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Black project management history
● Sourced record┄ Connection still open
Watkins built a network for Black women working in project management.
Black access documented Source for these two steps ↗This comparison does not establish how you entered the role.
Add your exact workplace to look for a local record.
Open workplace source ↗Watkins founded Women Of Project Management to give Black women in the profession a place to meet peers and develop as leaders.
A professional network can give a worker access to colleagues and learning opportunities. The organization documents that opportunity. It does not track your employer’s hiring decisions.
Women Of Project Management · founding account ↗After the design team won the Smithsonian museum commission, Howard became senior project manager for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. She and lead architect Phil Freelon helped lead more than 30 consultants.
The design team records her project authority. Who appointed her personally, and how another employer assigns that authority, remain open.
Perkins&Will · project chronology ↗Hunt describes directing the extended mission of NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter. He was responsible for coordinating the people and resources needed to meet the mission’s objectives.
NASA records Hunt’s project responsibilities. A reader’s own engineering assignment or promotion requires a separate local record.
NASA · interview with Joseph Hunt ↗A. Philip Randolph appointed Rustin deputy director and gave him responsibility for day-to-day planning. Rustin coordinated organizers, travel and marshal training for the march.
The connection to project work today is the planning and coordination. Rustin’s historical title was deputy director.
National Park Service · organizing the march ↗This record covers project management across fields. A historical connection to this sector is still open.
O*NET · project management duties ↗Who opened the door · Product manager
● Sourced record┄ Connection still open
Johnson reports offers of mentorship and employer interest in including Black professionals in candidate pools.
Black access documented Source for these two steps ↗This comparison does not establish how you entered the role.
Add your exact workplace to look for a local record.
Open workplace source ↗While working as a product manager at Google Nest, Johnson started PM While Black to make information about entering product management easier for Black candidates to find.
In his interview, Johnson describes senior product managers offering mentorship and employers reaching out to include Black professionals in their candidate pools.
Black Product Managers names Walter, Quigless and Bankston as co-founders. In 2023 the organization reported that it had run three cohorts of Level Up, a product management accelerator with industry partners.
Who opened the door · Program manager
● Sourced record┄ Connection still open
Jackson used her program position to advocate for opportunities for women and minority employees.
Black access documented Source for these two steps ↗This comparison does not establish how you entered the role.
Add your exact workplace to look for a local record.
Open workplace source ↗Jackson left engineering and accepted a lower grade to become Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager. She used the position to advocate for hiring and promotion opportunities for women and minority employees.
NASA documents a Black engineer moving into a role where she could address who got hired and advanced. The record names the program and her responsibility there.
As a division director, Bethune pressed for Black young people to receive skilled-trades training and help finding work. Her record shows how a federal program leader could change whose needs a training program served.
From the history of Black workers in computing
Cambridge, Massachusetts
MIT interviewed students from nearby high schools and chose Joseph Thompson to operate Whirlwind. Jack Gilmore trained him to run programs from punched tape. Thompson worked nights and studied at MIT.
The open question
Who U.S. Congress
What changedThe transfer law required Howard to preserve pay for eligible Freedmen’s Hospital staff who transferred. Howard took control on July 1, 1967.
Who Howard University Board of Trustees
What changedThe trustees approved a program where future nurses could earn a bachelor’s degree at Howard.
Who Anna B. Coles, RN, founding dean
What changedColes led the school as its bachelor’s program opened in 1969. Its first nursing students earned the degree in 1973.
Who The Marion Nine, including Alexander H. Curtis and Thomas Speed
What changedThey raised $500 for land. The school opened in Marion, Alabama, with 113 students.
Who Peyton Finley and the Alabama State Board of Education
What changedFinley pressed for a state school. The board backed Black teacher training at Marion if the state received the school property.
Who Melvin O. Alston, the Norfolk Teachers’ Association and the Fourth Circuit
What changedThe Fourth Circuit ruled that paying equally qualified Black teachers less for the same work was unconstitutional.
Who Edward Mays, Harry Van Arsdale Jr. and IBEW Local 3
What changedThe local invited applicants through civil rights groups and vocational schools. Mays, a Black electrician trained in the program, helped select the new class.
Who Arthur Fletcher, U.S. assistant secretary of labor
What changedOn covered construction contracts in five Philadelphia-area counties, bidders had to set minority hiring goals for electrical work and five other trades.
Who Leon Wilkerson, Johnny Walker and fellow IBEW delegates
What changedBlack and Hispanic delegates formed the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus. Caucus members met with union leaders to press for representation on the national staff.
Read from the earliest documented event to today. Each source explains one step. A gap marks a connection the evidence doesn’t establish.
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