Following Light Rail in the Valley, Harold Wright examines Sound Transit’s consistent exploitative and discriminatory practices of Black contractors and businesses in Nothing Has Changed over the past thirty years. Armed with official documents and personal experience, Wright exposes exactly where Black workers were let down, and where local officials can step in to protect this disenfranchised community.
For Light Rail in the Valley, I wrote this about Entrepreneur-Activist Harold Wright: ‘Only someone of his reach could write such a detailed account of how the largest public works project in the last 40 years largely left out the Black business community in the region.’ In this sequel to Light Rail in the Valley, Harold completes his detailed account demonstrating that nothing has changed: big dollars taxed; big light rail dollars spent; big dollar promises to MBEs/DBEs; Seattle-Tacoma Black contractors received only pennies, while the Seattle-Tacoma Black communities grow penniless. What happened in the recent past is still happening now. As Nothing Has Changed states, ‘the promise that was made to MBEs has never materialized.’ Yet, Wright does not leave us despairing; he points to where we should go from here (p. 28). Like a lay lawyer, Wright has now made the case for why Sound Transit breached its promises to Black and DBE contractors. With the reader as judge and jury, the question before us is whether readers will get governmental leaders to fix this quarter-century wrong.
Rev. Carl L. Livingston, Jr., senior pastor and construction attorney
Harold Wright, a friend of over 55 years, has again produced a great body of work, exposing Sound Transit’s long history of denying fair and equitable participation on all light rail projects, across all trades. This close review repeatedly shows this common practice denies access and growth for minority-owned businesses and its workers, and deprives communities of color equitable opportunities.
Harley Bird
‘Only a few black contractors were hired to work on Sound Transit’s Light Rail.’ Why? Author Harold Wright explains the reasons in Nothing Has Changed, a sequel to his book Light Rail in the Valley. He analyzes and evaluates Sound Transit’s failed commitment to local disadvantaged Black contractors. Supporting this position, he includes archival reports, authoritative signed documents, charts, and his professional contractual experience with Sound Transit’s policies and processes. Harold Wright exposes the economic disparity and injustices toward Black businesses and contractors. He calls for local officials and contractors to monitor and enforce written, agreed upon, and signed resolutions and policies.
Minnie Collins, professor emerita and author
I just finished reading a remarkable book entitled Nothing Has Changed written by Harold Wright, a prominent Black electrical contractor in the Seattle Metro area. Mr. Wright’s written insights and criticisms of Sound Transit’s light rail system and its discriminatory treatment of Black contractors and workers over its thirty-year history is nothing short of phenomenal. He fantastically details the many ways the Sound Transit system has discriminated against Black contractors and workers. Mr. Wright shows in this sequel an enormous amount of back-up to support his allegations. This is a must-read book.
Larry Gossett, chair, Seattle / Martin Luther King Jr. African American Reparations Committee
