LeRoy Bostic Jr., organizational expert and diversity advocate, has died at 78

LeRoy Edward Bostic Jr., 78, a longtime Bucks County resident, diversity and inclusion advocate, and organizational expert, died on Thursday, Aug. 17, as a result of early Lewy body dementia.

Known lovingly as Roy, Mr. Bostic was born in Trenton, N.J., and adopted by a Philadelphia couple in the 1940s.

Those parents were pioneers of sorts in education, according to family: LeRoy Bostic Sr., as one of the first Black students to graduate from West Chester University School of Pharmacy, and Clara Mae Jones, as the first Black female to graduate from Columbia University School of Education.

The Bostics regularly went out of their way to help Black students pay college tuition and host foreign exchange graduate students needing housing, a legacy LeRoy Bostic Jr. continued throughout his life.

When it was time for Mr. Bostic to begin his education, his parents enrolled him in the Miquon School and later at Friends’ Central, where he was one of the first Black students to attend.

As a child Mr. Bostic discovered a passion for music and taught himself how to play the drums. Soon, he was playing and singing in his father’s band, the Le Roy Bostic Mellow Aires. It was an experience that would later lead him to create and be part of many music groups, some even featured in a PBS documentary about the history of doo-wop.

According to his ex-wife, Anna Pogue Bostic, he could often be found recording his own voice to digitalize it in different choral music classifications — especially tenor, alto, and soprano — to create his own tunes.

In 1961, the family moved to Yeadon, where he graduated from Lansdowne Aldan High School. It was there that he met Anna, unaware she would become his partner for more than 50 years before they divorced.

“He was handsome, great sense of humor, and was especially kind,” said Anna, recalling how Mr. Bostic once got in trouble for taking money from his parents’ drawer. “They understood once they realized he did it to help buy food for his friends, whose parents kept the refrigerator locked.”

For Mr. Bostic, sharing and helping people was a driving force.

In 1967, he majored in psychology at Central State University. A year later, his career took off at Scott Paper Co., as part of the human resources department. From there, he worked for multiple companies in organization development, helping train psychology personnel in the U.S. Army, and ultimately landed an executive-level role at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in New York City, where he oversaw 16,000 employees nationally and internationally.

As his career progressed, Mr. Bostic made it a point to mentor young professionals, help them prepare for interviews, and find better career opportunities.

“He approached young people with respect, didn’t treat them like they didn’t know anything,” said Anna, whom he married in 1976. “He wanted them to walk away feeling like ‘this person is really interested in who I am and where I am going.’”

In 1978, the couple welcomed their first child, Joy. Two years later, another daughter, Kelly, completed the family, as Mr. Bostic worked on earning a master’s degree in organizational development from Antioch University.

As a father, he prioritized education and exposing his daughters to as many experiences as possible, like his parents had done for him.

“He … wanted them to experience everything they could experience from life,” Anna said.

Mr. Bostic completed the Advanced Program in Organizational Development at Columbia University and psychology studies at Howard University, helped facilitate workshops at the University of Buffalo’s Creative Problem Solving Institute, and gave guest lectures at the University of Pennsylvania.

By 1998, the racism he experienced as a Black man, and the sexism and inequalities he witnessed in corporate settings led him to create REB Consulting, providing diversity training and inclusion strategies for companies such as Pfizer, Aramark, Quest Diagnostics, Aegon, and NASA.

Mr. Bostic also cofounded a prison ministry and mentoring program for Philadelphia prisons, where he helped incarcerated people secure jobs after reentering society. He also served on the boards of the African American Museum in Philadelphia and the Arthur Ashe Tennis Foundation.

In addition to his ex-wife and daughters, Joy Bostic and Kelly Masterson, Mr. Bostic is survived by a grandson, Benjamin Hartgerink, and other relatives.

A funeral was held Aug. 20 and a celebration of life followed on Oct.20.

Donations are encouraged for Alzheimer’s research.