Ever since Fathers’ Day I’ve been preoccupied with thoughts of my father. His life, his death and the sage advice he gave me as he prepared to die. Advice that one would rather not hear, if not receiving it could stave off his death. But it could not, so it was delivered, as if from generations of fathers who deeply knew adversity, lived with deferred dreams and wanted better for their sons.
The moment came while I sat next to his hospital bed. Breaking our idle chatter, my father said to me, “Eddie I don’t think I’m going to beat it this time,” referencing his success at overcoming earlier health obstacles. He then looked at my face, covered with an expression of helplessness, and offered me a smile. “I’m proud of you, Eddie. How many black fathers — no, any fathers — have sons who are graduates of Harvard and Princeton?”
I was speechless.
I just listened as my father mused further about how far we’ve come, leaving me with flashes of my Virginia plantation slave ancestors, their migration North during Reconstruction and their final settlement in Boston. He seemed unafraid, perhaps finding solace in what he perceived as his son’s brighter future.
But there was another message my dad delivered, much more important, but inhibited by his drowsiness. He mentioned choices, purpose, not waiting and no regrets. I thought I might have the time to question him about it another day, but I did not. Three days later he died. Edward Dugger, Jr., an American record holder in track, a graduate of Tufts University, a distinguished civilian materials engineer for the Air Force and a civic leader in his adopted hometown of Dayton, Ohio, was dead at 56.
At 26 I lost my sense of immortality. In return, I gained a sense of purpose.
Like most recently minted Ivy League graduates of that age, I was glad to be me. I had a great job, an Ivy League wife, a newly purchased home and a growing social circle. I was on my way, or so I thought. Then my father died, and my view of my life shortened, became measured and finite.
To restore my equilibrium, I resolved to find meaning in his death at his early age and piece his broken message back together, as his final gift to me. Were bits of it based on his own experience, a poem, a scripture, advice he had received from his father? Was his advice about what he was able to do, or about what he wanted to do, but was not able?
Given that my family was not blessed with wealth, power or privilege, I settled on the latter.
I’d never know for sure from whence the pieces came, but guided by his spirit, I landed on this parable, a powerful lesson on whom not to be:
An elderly man, in the final days of his life is lying in bed alone. He awakens to see a large group of people clustered around his bed. Their faces are loving, but sad.
Confused, the old man smiles weakly and whispers, ‘You must be my childhood friends come to say good-bye. I am so grateful.’
Moving closer, the tallest figure grasps the old man’s hand and replies, ‘Yes, we are your best and oldest friends, but long ago you abandoned us. For we are the unfulfilled promises of your youth. We are the unrealized hopes, dreams and plans that you once felt deeply in your heart, but never pursued. We are the unique talents that you never refined, the special gifts that you never discovered. Old friend, we have not come to comfort you, but to die with you.
My father’s voice often echoed in my head, but more so now. “Don’t be that man, don’t be that man! Life can be short. Pursue your dreams now, but make your dreams bigger than you, much bigger.”
Etched in my mind, and in harmony with my father’s voice, were the words of the martyred Martin Luther King, Jr. Their joined voices called me to reinforce my deepening sense of purpose to serve a troubled nation struggling to be true to itself; more particularly to sharpen my focus on Boston, my chosen home, and a city nearly consumed by racial tension, blatant inequalities and oppressive political battles.
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there “is” such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”
The dream my father and Martin bequeathed to me was clear and profound — and dizzyingly vast. But the alternative, already visible all around me, was ominous at best. A nightmarish dystopian future of our nation and its neighborhoods was readily imaginable, even plausible. Tomorrow was no refuge from today.
Their voices revealed that the dream I had embraced for myself was small, not very urgent and primarily focused on me. It was shamelessly shallow, unresponsive to the challenges of the day and, upon reflection, of little service to others.
No more.
My new dream became a vision of what could be when folks like me, and perhaps like you, step outside our comfort zone, follow a less worn path, or create a new one, and dare to change the destiny of others as they change their own.
Having had a venture capital firm provide me with my field of play, I chose to build my dream around the most intractable problem at the core of our nation’s social and racial inequities: access to and control of wealth generating assets.
My newfound dream was to demonstrate to the mainstream business community that ordinary folks of color, given the opportunity and financing, could accomplish extraordinary things. That they could pull their own weight and then some, as creators of economic engines for their communities, sources of innovation for our well-being and business leaders for our nation. And we could finance them profitably.
With the help of the team I built at UNC Ventures, we demonstrated just that. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we successfully financed the growth of some of the largest African American controlled businesses in the nation, moved founders of color into an array of growth industries with management teams and employees that reflected the diversity of America, and helped them raise over $2 billion from conventional sources to fund their growth. In the process we helped created billions of dollars of wealth and over 7,000 family supporting jobs. And we did it profitably: our last ten-year track record was an IRR of 32%.
That was then; what about today?
Let’s be clear. My dream — shared by a growing chorus of enlightened American patriots — is far from fulfilled. But this is still no time for apathy or complacency. We continue to take vigorous and positive action to rise above the status quo. Today through Reinventure Capital I am working with others in the field to further demonstrate the wisdom of our contrarian approach to creating lasting systemic, beneficial, and yes, profitable change in the world of finance. With limited partners who are committed to equitable access to capital we will demonstrate that investing in elevating our collective destiny is not only ethically superior to business as usual, but also financially rewarding as well.
I have my job to do and so do you.
Predictably, tomorrow has arrived and it has come with even greater challenges. Racial inequities continue to rise, the wealth gap grows exponential wider, and the moral leadership of our leaders has demonstrated a rapid decline yielding to the advancement of white supremacists and would-be authoritarians. Everywhere we look we are confronted with the alarming possibility that any newly developed sense of urgency may be too late.
But I think not. It is true that we can no longer afford to be satisfied with passive, silent good intentions, whether they be individual or collective. Yet as I look around me now, I believe that we have more opportunity for vigorous and positive action than perhaps any other time that has come before us. While there is no time for idle sideline chatter, there is time for doing the work of change, of saving our society and ourselves from the downward rush, and perhaps even more than ever before, time is of the essence.
Together, we can turn the tide.
Let’s accept our legacy to not be those people. Let’s abandon complacency and apathy, step off the sidelines, reject the disastrous status quo, discard so-called “best practices” that have proven to be anything but, shed our fear of embracing a higher set of expectations. Let’s fulfill the promises we made and inherited in our youth. Let’s realize the hopes, dreams and plans that we feel deeply in our hearts. Let’s use all of our unique talents and special gifts — including our capital — to arrest our descent and discover previously unattainable heights that we know are there, waiting for us. Let’s not die wondering why we didn’t when we could.
* While there’s no such thing as a guarantee in investing and no one can reliably predict the future, Ed’s prior track record provides direct evidence that it is indeed possible to consistently invest for both financial returns and social value creation. If you are an accredited investor and would like to learn more about investments that can advance social, racial, and gender equity by supporting high-value companies led by women and/or people of color, please contact us to start that conversation.
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