NCRC President and CEO Jesse Van Tol presents The William Proxmire Award to Robert Dickerson, Executive Director of the Birmingham Business Resource Center at the 2025 Just Economy Conference, March 27,2005 in Washington, DC.
Jesse Van Tol, President and CEO, NCRC
Robert (Bob) Dickerson, Executive Director, Birmingham Business Resource Center
Transcript:
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Van Tol
Leadership has been most essential throughout my time in this movement. There’s a reason we don’t give out this award every year. The William Proxmire Lifetime Achievement Award is not a box to tick off on our calendar. In case you don’t recognize that name; William Proxmire was the driving force behind passing the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. It had been more than a decade since the more famous breakthroughs of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act, but still, nobody had found an effective way to get the same financial institutions that had made money from redlining to become part of the solution. To spend their capital to repair the harm that had been done for decades. William Proxmire made that happen. Progress is slow sometimes, but its day will always come, as long as there are people like Bill Proxmire and people like all of you in this room tonight determined to make that happen. So that’s why we named it the William Proxmire Lifetime Achievement Award. It’s a special acknowledgement earned through special work.
They know him as the unofficial mayor of Birmingham, Alabama. You know him as Bob Dickerson.
Bob and I have worked together in many different ways over many years. The city of Birmingham would look very different today without Bob and all of his hard working, creative and tireless partners across the region. And so would NCRC. I’m not saying we’d be worse or something, but we’d be definitely be different without Bob. But seriously, Bob has been our chairman more than once. I had to beg him to come back a second time when I made the brilliant decision to hire Katy Crosby onto the executive staff. He’s been a thought partner. He’s been a hard driver to keep us on our toes, to expand our ambition, but never lose track of our roots. I want to tell you that without Bob, Bob was chair during a very important moment in NCRC history, and that’s the moment of the transition from our founding CEO, John Taylor to my leadership and well, I like to tell you that that I had something to do with that truly, Bob’s leadership during that time ensured that we remain strong. Many organizations when they go through a transition from a founding CEO, do not survive. Certainly do not remain as strong as we have remained. And it is thanks to Bob’s leadership above all else that that is the case. So I want to welcome Bob up to the stage, certainly the most effective chairman in our history, a leader in Birmingham and nationally. Bob Dickerson!
Dickerson
Wow, so I wasn’t going to have a speech. And then I changed my mind.
Well, first of all, thank you, Jesse, thank you. Those are kind words, and I just hope that nobody told Mayor Woodfin, who’s running for re election, that I’m the unofficial mayor so keep that a secret. I don’t want to create any misgivings about my political ambition, because I certainly don’t have any. And let me also announce that I’m not resigning from the board.
All right, okay, thank you. But, but, but just moving over once again to allow new leadership to take place. And I think that’s very important that most of us do that, because Steve and Bernice in 1985, I was not in my 20s, so keep that in mind.
I’m not going to be long, but I would, I would really be remiss if I didn’t think about the folks I’ve served with, the board members of NCRC, do a tremendous job, do a lot of work, and you should recognize and applaud all of them. So thank you, board members.
You know, I think particularly about some that I found on the board, some of which are still on the board. Charles Harris, Jean Ishman, Moises Loza. Matt Lee and Bethany Sanchez were on the board when I joined the board, so they get a special round of applause. I guess all the other board members. And I may have left somebody out, it’s bad when you start calling names. So if I did, I know Bethany is going to correct me. But I also think about some of the folks and Irvin Henderson, oh, wow, I gotta leave him out. He’s not around. Where’s Irvin? Irvin actually was a special friend. I remember in Milwaukee, Bethany, Irv pulled me to the side to tell me just how NCRC worked. He’s probably done that to a number of you, but he was quick to let me know that no matter what other boards I’ve been on, that this one operated differently, because we are a coalition. And he feels and felt then and feels now that that was very important. But also think of three board members who have gone on, the man who recommended me for this board is Albert Jones. Some of you remember Elbert, quiet, soft spoken, a giant of a man who was from Alabama, lived in Florida, and he recruited me to the NCRC board. And I really appreciate him for doing that. And then my two, I will call them big sisters. They were a little they were authoritative. Let you know where they stood at all times. And that was Gail Berts and Marva Smith Battle Bay and and so when I was first groomed to be chair and then to become chair. The second time, it was Marva and it was Gail that made that happen. And so, you know, we I think about them a lot, especially at times like this. So I want to just say this and thanking people who have played a role in, I guess, getting me to a position to be standing here, and I’m very proud to be receiving this award. So I think about my board members, my colleagues, you know, co workers that allowed me to spend time working for NCRC and not necessarily for the Birmingham Business Resource Center. You know my wife, Marquita, who has also given me encouragement and become a partner. But I really think about my parents, who actually epitomized servant leadership. So so I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama during the 50s and 60s. So you know whether you were alive, and if you study history, you know those were turbulent times, especially in the south, and to see my parents who were civic-minded, and being civic-minded means you care about other people and you care about your community. So I grew up in a house with folks who cared, and who not only cared, but they did stuff. I mean, they they organized, and they went to meetings, and they they championed causes, and they wanted to make sure the streets got paved and the garbage got picked up, and police protection was there. I saw this as a kid. I I don’t know that they knew that they were grooming me, but they were. And I remember the the Scripture Matthew 2311 says, who will be great among among you? Let him be your servant. I, I eulogized my dad with that scripture. My mother’s still living. She’s 95 but I’ll tell this quick story, and then I’m gonna take my seat. So so when we were kids, I guess seven or eight years old, my mother was 30-31, she became president of the Roosevelt Civic League. Now she’s president, and most of the people in Civic League are twice her age. They could be her parents, but she’s president. And so my brother, my sister and I had to go to Civic League meeting. So that was, you know, because there was no babysitter, so we had to go to Civic League meeting. And while we’re at Civic League meeting, my mother gave you instructions, and she expected you to follow them. Our instructions were to sit down and be still and be quiet. Sit down, be still, be quiet. And it’s amazing. If you’re still and quiet, you learn stuff, and you learn stuff, and so you know, sitting there and being quiet and being still, I learned how to conduct meetings because I saw that happening. But But beyond that, I learned and saw firsthand the commitment and the compassion that she had for community, and that even though I don’t think she was trying to do it, I think that that instilled something in me that you know, allowed me to serve organizations like NCRC and other boards, and and really, I give her all the credit in the world for making us go to those meetings, whether we wanted to or not, making us be still, be quiet and learn what servant leadership is all about. So thank you all so much. Thank you. NCRC, thank you, Jesse.
