By Celeste Smith
cesmith@charlotteobserver.com

Inside the Historic Excelsior Club Wednesday evening, prominent civil rights attorney James Ferguson II stood surrounded by dozens of fellow black entrepreneurs.

Years back, he'd bought this club, preserving a longtime Charlotte hub of black social life and politics. But Ferguson wasn't there for a party.

Ferguson, 68, is heading a new coalition of businesspeople to do what he's done for the past four decades: spearhead a cause.

This time around, his focus is the Democratic National Convention - and economic inclusion for minorities when millions of dollars come to Charlotte.

"This is another aspect of what we've been fighting for all along," Ferguson said in an interview. "The economic frontier of the civil rights movement may be the final frontier."

To that end, his fledgling Carolina Regional Minority Partnership Coalition has begun to mobilize to get convention organizers to hire local minority-owned businesses for services, supplies and support. While members concede that a lot of their success will come down to good timing, having Ferguson's name attached to their efforts certainly doesn't hurt.

"Attorney Ferguson, he's going to go to bat for you," said Gregory Rankin, co-owner of a local T-shirt and apparel business. "He's going to make sure you get a fair shake."

As Ferguson puts it: "We're in a unique position. We've got more African-American entrepreneurs and vendors than ever before. It's only fair that we're included in a big way ..."

He and other coalition members say minority businesses have been left out of the big business action in other cities that have hosted the Democratic convention. They worry that could happen in Charlotte - if they don't speak up.

The Democratic National Committee has long faced criticism that it awards too little work to minorities. To counter that image, the committee announced this spring that of the $64 million in discretionary contracts the party awarded during the 2009-10 election cycle, $19 million went to minority-run companies.

But a very different view on Democratic Party spending also was released this spring. An analysis done for The Huffington Post website by the Center for Responsive Politics - a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that monitors political spending - showed Democratic campaign spending on firms with at least one African-American senior principal was about 1.5 percent of their total spending in 2010.

Dan Murrey, executive director of the Charlotte in 2012 host committee, said Ferguson's coalition and the committee share the same vision.

In fact, Murrey said, the convention contract with the DNC requires that the host committee focus on ventures owned by minorities, women and people with disabilities. He said the contract also requires the local committee to create a comprehensive directory of all Charlotte businesses that can benefit from work from the convention. The directory will be online soon, he said.

"Certainly the DNC and the host committee will use it," Murrey said. "We will encourage other entities doing functions around the convention to use it as well."

Murrey said the host committee also hired Robyn Hamilton of the Carolinas Minority Supplier Development Council as director of business outreach. Her expertise is in ensuring diversity in the vendor selection, and making sure the process is transparent, he said.

"We started long ago creating a plan to act on this. I'm quite hopeful (the coalition's) efforts will be complementary to ours," Murrey said.

Civil rights activist, phase 2

During his 44-year career, Ferguson made his name fighting tough causes - mostly in the realm of equal rights in schools, voting and the workplace. His firm argued for the litigants in the 1969 Swann case that desegregated Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools using busing. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that decision in 1971, clearing the way for busing nationwide.

The last time Ferguson was on center stage was 1999, when he argued unsuccessfully against an end to that court-ordered desegregation in CMS. Since then, he's kept a fairly low profile. He's still busy in his practice, he said, handling cases ranging from unemployment to medical malpractice to overseeing a lawyer training program in South Africa, something he helped establish in the 1980s.

Still, his reputation has endured, and his role as chairman will only help the grassroots group get noticed, said coalition member Damian Johnson.

"He's had his stakes in the community for quite some time," said Johnson, co-founder of the No Grease local chain of barber shops and head of the Urban Business Network, an advocacy group for small black-owned businesses.

"All the players involved in the convention will definitely take the coalition that much more serious when you have a person like him at the helm."

'Historic opportunity'

Ferguson said historic timing can work in their favor.

The convention will showcase the re-election campaign of the nation's first black president, in a city with its second black mayor, who has conveyed interest in small businesses. The four-day event also celebrates a political party where African-Americans have been seen as its base.

And Charlotte will be in the national and international spotlight, with others gauging where this Southern city stands on the issue of race.

"It's a unique opportunity, it's an historic opportunity," Ferguson said.

The convention, set for September 3-6, 2012, could bring as much as $200 million, according to the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority. Lots of businesses - from hotels to builders handling arena renovations, from souvenir-makers to florists - stand to benefit.

Still, coalition members suspect a battle. They started meeting in January, talking about the convention's business opportunities.

Ferguson is an entrepreneur, too. In 2006, he bought the Historic Excelsior Club. In 1989, he opened an assisted-living community called East Towne Manor with business partners Mel Watt, who represents North Carolina's 12th District in Congress, and former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt (Ferguson is no longer involved in the business venture).

Next steps

At the coalition meeting last week, members got down to details. They wanted specifics about bidding for contracts, the timeline, and about how to work together, or with larger firms, to win work.

Attorney Bartina Edwards sees potential work in reviewing contracts for firms doing business with the convention.

And while Gregory and Shari Rankin, owners of GQ T-shirts & Sports Apparel, see a market for their souvenirs, they were not surprised to hear there are "DNC 2012" gifts already out.

"We just want a slice of the pie," Shari Rankin said.

Pastry chef Sadruddin Abdullah, who runs a business called Dessert Specialists, wants to figure now how he can get work during the four-day event. There's talk that there could be up to 2,500 parties, he said.

But the former assistant professor at Johnson & Wales is just as interested in meeting people in the minority-business coalition and at the convention "who can be strong business partners ... long after the DNC."

There's no guarantee any of the coalition members will get convention work.

But proof that they are truly breaking through this economic barrier won't come until long after the DNC packs up and leaves, Ferguson said.

That's exactly why Ferguson has put himself back into the mix: "To make sure those doors are open as wide as they should be, and people are prepared."

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