Weldon J. Rougeau, a long-time civil rights activist, has considered the issue of diversity from many perspectives -- as director of the office of federal contract compliance programs at the U.S. Department of Labor during the Carter administration, as president of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and even as a prisoner for 78 days (58 of them in solitary confinement) in a Baton Rouge, La., jail cell when he was a student activist.
But perhaps Rougeau's most poignant perspective on the current and future position of corporate diversity in America comes from his nearly 10-year run as an American Express vice president in the 1980s. "I was the only black executive in many meetings," recalls Rougeau, now an attorney with Arent Fox in Washington, D.C. "I went through a lot of things that hopefully most executives won't go through, and I had to deal with a lot of problems as one of the only black executives."
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