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Recently in Salon Media

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"Imagine," marvels a narrator. "Imagine if you could harness all the creative energy here."

As the music swells and builds, two African-American boys chase butterflies in a golden field. A bookish young scholar in dreadlocks rests his chin in his hand.

"Imagine," breathes the narrator. "Imagine if you could capture all the wisdom."

Cut to a tight close-up of a wise old granny, nodding her head in gratified agreement.

"Imagine if you could feel all the spirit. Imagine if you could touch all the enthusiasm and all the hope."

More shots of folksy shopkeepers, salt-of-the-earth grandparents and children gamboling in fountains. A tiny girl pirouettes in an angel costume, wings outstretched, her plump face transported by joy.

"The world is full of energy," concludes the narrator. "And Texaco is committed to finding it wherever it occurs -- to build a brighter future for all of us."

Yes, you heard right -- Texaco. Having weathered boycotts, lawsuits and a $115 million discrimination settlement in the wake of a top executive's comment about "black jelly beans," the beleaguered oil giant is now keen to demonstrate that it views African-Americans as a precious energy resource. So in January of this year, Texaco hired an African-American advertising agency, the New York-based Chisholm-Mingo Group, to create a campaign that would reposition the company as a citadel of tolerance. In addition to the "Imagine" spot, which depicts upbeat scenes of bourgeois striving, Chisholm-Mingo has also produced an ad called "New Beginnings," in which a cherubic African-American boy guides his kite through the clouds. "New beginnings," croons a narrator. "They can be exciting. And frightening. Here at Texaco, a new beginning is bringing renewed energy to the way we do business."

Now airing nationwide, the ads are meant to "establish the fact that there has been change within the company," says Mark Miller, Texaco's senior director of corporate advertising. "We are reaching out to the African-American community....We are opening a door and extending our hand. We're saying, 'Here's what we're about. Now we'd like to sit down and talk and understand and listen.'"

They're not the only ones. The Denny's restaurant chain, still reeling from its own racial scandal, has also turned to Chisholm-Mingo for deliverance. Five years ago, you'll recall, a group of African-American Secret Service agents seethed as they waited more than an hour for breakfast at Denny's, while their white counterparts, who had arrived around the same time, feasted on seconds and thirds at a table nearby. The incident triggered protests, a cascade of scornful publicity and a massive class-action suit involving thousands of claimants. Though Denny's has since overhauled itself from top to bottom -- replacing its CEO, hiring new minority vendors, setting up role-playing exercises meant to simulate the pain of exclusion -- many African-Americans, it seems, haven't forgiven. "The problem was the perpetuation of Denny's as the icon of discrimination," says Jon Jameson, senior marketing director at the Advantica Restaurant chain, parent company of Denny's. "It was time to do something bold."

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