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First Black Female CPA in N.Y. Celebrates 50 Years in Profession By
Kate Prouty Bernadine Coles Gines was certified in 1954, embarking on what would not prove to be the easiest career path for a black woman at that time. Even after she moved to New York to get the M.B.A. that Virginia would not allow her, she, like all black men and women trying to enter the field then, was met with resistance. “I sent letter after letter from the YWCA in Harlem, where I lived, but not one person replied,” Gines said. “When I got married and moved to Queens, I got a few more responses with that address.” “I think I took them by surprise,” she said of the two partners at the first firm to answer her letter of application. After “some hesitation,” they eventually hired Gines to join their small business in the Flatiron Building. Although Gines found the discrimination against her race and gender “very sad,” she was determined to become a CPA. An accounting professor of hers at Virginia State College encouraged her to get her master’s at New York University, where he had gone, and then go for her license. “I had an M.B.A. from NYU.…I thought I would get a job right away,” Gines said. “I was naïve.” Most of Gines’ classmates in graduate school were white men. She said it never really bothered her, although she was envious they had such an easy time finding work with firms, three years of which was required to get your license then. Gines was only offered bookkeeping work. As difficult as her job search was, she knew it would be only harder if she moved back to Virginia. As a bookkeeper at the New York Age, an African American newspaper, Gines said she learned about Lucas & Tucker, an African American CPA firm in Manhattan. Her hope deflated when she learned they didn’t hire women. Feeling as if she had not one but two strikes against her, Gines nonetheless persevered. When, after two years of rejection, a CPA firm with a predominantly white Jewish clientele hired Gines, she said she was impressed to be met with such “courtesy and respect.” One of the firm’s partners felt the need to send a letter to all of his clients to notify them of their new hire. The one client with objections was quickly dropped. The firm’s other partner conducted business as usual, taking Gines on client visits as he would any employee. “If their clients had any problems with me being there,” Gines said, “they never showed it.” As if one trailblazer in the family wasn’t enough, Gines’ sister, Ruth Coles Harris, also migrated north from Virginia to earn her M.B.A. at NYU. She wound up meeting the three-year work requirement by teaching accounting at Virginia Union University School of Business. Harris got her license in 1963, becoming the first black female CPA in Virginia. Guess being a pioneer runs in the family. Then and Now Bert N. Mitchell, managing partner with Mitchell & Titus, LLP, in Manhattan and a past Society president, echoes Gines’ frustration with trying to find work in the ’60s. He says comparing the opportunities offered to African Americans at the time he became the 100th black CPA in the U.S. in 1965, to when he became Society president twenty-two years later in 1987, is “like comparing night and day.” Gines and Mitchell agree that while African Americans are better represented in the profession today, a lot of work still needs to be done to achieve equality. “Firms have to continue to take a proactive attitude in recruiting and advancing minorities,” Mitchell said. “It can’t just be left to chance.” Gines feels there was a surge of proactive minority recruiting in the 1970s, but that it’s tapered off in the past twenty years. Theresa A. Hammond’s book A White-Collar Profession (University of North Carolina Press, 2002), which researches Gines, Mitchell and their peers, reports that African Americans represented only 0.1 percent of the accounting profession in 1960, and still only represented between 0.75 and 0.99 percent in 1997. Hammond, Ph.D., is chair of the accounting department and Ernst & Young Research Fellow in Diversity Studies at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Mitchell suggests that more blacks need to acquire leadership roles in firms and professional organizations, like the Society, the AICPA and the New York State Board for Public Accountancy, on which he became the first African American to serve in 1974. “It would demonstrate that the barriers are being removed,” Mitchell said. “It’s happening more and more, but there’s still a long road ahead.” Because minorities have historically been met with resistance when entering and trying to advance in accounting, the Society has developed support resources, like the Advancement within the Profession Committee (formerly the Diversity in the Profession Committee). “Our committee’s focus is to learn from human resources professionals what issues different firms and industries have in regards to people, minority or not, trying to advance in the profession,” said Margery Gladston, CPA, Gibgot Willenbacher & Co., and chair of the committee. “I think the workplace is changing, and it’s not exclusively minorities who need help advancing,” Gladston added. “It’s women, and single fathers and young CPAs, too.” The committee provides mentors for Society members, often young CPAs, who feel they could benefit from the advice of those already established in the profession. Focusing on the next generation is an important place to start to ensure that minority students continue to choose accounting as a profession. The Society’s Career Opportunities in the Accounting Profession (COAP) program does just that, encouraging minority high school students to pursue accounting with summer workshops and internships across the state. Gines, who has resigned as a member of the Society, said she was happy to know such an initiative exists today. |
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