The Phoenix Companies

Now let me go back to undergraduate school at Howard [University, Washington, D.C.]. You graduated from Howard--$$Nineteen sixty-six [1966].$$Okay. Okay. And, and what--what influenced you to become a lawyer?$$Well I was, well as I told you the, the assassination of President [John Fitzgerald] Kennedy led me to the first thought and the fact that [President] Lyndon [Baines] Johnson was gonna become president. Of course, as it turned out he was a great president for African American people, and, and, and our interests. But just the, the sense of, I'd always been focused on issues of social justice and, and during that time at Howard, you know, not only were the Civil Rights Movement going on and gaining momentum but the war in Vietnam [Vietnam War] was raging. I became very involved in the student government and at the, my senior year ended up becoming president of the student body and so very involved in social related issues. And I also had the opportunity to work for the late Senator Thomas [J.] Dodd, Senator Chris Dodd's father, while I was at Howard as a research assistant. And that exposed me to the world of the United States Senate and that was an extraordinary experience. So all of those, all of those experiences and the environment in which I found myself led me to, to the law.$You eventually became involved with the National Council for Christians and Jews [sic. National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ)] and did, when, when did you first become involved with that organization?$$Well I was, ended up heading up the Aetna Foundation for several years and in 1992 I decided that I wanted to go back to practicing law. I had been at Aetna [Life Insurance Company; Aetna Inc., Hartford, Connecticut] for fifteen years all told, and in that particular part of my journey with Aetna and, and, and just wanted a different environment, wanted out of the corporate environment at the time. And my partners at Robinson & Cole [LLP, Hartford, Connecticut] invited me to return home. And so I did and that's where I thought I was going to be, I had become chairman of the new foundation in the Hartford [Connecticut] area focused on children's issues called the Children's Fund [of Connecticut]. And so that's what I thought I was going to do, y'know go back to having a corporate and, and community practice. And, and then in ninety--late '93 [1993], I received a call from a headhunter in Chicago [Illinois] it was just before Thanksgiving weekend. And she said "I have talked to a number of people around the country and your name keeps coming up as the person that oughta become the next president of the National Conference [for Community and Justice]." Which it had, what it had become to be called simply the National Conference founded as the National Conference of Christians and Jews. And, "Would you be interested? It's an old human relations organization founded in 1927 and, and it's got some sixty regional offices in thirty some odd states around the country and, and oh, by the way it's headquartered in New York City [New York, New York]." And I said, I said, "You must be kidding to think that I would leave my beloved Connecticut Valley to go down and work in New York City." I said, "I like New York but I'm not going down to work and live there." And I said, "But send me some information and I will try to find you an appropriate candidate." And so she did and at some point over the Thanksgiving weekend I opened it up and what I opened up was the 1992 annual report. And while I had known of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, we had a very active regional office here in Connecticut and led by some very prominent old friends of mine that I knew, I didn't even know what they did but I figured, you know, Christians and Jews are getting together it must be a good organization and, and that's how I viewed it. Well I opened up this 1992 annual report, on the inside cover was the mission statement and the mission statement said, "And this National Conference, founders of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in 1927 as a human relations organization dedicated to fighting bias and bigotry and racism among all people and promoting understanding and respect among all people through advocacy, conflict, resolution, and education." I said, "No, this can't be what this organization is about. How could this be what its mission is?" Well that mission spoke to me primarily because all of my life I've always been about trying to build community across all of the divides, the race, ethnicity, culture, and, and faith. And, and in a quiet moment I said to myself, Sandy Cloud [HistoryMaker Sanford Cloud, Jr.] you oughta take your experience in the law and in public life and the corporate world and theological education and community building and go down to New York and, and focus on advancing this mission. And so Diane [Brown Cloud] and I had a conversation about all of that and she said, "You do what your, where your heart wants to take you." And so I ended up going down to New York eleven years ago in '94 [1994] and extraordinary run, I just retired from NCCJ at the end of December. And it was an extraordinary journey for me and hope I did some good that was '94 [1994] to, to '04 [2004], '94 [1994].$$Okay.$$--to '04 [2004].