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Abram Tells Bankers to Show Minorities There Are No Barriers Against Them

September 27, 1967
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An American Bankers Association workshop was told here today by a Jewish leader that the remedies required to encourage Jews and other minority group members to enters the banking field “go beyond compliance with laws against discrimination and beyond general policies of equal opportunity.”

Morris B. Abram, president of the American Jewish Committee, commended the 1,500 of the nation’s leading bankers “for squarely facing the ugly fact of racial, ethnic and religious discrimination that has been all too common in American industry,” but he also urged them to present to members of minority groups “convincing evidence that barriers to promotion do not exist.” George Champion, board chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, was moderator of the workshop on equal employment opportunity, held during the ABA annual convention which will end tomorrow.

“If banks wish to change the pattern of their management recruiting to include minority personnel, they will have to modify their passive attitudes,” Mr. Abrams told the bankers. “They will have to take active steps not only to bring their companies to the attention of these groups but also to present to them convincing evidence that barriers to promotion do not exist.”

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