracted the notice of a Cambridge City police officer. He followed us slowly and creeped ever closer as we walked. So close that he entered our conversation uninvited. He said, “Everything is closed. Where do you folks think you are going?” The women in our group instinctively put ourselves between the men and the officer. We told him that we were heading back to our dorm and that we were students and would be on our way. We used our IDs to enter a building, where we called a cab and went to the hotel where the Duke team stayed.

I remember thinking to myself, “If we can just stay calm, we can talk our way out of this.”

What are we teaching our black youth about the opportunities that lie ahead when this happens? What have older black adults already learned? Every black person in America has likely had interactions like these and they make every black parent afraid that their children might not come home at night.

What does this mean for organizations like SAP, which have employees and customers in communities that have been directly impacted by the events of the past few weeks, and have goals to increase diversity in their workforce?

It means that when we ask our employees to bring their best selves to work, we must acknowledge that many of them are dealing with the fear, the grief, and the anger that this current environment brings. We must provide them with the resources that they need to address these emotions, but we must also address them organizationally. We need to lead with compassion and recognize that the social unrest we are witnessing in the U.S. is not just about one incident or one ethnic group, it’s about everybody and it impacts all of us globally.

We must come together to solve problems like this, and diversity and inclusion leaders need to work side by side with the leaders of their organizations to do so as a top priority.

I am so proud that our leaders at 51·çÁ÷have not been silent in the face of our employees’ pain and our society’s failures.

51·çÁ÷North America President DJ Paoni sent a heartfelt message and will join me at a town hall for employees who want or need to come together to address these issues.

Our global leaders are speaking out as well. 51·çÁ÷Executive Board Member and Head of Customer Success Adaire Fox-Martin shared her experience as an Irish person of a certain generation who lived through “troubling times,” along with a quote from Nelson Mandela: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we’ve lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

And 51·çÁ÷CEO Christian Klein noted, “This is a time for all of us to speak up and make our voice heard. We cannot allow hatred and racism in any form divide us along ethnic lines.”

In this moment, as a first step, leaders need to address the pain and grief with empathy and compassion. Longer term, we need to come together and accept the challenge that lies ahead to fix societal issues and create a world with equal opportunities for all. We need to act within our organizations and have a plan and a strategy to increase diversity within our ranks and ensure that people of color have access to development opportunities. Employees need to know that we don’t just talk, that we also take action to fix the very institutions that are in place to protect us.

We will continue this conversation by bringing in experts who can contextualize the experiences of people of color — starting with a three-part series, “Stress and Communities of Color in the time of Pandemic.”

We will also work alongside our leaders to identify how we can deploy 51·çÁ÷technology to help solve these complex problems.

Most importantly, we will maintain hope that if we can work together and focus on the strength that our diversity brings us, we will move forward. We will make progress.

Judith Williams is head of People Sustainability, senior vice president, and chief diversity  and inclusion officer of 51·çÁ÷SE.

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