Broad shoulders give him the look of an NFL running back, but he holds a degree in electrical engineering, spent 10 years working for Florida Power and is making his own way now as a businessman.

He runs a small construction company that works mostly as a subcontractor for the Hillsborough County school district.

It's doing reasonably well, Leeks says, but its ultimate success is going to depend on more than his education and hard work. It's also going to require fairness.

``Do I feel like we're treated differently on projects?'' he asks. ``Yes.''

He speaks evenly, but the intensity of his gaze - fixed on the conference room wall - betrays his frustration.

It's not the discrimination of the past, when white-run companies handling major construction projects simply refused to hire minorities.

The obstacles today are more subtle and complex - special bidding requirements, for instance, or payment delays. But they can be just as damaging, driving someone out of business.

And there's always that question at the back of the mind: Are these things motivated by racism? Leeks and others like him can't ever be sure.

``You just don't know,'' says Cornell Moses, a black man whose maintenance and cleaning company gets both government and private contracts.

Moses remembers the time an employer accused someone who worked for Moses of stealing on the job, then didn't tell him when the real thief was identified. Moses thinks it was more than mere thoughtlessness, that it was a slight born of prejudice.

``Tampa is still a small town when it comes to contracting,'' Moses says. ``Very cliquey. It's not easy to break in. ... I've run into a lot of closed doors.''

So has Leeks. And he's hit a few lesser obstacles, too - put there unnecessarily, he believes, by white contractors. Twice, for example, they have delayed paying him for completed work, telling him that he would have to finish something else for them first.

The same thing happens to other minority-owned businesses, Leeks says. Intentional or not, targeted at minorities or not, it's the kind of inequity that can kill a young business, to say nothing of the emotional toll it can take.

``Do I have to beg for our money?'' Leeks asks. He's looking not so much for an answer as he is a fair shake.

Getting Started

After earning his degree from Florida State University in 1991 and going to work for Florida Power, Leeks spent so much time at construction sites that he decided it just made sense to get his general contracting license.

He started his company, Community Development Contractors, in 1992 and teamed up with the Rev. Abe Brown to build two houses for the city for low-income buyers.

``I hadn't done anything,'' Leeks says. ``I was brand new.''

What's more, his business was a sideline; Leeks was still working full-time for the power company.

But Brown, a respected figure in Tampa, vouched for Leeks with the city.

A bigger contractor also helped him, Leeks says, giving him a $15,000 advance so he could start his first school district job installing a parking lot and athletic field at Middleton High School. He needed the money to rent equipment and hire workers.

The school district's policy is to encourage contractors to hire minority firms by making whether they do so a basis for awarding bids. Leeks says he probably wouldn't have made it if it weren't for this and other equal opportunity programs.

Local governments spend hundreds of millions annually on everything from paper clips to construction. Hundreds of minority-owned companies register to get their business, says Gretchen Hunter of the local NAACP chapter, but overall ``the minority contractors are not getting their share.''

The city of Tampa awarded $152 million in contracts in 2003. About 9 percent, or $14 million, went to firms owned by women, blacks or Latinos.

Hillsborough County awarded contracts worth $133.4 million in fiscal 2001. Of this, less than 8 percent, about $10 million, went to companies owned by women, blacks or Latinos, says the most recent county assessment. It also shows that women and minorities run more than 25 percent of the companies seeking county work.

The school district has a better record. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People began working with it to get work for more minority-owned firms in 2002. Companies owned by minorities and women got about 22 percent of the $87 million in contracts the district awarded that fiscal year. The year before, they received 17 percent of $189 million.

Mounting Problems

Leeks' company has been awarded contracts on 15 school district projects over the past five years, he says. By 2001, he was making enough to quit his job with the power company. Usually he's hired by a bigger contractor for a portion of a job. With every one, he becomes more established.

Even without the racism shadow, a lot of other variables can weigh the minority-owned enterprise down. A staffing company and an equipment- rental firm have sued Leeks over late payments, for example - the result, Leeks says, of a bigger contractor paying him late.

Subcontractors often are small businesses, and if one doesn't get paid on time, it may be late paying everyone else. If this becomes chronic, workers go elsewhere and vendors won't extend credit.

Minority start-ups tend to be more vulnerable to this kind of disruption, Moses says. They're less likely to own property they can mortgage for working capital, less likely to have relatives or friends who can give them a loan or vouch for them at the bank.

Then, too, they may not be as adept in business dealings as the white-owned firms that hire them, or may lack the resources needed to retain lawyers to help them understand complicated contracts and convoluted demand letters.

Then, when trouble arises, they begin to feel overwhelmed and simply quit, Leeks says. Others find themselves drummed out by vendors who raise their prices.

And so - with racism or without it - the businesses struggle.

Yes, gains have been made, thanks in part to equal opportunity laws and regulations. But success does not come easily.

And always in the background, it seems, is that elusive, vexing worry that somehow, some way, at least part of the struggle is rooted in a color that's only skin deep.

Will Rodgers