A year ago, Juliette Williams Pryor received a call from a headhunter. U.S. Foodservice, a broad-line food distribution company with yearly revenues exceeding $18 billion, was in the market for a vice president and deputy general counsel at its Columbia, Md. office. The recruiter had been specifically instructed by the company’s general counsel to include a diverse set of candidates in the search. Pryor was impressed by the general counsel’s diversity approach, which was similar to her own—”Don’t earmark a slot for a person of color, but cast a broader net making sure that people from diverse backgrounds are included in the search process.”
The importance of inclusion is a lesson Pryor learned early on from politically active parents, a minister father and school-teacher mother. Far from her home in Newburgh, N.Y., Pryor further developed her views on the world as a 15-year-old exchange student to Brazil, where she gained a broader perspective on issues of racial diversity, both socially and politically, outside of the United States.
Back in upstate New York, Pryor dealt with an environment that was racially charged. Each autumn, during her junior high through high school years in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, race riots broke out among students. As a result, schools were closed and curfews were enforced. The town was struggling with concepts of tolerance, recalls Pryor. As she prepared for college, a well-intentioned high school guidance counselor said to her, “You’re smart for a black girl.”
In part, Newburgh’s racial climate was the reason Pryor attended Fisk University, Nashville’s historically black institution, where she served as student government president. According to Pryor, her parents felt that she needed a place where the academic focus was not overshadowed by concerns about how she was perceived based on race. At Fisk, Pryor dual majored in political science and Spanish, graduating with honors in 1986.
At Georgetown University Law Center, Pryor was once again in an academic atmosphere where African Americans were the minority, and issues of diversity came to the fore. While pursuing dual degrees in law and a Masters of Science in foreign service, Pryor served as national chairperson of the National Black Law Students Association during her last year before graduating in 1991.
Throughout her varied and successful years in the legal profession, Pryor has often been the only person of color, or one of very few, at that office.
“As an attorney advisor to the vice chairman of the U.S. International Trade Commission, I was the highest ranking African American in the agency,” says Pryor. “It was an awesome opportunity and responsibility. Because the vice chairman specifically sought to include people of color in her search process, I was able to compete for the position.”
Before joining U.S. Foodservice, Pryor served as general counsel of e.spire Communications. In that role, she took advantage of the opportunity to recruit and mentor a diverse group of attorneys. Following her tenure as general counsel, Pryor was counsel in the corporate restructuring group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP. As the only African American counsel in the DC office, Pryor found her work there rewarding, but ultimately the position at U.S. Foodservice was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
“I am proud to be a member of the most diverse department in our company,” says Pryor, an active member of United Food Service’s diversity committee. “There is a movement afoot here to develop a diverse employee base. This was an important factor in my decision to join the company. In addition to being the right thing to do, it’s just good business.”
Patrick Folliard is a freelance writer based in Silver Spring, Md.
From the May/June 2006 issue of Diversity & The Bar®