Although I was living the American single man's dream with a college degree, a great salaried job, aspiring military career; my own bachelor pad, a new sports car, and many friends -- male and female -- something was missing. I fast forwarded five, ten, and twenty years and could not see myself living the same lifestyle and being as happy. Especially when I noticed that there were Black engineers at Duke Power at the time that had been doing the same job for 10 or more years without being promoted. On the flip side, their white counterparts were now their supervisors and managers. Hmmmmmmmmm I thought, that could be me; passed over because I was not a good ole southern boy whose mama, daddy, uncle; niece, nephew, and stepson all worked for Duke back when they did not hire people of color at all. Add the fact that my immediate supervisor -- John Dean Tadlock -- who did not have a college degree, was just waiting for me to mess up so he would have an excuse to fire me because he knew that I was not going to be another Black "yes sum boss" man. In fact, he would not allow me to go out to work in the field with Mary Kay -- another Black female engineer -- because as he stated, "I cannot see how the two of you are being productive out there." What a racist asshole! To add insult to injury, I was physically attacked -- In front of a witness -- by another white engineer (Stan, I cannot remember his last name) while in the office, and instead of him receiving some type of punishment I was eventually sent home with pay. I was told that I was getting out of hand after realizing Stan was not going to be punished for physically violating my civil rights in front of an eye witness and while on the job. It became really creepy and scary when I learned later on that my assault and battery charges were dropped by the Mecklenburg County assistant district attorney without my testimony. Like I said earlier, Duke used to literally run this town! I should have given Stan something to remember me by like a broken nose or severe concussion.
Now, let’s get back to the matter at hand. It was not long before I received my first survey/questionnaire response on March 5, 1990, which came from the Beatties Ford Road Hardware store located at 2731 Beatties Ford Road. Mr. Jimmy McCoy responded with a "maybe" but went a step further and pointed me in the direction of Black-owned businesses south of Interstate 85 along the same road. Believe it or not, these folks are still in business today and getting good reviews on the Internet. Over the next few weeks and months more questionnaires were returned and a good deal of them positive. I said earlier that I did not know the exact percent of positives but it was at least 25% favorable of my new idea. During this time of waiting, I recalled during my meeting with TX -- in September 1989 -- that he mentioned that there was such a thing as the National Association of Black Pages headquartered in Atlanta, GA, at the time. As the number of favorable responses increased I became more and more confident that my idea was going to fly. I then began to research this organization to find out how to contact them. I did not dare contact TX because I did not want to tip him off that I was still working on this project. It took some time to locate this organization because again back then the Internet was not available to the general public. In other words I had to do it the old fashion way by letting my fingers do the walking across the Yellow Pages. Funny; you will hear more about the yellow pages scenario later in this piece!
Now, let’s get back to the matter at hand. It was not long before I received my first survey/questionnaire response on March 5, 1990, which came from the Beatties Ford Road Hardware store located at 2731 Beatties Ford Road. Mr. Jimmy McCoy responded with a "maybe" but went a step further and pointed me in the direction of Black-owned businesses south of Interstate 85 along the same road. Believe it or not, these folks are still in business today and getting good reviews on the Internet. Over the next few weeks and months more questionnaires were returned and a good deal of them positive. I said earlier that I did not know the exact percent of positives but it was at least 25% favorable of my new idea. During this time of waiting, I recalled during my meeting with TX -- in September 1989 -- that he mentioned that there was such a thing as the National Association of Black Pages headquartered in Atlanta, GA, at the time. As the number of favorable responses increased I became more and more confident that my idea was going to fly. I then began to research this organization to find out how to contact them. I did not dare contact TX because I did not want to tip him off that I was still working on this project. It took some time to locate this organization because again back then the Internet was not available to the general public. In other words I had to do it the old fashion way by letting my fingers do the walking across the Yellow Pages. Funny; you will hear more about the yellow pages scenario later in this piece!
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