The Evolution of The Consortium's Mission

By Elizabeth Macanufo 

August 2010

This Sunday, I sat outside my parent's home on Skinker with my son, watching St. Louisans enjoy the warm weather. I wondered if Sterling Schoen routinely walked past the house a half century earlier. Perhaps he strolled through the DeMun neighborhood in the spring of 1963, contemplating the prior year he spent in Chicago. He arrived in the Illinois city intending to study sociology and psychology. He returned to St. Louis inspired to help African American men earn an MBA and become leaders in corporate America.

In 1954 the Brown vs. Board of Education court case sparked the catalyst for Civil Rights Movement. Across the United States, African Americans assembled to protest again the establishment. Exercising civil disobedience, activists hoped to end segregation. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led this movement to truly emancipate African Americans for the first time since their ancestors served as slaves.

The year professor Schoen and his family spent in Chicago, approximately the mid-point of the Civil Riots movement, demonstrations took an aggressive turn. African Americans rioted against white policeman. Elsewhere in the United States, those fighting for civil rights engaged in acts of violence. The proximity to the physical struggles for freedom fully engaged Professor Schoen, leading him to envision The Consortium.

In the time between Dr. Schoen first conceptualized The Consortium and the first Consortium class stepped foot on campus, the civil rights movement progressed. Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize and President Johnson enacted the Civil Rights Act into law. The legislation extended voting rights and outlawed racial segregation in schools and in the workplace. By creating the "Consortium for Graduate Study in Business for Negros," Professor Schoen and his colleagues embodied the Civil Rights Movement by providing educational and professional opportunities for African American men.   

As voices of more disenfranchised populations rose, The Consortium expanded its mission to meet their needs.  

During the height of World War II, the National Park Service projects that 18 million women worked outside of the home, comprising one third of the American work force. When The Greatest Generation's men returned from the war, they sent Rosie the Riveter back into the domestic sphere, where she stayed for the next twenty years. 

In 1963, the same year that Professor Schoen laid the groundwork for The Consortium, females comprised just 34 percent of the American workforce, according to Black Enterprise. However, women sought out more options, seeking the opportunity for professional growth, in addition to raising a family.