
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 2, 1993                   TAG: 9307020024
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BALTIMORE                                LENGTH: Medium

DENNY'S PARENT VOWS FRANCHISES, JOBS FOR BLACKS NAACP PACT COVERS HARDEE'S,

The parent company of Denny's restaurants, which have been accused of discriminating against black customers, promised Thursday to generate $1 billion in minority business opportunities over seven years.

In an agreement signed with the NAACP, Jerry Richardson, chairman of Flagstar Corp., pledged a minority recruitment and training program to add 325 management positions by 2000 and create 53 new black-owned franchises by 1997.

Twelve percent of Flagstar's $800 million in food, paper and supplies would be bought from black-owned firms and 15 percent of the company's $12.5 million in annual professional services expenditures would be directed to blacks.

Flagstar, based in Spartanburg, S.C., also would appoint at least one black member to its board of directors by year's end. There are no minorities on the 10-member board now.

"We're hoping that this relationship between the NAACP and Flagstar will serve as a model for the rest of corporate America and the rest of the civil rights movement," said Benjamin Chavis Jr., executive director of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Richardson and NAACP representatives signed the agreement in Baltimore to cover 120,000 employees at Denny's, Hardee's, Quincy's Family Steakhouse, El Pollo Loco restaurants and the Canteen food and vending operation.

Later, they flew to North Carolina to sign a similar agreement for Richardson Sports, a company Richardson has formed to try to land a National Football League expansion franchise in Charlotte.

Denny's has been accused of turning away black customers, serving them more slowly or sometimes requesting payment in advance.

Six black Secret Service officers sued Denny's in May, saying the chain's restaurant in Annapolis, Md., violated their civil rights by serving white customers more quickly. Other complaints surfaced in California, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida.

Chavis said the agreement didn't come in response to the complaints and it wouldn't mean an automatic end to the litigation.

Richardson said he began negotiations with the NAACP in February 1992 after a trainee complained to him that he had not been treated fairly.

by CNB