George Chavel, president and CEO of Sodexo North America, was just a child when Detroit descended into chaos in 1967 in what would become one of the deadliest and most destructive race riots in modern U.S. history.
Chavel’s father owned and operated a candy and tobacco wholesale distributorship in the heart of Detroit’s predominantly Black inner city where the violence erupted. At the conclusion of five days of rioting, 43 people had been killed, about 350 injured, 2,500 buildings looted or burned and more than 7,200 people arrested.
But Chavel said his father’s store stood unscathed. His father, whose family emigrated to this country from Greece, was a champion of diversity long before it was fashionableone of the few white business owners who didn’t abandon the inner city.
