Young Speaks At Wal-Mart

Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of Atlanta, kicked off Black History Month celebrations at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. by speaking at the company’s Saturday morning meeting on Feb. 5 in Bentonville.

During a Feb. 4 press conference at the Embassy Suites in Rogers, Young said Wal-Mart has helped impoverished people in the United States by allowing them to buy the things they need at good prices.

“You can get quality merchandise at a price anybody can afford,” he said.

Young said Sears, Roebuck & Co. had neglected the South with their stores, “but Wal-Mart captured the market that Sears left.”

“The future of our economy is helping to include people who have been excluded from economic opportunities,” Young said. “I think Wal-Mart is up to that challenge. Their diversity department, I think, is an extension of what the Civil Rights movement was all about.”

Young said Wal-Mart has provided jobs to people who might not otherwise have one.

When asked if more women and minorities should be in management at Wal-Mart, Young said, “A company starts its business from its neighborhood,” meaning the majority of Northwest Arkansas residents are white.

If Wal-Mart was based in Atlanta, where the population is 70 percent African-American, Young said, he would expect at least half of Wal-Mart’s executives to be black.

Young said Wal-Mart should consider going into Africa. Coca-Cola sells more Coke in Nigeria than New York, he said.

“If Coca-Cola can do it, why not Wal-Mart?” Young asked.

Young is chairman and co-founding partner of GoodWorks International LLC, which was founded in 1997 to help bring economic development to Africa and the Caribbean.