Movements emerge from moments. Oprah had her moment at the Golden Globes. A moment for the advertising, media and tech industry occurred last week during CES 2018 when the Jack Myers KnowledgeExchange hosted the inaugural Advancing Diversity Honors to advance the diversity and inclusion conversation within our industry. Honorees recognized for successfully activating change and inspiring others in the workplace included Unilever, Nielsen, IPG, Ad Council, EY, IAB Education Foundation iDiverse Initiative, Springboard Enterprises and Crowdfundingroadmap Inc. MediaVillage was a Title Partner, along with Disney|ABC, Google, Facebook, Oath and Ascential/MediaLink.
During the networking reception for the 300 industry notables who attended in a show of support for diversity and inclusion best practices, I had the good fortune to meet Cynthia Jones (pictured at right). Cynthia is General Manager Innovation Experiences at the Henry Ford Museum and shared an amazing story about Rosa Parks and her bus.
Mary Ellen Holden: What brought you to the Advancing Diversity Honors?
Cynthia Jones: I learned about the Advancing Diversity Honors from [MediaVillage Managing Editor] E.B. Moss, who I met on a monorail here at CES. We struck up a conversation about being the only two women on the crowded train car and the lack of gender diversity here at the show. The Henry Ford Museum is all about inclusion and diversity as well as American innovation rooted in technological innovations and social transformation. Seeing women like my sisters who are both engineers come up through STEM has taught me the importance of thinking about diversity and inclusion in everything I do.
Mary Ellen: What's one of the exhibits that's touched you the most at the Museum?
Cynthia: We acquired the actual Rosa Parks bus! This was a monumental task that required extensive research to verify that we had the actual bus. Before we brought it into the Museum it was completely unrestored. In fact, it had been used as a chicken coop and for target shooting.
Mary Ellen: How did you locate it?
Cynthia: We researched the bus and found it in a field in Alabama. We also tracked down records of the bus driver on the day of the incident. He had very specific written details regarding the bus he was driving that day. He also kept a scrapbook of every news clipping about the incident. We acquired his scrapbook and were able to match the vehicle identification number on the engine with his notes.
Mary Ellen: Where is it now?
Cynthia: It's on display in Dearborn, Michigan, in the Henry Ford Museum.