The Atlanta region has long been recognized nationally for its progressive and open-minded business community. Not only was the City Too Busy to Hate the focal point of the American struggle for civil rights, social justice and equal protection under the law, but the nation’s ongoing pursuit of economic equity for minority business has also been headquartered here. As we commemorate Black History Month throughout February, we take time to recognize the many accomplishments of the City’s leaders, pastors, CEOs and institutions who popularized ‘The Atlanta Way’ by working through challenges great and small to collaborate on projects and passions of mutual benefit. Although his speeches, protests, marches and showdowns with law enforcement made the foundation of his legacy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quietly built a groundbreaking coalition of local business owners, corporate CEOs and elected officials unlike anything the world had ever witnessed. It is the economic unity of that collaborative that quietly enabled, empowered and funded the Civil Rights movement that made the headlines.

The Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council was founded in 1975 by a coalition of five Georgia corporations – AT&T, The Coca-Cola Company, Cox Communications, Delta Air Lines, Georgia Power, and MeadWestvaco (now WestRock) – who saw value in diversifying their supply chains to offer opportunity to historically disadvantaged communities. In those early days, the focus was solely on doing business with black-owned firms, by far the dominant minority community in the region at the time. Legendary Atlanta Mayor Maynard H. Jackson is credited with being the architect of municipal supplier diversity in the 1970s when he implemented the City’s Equal Business Opportunity (EBO) program, still the blueprint for cities all over the nation looking to implement inclusive supply chain practices. Over the five decades since, the definition of supplier diversity has…