Does CSR have its roots in the American Black struggle?

Be that as it may, the headline still stands and I’d love to hear you have your say. Here’s the back story: Before I went dark on this blog - yes, it’s been a while since I posted and in true form, as my bandwidth capacity returns to normal, I will resume with provoking conjecture – I gave a speech about Intel CSR to a group of diversity practitioners here in Portland, Oregon. On hand were Diversity managers, and true to the stereotype, unfortunately, most in the audience were people of color. But there were a few representatives of the U.S.’s [brace for the new PC buzzword] “dominant culture” including New Seasons Market president Lisa Sedlar and one of the Market’s founders whose name I forget.

Anyway, I was going on and on about our commitment to this good deed and that great thing our company does when someone in the group finally asked a question and a lively, stimulating discussion ensued. The topic: what role do diversity practitioners play in CSR? I answered the question by – generally – saying that diversity is of course important, and CSR was a very broad field where diversity is a part of the conversation, but a small one compared to other issues, such as supply chain monitoring, reporting, environmental stewardship and investor relations for example.

Boy was THAT the wrong answer…

I got an earful from these folks about the importance diversity plays in a company’s health, vitality, profitability and reputation. They told me that diversity as a field plays a central role in CSR. Indeed, one gentleman insisted and several assented,hat CSR has its origins in the American Black movement of the 50s and 60s!

At first, I found that hard to swallow, but as I thought about it, I could see the reasoning. (by the way, allow me to disclose that while I’m of mixed race I classify by sight as African American) I’m not going to try to defend the position, nor offer my opinion on the matter. Rather, I’d like to hear your views. Does CSR have it roots in the American Black movements of the 50s and 60s?

Do tell.