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NEWS | Feb. 7, 2019

City of Philadelphia's Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Speaks at NSWCPD's Dr. King Observance

By Keegan Rammel, NSWCPD Public Affairs NSWCPD

City of Philadelphia’s Chief of Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Nolan N. Atkinson Jr., spoke at Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWCPD)’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Observance event on Jan. 15.

Atkinson, who is the city’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer, recalled his trip to the 1963 March on Washington where King made the famous “I Have a Dream” speech, discussed what the Office of Diversity and Inclusion does, and addressed the challenges that Americans will likely face in the future.

NSWCPD’s Commanding Officer, Captain Francis Spencer III, welcomed Atkinson to the Command and discussed King’s life and the impact it has had on his own.

“My whole life King has just been increasing in stature; he has just been growing in the American conscious,” Spencer said, emphasizing King as an “ethical compass for all of us.” 

Atkinson recalled King’s powerful message that he heard first hand as a law student attending the 1963 March on Washington, but added he believes America still hasn’t achieved King’s dream yet.

“Fifty years after MLK’s death we are still fighting the same battles … They may look and sound different today, but they are the same at their core,” Atkinson said.

He discussed growing up in 1950s Bryn Mawr, Pa. and witnessing how poorly black Americans were treated in the unsegregated North.  He added, it wasn’t that different than how black Americans were treated under Jim Crow laws in the South.

He also remarked on watching King lead a march through Birmingham, Ala. that was met with police officers spraying firehoses at nonviolent protestors in the streets.

“In the ‘60s I was able to observe as an outsider what was going on in the South,” Atkinson said. “I watched what happened in Birmingham and walked away from these occurrences thinking ‘what can I do to add to this country’?”

Atkinson went into law with an interest in supporting any underrepresented minority. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Diversity Law Group whose mission is to foster participation of a more diverse group of lawyers in the Greater Philadelphia Area.

After 40 years of practicing law, Atkinson joined Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney’s cabinet as chief diversity and inclusion officer in 2016. Since Atkinson joined Mayor Kenney’s cabinet the city has published a yearly report that details the diversity of Philadelphia’s workforce.

“The Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s first responsibility is to make its workforce look like the people of Philadelphia,” Atkinson said. “Increasing diversity is not an easy task; it is not a fast task. You have to stay the course to see and make progress.”

Atkinson thinks that the push for diversity is more effective when it starts at the top of an organization and works its way down. He believes that while few Americans express explicit biases, the only way to achieve King’s dream of a unified, equal America is to deal with unconscious, implicit bias.  

“Bias is more sophisticated today than it was 50 years ago,” Atkinson said in explaining implicit bias, which according to him is the unconscious, automatic stereotyping that individuals need to actively work to overcome.

“It will be a challenge for years to come,” Atkinson said. “We’ve come a long way since 1963, but we still have a long way to go.”