The past year’s events, from the pandemic to protests, offered a lesson that Black Americans still struggle decades after the Civil Rights movement. One potential way forward is increasing the number of minorities in leadership roles at contracting businesses.
For Maliek Carrington, owner of Affordable Maintenance Services in Fort Mill, South Carolina, a good education in the trades has helped him overcome the prejudices he said exist everywhere. Since he started teaching HVAC, he’s seen young Black men and women reap the rewards of learning a trade. Recently, a woman who worked at a restaurant for $12 an hour when she started her classes called Carrington and said, “Now I’ve got a comma in my paycheck.”