GMSDC Announces Honorable Roger Bruce as 2024 Blue Legend Award Recipient

The Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council (GMSDC) is proud to announce that the Honorable Roger Bruce will be the 2024 recipient of the Blue Legend Award, the top individual honor at the Council’s annual Spirit of Alliance Awards (SOA). This year’s SOA gala – scheduled for Wednesday, August 28^th – will be a luncheon presentation, hosted by the Coca-Cola Company at its world headquarters in Midtown. For 42 years now, the Spirit of Alliance event has celebrated the best and brightest in supplier diversity and minority business development, by recognizing the corporations, minority businesses, buyers, executives and leaders who set the standard for inclusive procurement in Georgia. The Blue Legend honors a trailblazer in supplier diversity who has overcome tremendous obstacles and persevered in pursuing economic equity in our Great State. Roger Bruce is a tireless warrior who is more than deserving of this recognition.

Unlike the other awards at the Spirit of Alliance, all of which spotlight top performance in the current year, the Blue Legend stands apart by honoring a lifetime of dedication, achievement, consistency and innovation. Mr. Bruce, who represents Georgia’s 61^st District in the State Legislature, has served parts of Douglas County, Fulton County, Cobb County, Atlanta and South Fulton for 21 years, having first taken office in 2003. His district boundaries may have changed a bit over the years due to population shifts and legislative redistricting, but Rep. Bruce’s firm  commitment to support the citizens he serves has been unwavering. He is a champion who fights for things that are important to everyday people – health care, education, civil rights, criminal justice reform, voting rights, protecting vulnerable populations and economic development, with a particular emphasis on cultures and communities that have been traditionally underserved. 

Among Rep. Bruce’s most ardent passions is supplier diversity, a powerful engine of economic development and a proven catalyst of economic equity. He has authored and co-authored many bills over his tenure addressing the lack of diversity among suppliers who do business with the State of Georgia. The stark disparity between the rapidly expanding minority population of the state – now around 48% of Georgia’s residents – and the minority participation percentage on state contracts – somewhere around 5% – is of particular interest to Rep. Bruce, and the source of multiple bills he has introduced under the Gold Dome.  Thanks to the efforts of Rep Bruce, other legislators, advocacy organizations like the GMSDC, and economic policy advisors in the nation’s Number 1 State for Business, Governor Kemp recently laid the foundation for a more robust supplier diversity initiative at the State, including the creation of a Supplier Diversity lead role within the primary procurement division of state government, the Department of Administrative Services.

A native of Harlem, New York, Rep. Bruce became the first member of his family to graduate from college, receiving a political science degree from Atlanta’s Morehouse College. He learned his craft as a statesman and honed his political skills at the knee of Atlanta’s iconic political leaders of the 1970s and 80s, including a college internship at the law firm headed up by Atlanta’s next Mayor, Maynard H. Jackson, Jr., himself a previous recipient of the Blue Legend Award. He joins a long list of distinguished leaders so honored, including Sam Nunn, Herman Russell, Congressman John Lewis, Bill Pickard and Atlanta Mayors Maynard Jackson and Kasim Reed. The GMSDC salutes you, Representative Bruce, and thanks you for your tireless efforts to level the economic playing field. We look forward to celebrating you on August 28^th. 

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