Just got back from a few days in New York where the magic of Christmas is spreading fast. Even saw the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center for the first time in my life. Also got to visit with old and new friends, including my former boss from Fleishman-Hillard, Randy Siegel. We spent a fun hour in a Chelsea coffee shop, catching up and talking about our life-and work-philosophies. Randy’s staying in NYC for a few weeks, but he makes his home in Asheville, NC, where he moved several years ago after a successful PR career in Atlanta. Today’s he’s a professional coach and what I call an “inspirationalist,” and a trainer and speaker. He’s also a painter. I’m just glad he’s my still my friend. Here’s an excerpt from Randy’s blog,
http://www.buildyourleaders.com/blog/, about the beauty of diversity. ‘Til next time. -C
The Beauty of Diversity. (by Randy Siegel)
Remembering how far we have come. “Some would find this scandalous,” my Southern mother whispered. “What’s that?” I asked innocently.
“A black woman kissing a white man.” Mother, Dad, and I were at the Broadway play “No Strings”; it was the Sixties. Diahann Carroll was the star, and her romantic lead was a white man. While I don’t remember his name, I sure remember Diahann Carroll’s. “She’s so light skinned, you’d never know,” my mother said.
That was my earliest memory of racial prejudice. Years later I would see my prep school be one of Atlanta’s first to integrate, watch my father take down the “Colored” signs on the restrooms at the R.A. Siegel Company, and witness the assassinations of Martin Luther King and John and Robert Kennedy on television.
Today, I am back in New York, an easy subway ride from the Broadway stage where Diahann Carroll performed in “No Strings.” Everywhere I look, I see racial diversity and nowhere have I seen such beautiful children.
I love what I see; it reminds me that we are all one. It also reminds me how far we have come.
