Urban Bankers: A Place to Be Somebody

Charles Grace and Jerome Hicks were seated beside each other at a meeting that the president of Chase Manhattan Bank Delaware had called. Hicks and Grace were financial associates at Chase Manhattan and members of the Urban Bankers Coalition. As they listened to the president's speech, they were staggered to hear him say, "We need more people to become involved in our community enhancement programs--dedicated employees like Jerome Hicks and Charles Grace who helped Chase Manhattan be named bank of the year for two years straight." His sentence lay like an unexploded bomb between Hicks and Grace. They were aware that all eyes had turned toward them. They had already sensed that some of their colleagues and superiors were uncomfortable with the relationship they had developed with the president. Why did they feel as if this would be the last step over the edge? This case opens the door to a discussion of relationship building and the special challenges that minority employees sometimes face in building relationships.