Former GM Liaison to Black Businesses Dies

Abraham Venable, General Motors Co.'s former executive director of urban affairs, died in Minnesota of congestive heart failure on Feb. 21, according to Bloomberg News. He was 82.

From 1971 to his retirement in 1990, Venable spearheaded GM's effort to do more business with minority-owned dealers, banks and suppliers, the news service notes. He also ran a GM unit that loaned money to minority-owned business.

Venable served as the company's eyes and ears in the African-American community in the years after Detroit's 1967 riots, a former colleague tells Bloomberg. He says Venable was able to get senior GM executives involved if race-relations trouble was brewing.

Venable came to GM from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, where he was director of the Office of Minority Business Enterprise.