The Marcus Graham Project started as a seed planted in the mind of its founder Lincoln Stephens.  As he prepared to graduate college from The University of Missouri-Columbia, one of his mentors Larry Powell suggested that he start a network of diverse professionals in the industry.  Stephens kept this in mind as he began his career and noticed that in the agencies that he worked for , he was one of the only African American males in the company (a common sentiment shared by many African American men in the advertising business).  In fact in the city of Dallas at the time, he noticed that he was actually one of the only African American male account executives that he knew of.  Another young man, Joshua Key, then an account executive at another agency met and said, “we need to start a group to bring more of us in the field.”

Upon leaving Dallas to Chicago, Stephens found a job with Carol H Williams, where he was truly inspired to bring this idea to life.  One day, during the summer of 2007, Lincoln spent a few hours writing out a vision for The Marcus Graham Project as a network.  This vision included the creation of an online social networking site to begin bringing people together.

In November 2008, after watching the successful election of our country’s first African American president, Stephens and several colleagues, including Larry Yarrell II, George Peters, Benny Walk and Jon Goff asked each other, what they will do  to create, a “lil bit of change” in our country.  (Photo above)  Our answer, was to get moving on our dreams. Stephens immediately quit his job in Chicago and moved back to Dallas to bring this idea to fruition.  Stephens began to garner community support to pilot the Bootcamp, Sound Bite and Go Fund programs.

The rest of the story is up to all of us to define.   Will we talk about diversity or will we act?  Will we invest time and fiscal resources to programs that seek to inspire change? Will we mentor? Will we speak up and out?  The Marcus Graham Project asks the same question to you, that we asked in 2008, what will you do to create at least a “lil bit of change.”