Autobiography of Dr. Edward Irons

Edward Irons

Description

Only by Grace chronicles the life and achievements of Dr. Edward Irons, whose accomplishments are a testament to the heights one can reach through faith, commitment, and true dedication.Dr. Irons was recruited by Howard University in Washington D.C., to organize a business school. With the help of students and faculty, the business school came to fruition in 1970. He organized the first full program of the National Bankers Association, serving as its First Executive Director, and with the help of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, president of Operation Push, he launched a $100-million Bank Deposit Development Program for minority banks. During that time, Jesse Jackson approached Jim Roche, chairman of General Motors Corporation, and vehemently requested that GMC begin granting automobile franchises to African Americans, which was a historical move. Consequently, automobile franchises became the largest segment of minority business in the U.S. in the years that followed.After receiving his doctorate, he vowed to return to the South and 'give back,' rejecting a number of major corporate offers including the Mead Corporation, a multinational paper manufacturer which, at that time, had fifteen subsidiaries around the world. Dr. Irons also declined an offer from Chase Manhattan Bank.Another significant challenge for him was his acceptance of the deanship of the School of Business at Clark Atlanta University. In this position he was charged with the responsibility of securing the accreditation for both the graduate and undergraduate schools, with extremely limited resources. Had he not been successful, the graduate school would have lost its twenty-one-year accreditation. By the grace of God and, perhaps, given the fact that he was a member of the board of the accrediting agency, his quest for accreditation was successful. Following an illustrious twenty-four-year tenure, he retired from the deanship, exhausted. He was then approached by Dr. Thomas Cole, Jr., president of the university, and asked to stay on as Distinguished Professor of Finance/Entrepreneurship, a position which he held for fifteen years prior to his retirement.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Spirit Reign Communication
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781940002545
• Langue: English

Extrait

ONLY BY GRACE
BY
DR. EDWARD IRONS
Copyright 2014 Dr Edward Irons.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover: Daryl Anderson, Sr.
Interior Page design layout: Ornan Anthony of OA. Blueprints, LLC
Editor: Springhawk Publications, LLC
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-940002-53-8 (HB)
ISBN: 978-1-940002-54-5 (ePUB)
ISBN: 978-1-940002-55-2 (ePDF)
C ONTENTS
Dedication
Foreword
Chapter 1: The Ghetto: The Small Town Way
Chapter 2: In Defense of My Country
Chapter 3: Sitting-in Before Sitting-in was in
Chapter 4: Education on My Terms
Chapter 5: My First Job Out of College and Beyond
Chapter 6: Hospital Administration Studies
Chapter 7: A Non-Politician Takes a Political Jo
Chapter 8: The Consolidated State Institutions Experience
Chapter 9: Somebody Upstairs Stepped into My Life Again
Chapter 10: The Struggle for Dignity Comes to Tallahassee
Chapter 11: A Country Boy Goes to Harvard
Chapter 12: My Career Options
Chapter 13: Teaching, Publishing and Organizing a Bank
Chapter 14: Washington Calls
Chapter 15: Howard University Calls: To Create a Business School
Chapter 16: A Prestigious Professorship
Chapter 17: Our Daughter Defies Death
Chapter 18: The Reluctant Banking Commissioner.
Chapter 19: Atlanta Beckons Again
Chapter 20: Lazarus Wasn t the Only One
Epilogue
DEDICATION
I dedicate this book to my wife, Dr. Joyce Irons, and to my five children: Trisha Lynn, Eddie Jr., Tamara Joy, Brigitte Killings, and Tony Morrow; to my eleven grandchildren and to my two great-grandchildren.
The dedication flows from my belief that one s family is one s greatest asset, irrespective of any material wealth one may possess.
Because of the challenges and blessings that flowed from the Grace of God throughout my life, I have been fortunate to have a number of pearls of wisdom bestowed upon me.
It is therefore my hope that my children, their children and future generations of young people like them may be inspired to be their best as God intended them to be.
To reach your goals, sometimes you must sail against the wind and sometimes with the wind but never drift, nor lie at anchor.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes [abridged]
FOREWORD
By
KERMIT MAJETTE
IBM Management Executive (Retired) and Chairman of the Evangelism Committee, Ben Hill United Methodist Church, Atlanta, GA.
Dr. Edward Irons - Economist, Bank Organizer, Banking Commissioner for District of Columbia, Economic Consultant to the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa, founder, Howard University School of Business; Dean of the Business School, the Mills B. Lane Professor of Banking and Financial Institutions and Distinguished Professor Finance/Entrepreneurship, Clark Atlanta University.
A servant of the people spent more than 60 years as a university educator, as a business, government and educational executive, as a management and financial consultant to business, banks and to the U.S. and foreign governments, including the United Nations Commission on Africa. By most standards, Edward Irons would be considered a high achiever. He served on a number of corporate boards and numerous nonprofit organizations. He was appointed to boards and commissions by four Atlanta mayors, three Georgia Governors and one Oklahoma Governor. His parents never finished high school; however, he managed to earn a Ph.D. degree in Finance from Harvard University Graduate School of Business in 1960, before it was cool for black people to be admitted to Ivy League Schools. Dr. Irons grew up in a small, rigidly segregated, Oklahoma town with a population of 6,000, 500 of whom were black, where the Grand Cafe on Route 66, which ran through the heart of the town, featured a neon sign that read Nigger Chicken. Those of us who lived on the north side of town had to walk by that restaurant every day to get to school, recalls Irons. Like most proletariat families at that time, his parents did not finish high school, and they never made enough money to fund their four children s college education. The two boys managed to finish college but the two girls stopped at high school and got married. To provide some perspective to this situation, the average black male in the U.S., in 1940, (when Dr. Irons was seventeen) attended fewer than six years of school, and the average white male attended only nine years. Additionally, the black male median income was $537 per year and the average white male earned about $1,234, more than double the earnings of black men. The 1930s and early 1940s included the great depression years. During that time neither blacks nor whites were attending college in significant numbers.
In spite of those handicaps, Edward Irons went on to be a testament to the power of hope and the role of Grace against improbable odds, leading him to attend college, graduate, and eventually earn a Ph.D. degree in finance from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business. In the meantime, he spent more than 60 years as a university educator, a business, government and educational executive, as a management and financial consultant to business, banks and to the U.S. and foreign governments including the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa. He also served on several corporate boards and numerous nonprofit organizations.
Using the Sit-In strategy in 1945, almost two decades before Sit-Ins became a major weapon of the Civil Rights Movement, he successfully caused the Muskogee, Oklahoma Veterans Hospital to quit requiring black veterans to come in the back door of the cafeteria and sit and eat in a segregated section of the cafeteria.
In 1945, he rejected the actions of the Muskogee, Oklahoma Veterans officials who enrolled him at Kansas State College to become an auto mechanic without his knowledge. Instead, he chose to matriculate at Wilberforce University, a historic HBCU that was created in 1856, seven years before Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
He was valedictorian of his senior class in high school. With a burning desire to attend college, he spent the next two years trying to work and save enough money to make that possible. He finished undergraduate school in three years at the scholastic rank of cum laude with a degree in Business Administration. At the master s level, he was awarded the Sabra M. Hamilton Award for the Best Management Thesis in Hospital Administration, for the class of 1951, at the University of Minnesota. In spite of a less than hospitable environment among the students and faculty, he earned a doctorate degree in Finance from the Harvard University Graduate School of Business in two years when the average was three years above the master s degree.
After receiving his doctorate, he vowed to go back South and give back, rejecting a number of major corporate offers, including Chase Manhattan Bank, which, at that time, was the largest commercial bank in the country; and the Mead Corporation, a multinational paper manufacturer with 15 subsidiaries around the world at that time.
Dr. Irons became the principal organizer and first president of Riverside National Bank, Houston, Texas in 1964. This bank received the first National Charter to be granted to black Americans in the U.S., during the prior 40 years. In the process, a renaissance of minority bank ownership in the U.S. was initiated, which was his vision.
He was recruited by Howard University in Washington, D.C., to organize a business school at the University, and with the help of its students and faculty, brought it online in 1970. Howard was 102 years old and did not have a Business School although it was reputedly the most prestigious HBCU in the nation.
He organized the first full program of the National Bankers Association, serving as its first Executive Director and with the help of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, President of Operation Push, he launched a $100 million Bank Deposit Development Program for Minority Banks during which, Jesse Jackson importuned Jim Roche, Chairman of General Motors Corporation, to deposit the first $5 million dollars in minority banks, and begin granting black people automobile franchises for the first time in history. The upshot was that automobile franchises became the largest segment of minority business in this country in the following years.
Although the legislative framework was badly flawed, Dr. Irons was importuned to and reluctantly became the first Commissioner of Banking for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C.
Another of Dr. Irons most significant challenges occurred when he accepted the deanship of the School of Business of Clark Atlanta University. In this position, he was charged with securing the accreditation of both the graduate and undergraduate schools, with extremely limited resources. The graduate school was in danger of losing its 21-year accreditation had Dr. Irons been unsuccessful in his mission. The aftermath would have been devastating to faculty, students, the alumni, and the university in general. This was to be his last job before retirement. You can imagine the pressure I was under if I had failed at this endeavor, said Irons. By the grace of God and perhaps, given the fact that he was a member of the Board of the Accrediting Agency, his quest for accreditation was successful. Following an illustrious 24-year tenure, he retired from the deanship, exhausted. He was then importuned by Dr. Thomas W. Cole, Jr., president of the University, to stay on as Distinguished Professor of Finance/Entrepreneurship, a position which he held for fifteen years prior to his retirement.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees t