As protests spread across the nation in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in May, scores of corporations voiced support and, in some cases, promised changes to hiring practices or donations to organizations working to improve equity and fight injustice.
These pledges were a marked change from the relative quiet of corporate America in the aftermath of earlier high-profile police killings of Black people. The tech industry in particular, which has struggled to diversify its ranks, was among the most vocal.
Sherrell Dorsey, a journalist and technology entrepreneur who found a door into the industry through a 24-year-old Seattle program with roots in the Central District, wanted to know whether corporations were backing up their rhetoric with meaningful actions.
As founder and editor of The Plug, a 4-year-old media company covering technology and innovations from a Black perspective, Dorsey gathered more than 200 corporate statements in a database and matched them with workforce demographic data, as well as any concrete pledges announced in the days and weeks that followed.