Pepsi and Civil Rights

There is a book recently released, "The Real Pepsi Challenge", about Pepsi's relative embrace of black employees back in the 1940s. Pepsi's CEO, Walter S. Mack, Jr., was the person behind this. He hired 12 black executives as a way to in to the "Negro market" and an advantage against rival Coke. The NY Times article points out that Pepsi opened up three integrated military canteens during World War II while the U.S. governments canteens and the Army was still segregated. Despite perhaps questionable reasons for hiring these executives, the executives helped to prove "the reliability and competence" of the black worker and served as "role models and minor celebrities. Also, the coverage these men received from the black press helped to increase black political power.