Primary tabs
Location
WASHINGTON (TEWire) — Reginald Bailey seemed to have done everything right. The 1995 business administration graduate of HBCU North Carolina A&T has never been in trouble with the law; he is a member of the prestigious Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity; he is a married father of two children and a business owner.
In fact, just five years ago, the now 40-year-old Bailey and his business partner, Walter Gray, were awarded multiple contracts that totaled more than $140 million over a course of four years. The contracts were for management of telecommunications in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bailey’s firm, Worldwide Network Services (WWNS), served as a subcontractor and teaming partner under DynCorp International, a nearly $3 billion-worth U.S. defense contractor.
Fast forward five years later, Bailey, of Southeastern Maryland, has nowhere near his former lifestyle. Like many other Americans, he has even been through periods of concern about his mortgage, his credit rating, and the education of his children, a boy and girl, ages 8 and 4.
How did Reginald Bailey lose so much in so little time? It was not the economy; it was not corruption on his part; it was not due to bad business decisions; nor was it due to excessive spending and greed, all reasons for which people typically lose thriving businesses.
So, how did Worldwide Network Services go down so quickly? According to a May 14, 2008 ruling from an all-White jury of eight people in the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Reginald Bailey lost his multi-million dollar company simply because he is Black.
Now emerging into the court of public opinion, the WWNS v. DynCorp-Cerberus case is viewed by some as a quintessential David and Goliath fight that has civil rights leaders seething.
Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, has also long advocated for justice in the case. “It’s a case of unfair treatment. It’s also a case of the government standing on the side at the time and not doing anything while one of its contractors treated an African-American business patently unfairly,” Morial said in a recent interview. “Light needs to be shed on it to show some of the trials and tribulations that African-American business owners face when doing business sometimes in the government.”
The National Urban League was among organizations that filed an amicus or “friend of the court” brief to side with WWNS in the case.
