MINORITY CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATIONS (MO-KAN)

REGION Vll - 1969 through 1985

Minority Contractors Missouri - Kansas, Inc. (MO-KAN) began in 1968 when fifteen Black self-employed contractors began meeting weekly to determine what they could do collectively to bring public awareness to the total discrimination by the majority construction industry of Metropolitan Kansas City Missouri against Black contractors and Blacks desiring employment. Theses many meetings, with different Blacks and a few majority leaders, encouraged these fifteen Blacks to organize, incorporate and select a spokesperson with knowledge in construction to represent them full time. Mr. Rayford Harris, Sr., a senior citizen minority contractor with 40 years of experience, had three sons who he trained in construction. Alexander Harris, the middle son, worked with his father off and on from 1940 to 1964. The minority contractors' president solicited and secured Rayford Harris, Sr. to get his son Alexander to assume the leadership responsibility for the newly incorporated Minority Contractors. The gained experienced that Alexander Harris had received from working with his father and his verbal ability to communicate with Blacks desiring to benefit themselves economically, ignited a desire citywide by Black self-employed contractors to become prime and specialty contractors in construction.

MO-KAN was afforded housing in the Black Economic Union (BEU) of Kansas City, Missouri. Mr. Curtis McClinton, the famous running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, was the Executive Director who hired Alexander Harris as the Construction Manager to assist the Minority Contractors Organization with its lack of financing. Harris' responsibility was to advance the cause and desires (inclusion and economic gain) of minority contractors in Metropolitan Kansas City Missouri respectively. The rapid membership growth of minority contractors provided that MO-KAN had to relocate to a larger office quarters with more meeting space to accommodate the demand.

During this period, the Black Business Community consisted of two populations served by two masters: Minority Businesses BEU Minority Contractors MO-KAN The difference in methodology and operations of BEU versus MO-KAN working on behalf of minorities citywide soon created a perception of a split Black community competing against each other. This perception became so wide spread that it began eradicating past gain concessions obtained via the civil rights movements past. Mr. Samuel J. Cornelius, Chairman of the Region VII Federal Regional Council and Regional Administrator of Office of Economic Opportunity, summoned both Curtis McClinton representing BEU and Alexander Harris representing MO-KAN to his downtown Federal Regional office wherein a corporative agreement was developed to advance minorities economically. Minority Contractors Missouri - Kansas, Inc. (MO-KAN) became a regional administrative organization in 1970. Mr. Samuel J. Cornelius, Chairman of the Region VII Federal Regional Council, charged the Board of Directors and its Executive Director, Alexander Harris, with full responsibility of implementing this collective agreement to the benefit of minorities throughout Region VII. MO-KAN had established itself some two years prior in the city of Kansas City, Missouri, as the leading advocate for identifying and upgrading minority contractors and obtaining construction jobs for them on prime construction projects respectively throughout the Metropolitan Kansas City, Missouri.

OEO (Mr. Samuel J. Cornelius) requested that MO-KAN develop a Region VII Minority Contractors concept that would cover the entire region of minority contractors in the cities of Kansas City, MO., St. Louis. MO., Omaha, Neb., Des Moines, Iowa and Wichita, Kansas. Mr. Cornelius, as regional administrator of Region VII Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), thereafter approved and contracted with MO-KAN to establish, set up and administrate the entire Region VII Minority Contractors concept thatbecame the most successful operation benefiting minority contractors and low-income employees in Region VII. The initial and thereafter success stories for minority contractors became the original concept that started the establishing of minority contractors associations nationwide. MO-KAN Kansas City, at the time of contract procurement with the Federal Region VI1 Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), had approximately 32 minority contractors with approximately 70 employees. The below details listed city-by-city will provide the numerical growth of minority contractors and their employees throughout Region VII cities.

YEAR ENDING 1975 Topeka, Kansas - Minority Contractors: 70 - Employees: 140

Wichita, Kansas - Minority Contractors: 55 - Employees: 195

Des Moines, Iowa - Minority Contractors: 61 - Employees: 130

Omaha, Nebraska - Minority Contractors: 250 - Employees: 165

St. Louis, Missouri - Minority Contractors: 175 - Employees: 410

Kansas City, Missouri - Minority Contractors: 108 - Employees: 520

Total - Minority Contractors: 336 - Employees: 1529

Year Ending 1975

CITY

Topeka, Kansas - Minority Contractors: ? - Employees: ?

Wichita, Kansas - Minority Contractors: ? - Employees: ?

Des Moines, Iowa - Minority Contractors: ? - Employees: ?

Omaha, Nebraska - Minority Contractors: ? - Employees: ?

St. Louis, Missouri - Minority Contractors: ? - Employees: ?

Kansas City, Missouri - Minority Contractors: ? - Employees: ?

Total - Minority Contractors: ? - Employees: ?

Year Ending 1984

CITY

Topeka, Kansas - Minority Contractors: 210 - Employees: 950

Wichita, Kansas - Minority Contractors: " - Employees: "

Des Moines, Iowa - Minority Contractors: 62 - Employees: 440

Omaha, Nebraska - Minority Contractors: 110 - Employees: 550

St. Louis, Missouri - Minority Contractors: 300 - Employees: 1500

Kansas City, Missouri - Minority Contractors: 230 - Employees: 1200

Total - Minority Contractors: 918 - Employees: 4740

Average gross revenue for all Region VII Minority Contractors amounted to approximately $900 million annually. This revenue stream has diminished over the 15 years from 1985 to 2000 in proportion with the increased population since 1985 of minority contractors in Region VII. This regress can also be attributed to the inability of the minority contractors' populace of Region VII not receiving continued awareness of the massive changes occurring in the construction industry. Without construction awareness along with the lack of continued organize operational leadership provided up to 1985 by the technical support of MO-KAN, Inc., the progressive growth of individual minority contractors has regressed to the prior 1970 era.

For more information please contact: National Association of Construction Contractors Cooperation