He passed them on to promising(!) applicants. That means he was substituting his judgement of applicants' skills for those applicants' interviewers. Assuming (

He passed them on to promising(!) applicants. That means he was substituting his judgement of applicants' skills for those applicants' interviewers. Assuming (somewhat fairly) that racism was a factor in IBM's hiring decisions at the time, it's reasonable to believe his judgement to be better. Since he would never have a chance to influence more than a small fraction of IBM's many hires, any "reverse racism" he might exhibit in his judgement would still fall short of tipping the balance. And, of course, several factors would moderate any pro-black bias: he has a clear interest to only promote competent candidates able to change people's minds. The candidates would still need to be able to convince their interviewers, etc.