Forest T. Harper is the current president and CEO of INROADS, Inc. On Oct. 10, the organization hosted its annual benefit reception for Hispanic Heritage Month. We talked to the CEO to learn more about INROADS and its impact on minority communities.
Why is INROADS important to you?
I come from a family that basically [lived in] public housing in South Florida, and we didn’t have access and opportunities to those things that will help accelerate and elevate people to get to their dreams. And when I was in corporate America at Pfizer, I got to see the work of INROADS. And once I saw that it reminded me of my lifestyle, my growing up, where somebody gave me access to opportunities. And when I got the access and those opportunities, I could accelerate. So, INROADS levels the playing field. It makes access and opportunity a lot more readily easier so that we can do the dreams we want to dream and be where we want to be.
Why do you feel like our communities, Black and Hispanic, have so many problems accessing these opportunities?
I think it’s very common knowledge that racism, differential treatment, and just the notion of who was privileged in our country have held back Hispanics for a long time. And so we’re still working on it. But if we put numbers to it, we simply see that basically of the 42K paid internships in a given year, Hispanics make less than 6%. Of those 42K students, Blacks make up less than 8%. So it’s an unlevel playing field.
How can people get involved or get their children involved at INROADS?
Well, it’s very simple. All they have to do is go to the website … They can find out about INROADS that easily … Most importantly, we are desperate to get rid of the disease in America called IDK. And IDK has been researched by the CDC and all kinds of government agencies. We still haven’t found a cure, except for what IDK stands for: I didn’t know. Our antidote is by word of mouth and to go to our website at www.inroads.org and once you go there, you can find that information on INROADS. Just call us up. We’ll call you back.
Please share an INROADS success story.
There’s so many success stories and everybody tries to put a meaning behind the word success. Well, success is in the eye and the arms of those who have impacted it. There’s a young lady who went to college at UC Davis in [California] … In the day, she went to school in California. At night, she had to travel three hours to go back across the border to [South America to] greet her family. And she did that for four years. And she participated in INROADS. Today, she’s an executive in corporate America.
