While the increases are competitive with other major metropolitan areas, the figures still leave the city’s executive suites and boardrooms far short of reflecting Boston’s non-white population of 50 percent, a growth-rate largely spurred in the past five years by an influx of Asians and Hispanics to the area.

“Diversity is an issue of national importance that has special meaning here in Boston,” said Benaree Wiley, president of the Partnership. “Our community was previously considered unfriendly to professionals of color, but we have made great progress over recent decades.”

The ongoing battle for workplace diversity took on a partisan tone Saturday at a John F. Kennedy Library breakfast forum, where the Partnership released its “Race and Leadership Report” while providing a platform for a parade of Democratic politicos to praise their work and appeal for regime change in November.

From U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s videotaped salute to the keynote closer by U.S. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Tenn.), the message of the day was the critically important effort to bring change to the executive suite, including the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

“I think we all know we ain’t gonna get much of a partnership if we don’t change some things come November,” said the handsome Memphis congressman during his remarks at “The Changing Face of Boston” forum.

In response, the capacity crowd of Boston’s African-American business elite murmured like an amen choir.

Speaking just two days before the gavel went down to open the Democratic National Convention at the Fleet Center, Ford argued that the political party or boardroom with a diversity of faces was better equipped to deal with the business of the country or the business of a company.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, chair of the convention and one of the nation’s most visible Latino elected leaders, swung by the forum to tout this week’s Democratic gathering as the most diverse in party history.

“Over 43 percent of the delegates are people of color, and if you include women, it’s 53 percent,” said Richardson, who attended high school and college in the Boston area.

On the corporate side, a major utility affirmed the Partnership’s diversity mission by pledging its support of a new initiative aimed at attracting and retaining young professionals of color in Boston.

The KeySpan Student Retention Initiative, announced by the company chairman, will help expand the Partnership’s record of creating support and development networks for minority professionals by opening up the group’s resources to younger urban professionals and college students.

“Diversity is a KeySpan corporate value because it’s good business,” said Robert B. Catell. “Diversity is a corporate strength.”

Among other findings in the survey, the Partnership reported that 93 percent of respondents believed it more difficult to recruit professionals of color to Boston than to other cities.

While an overwhelming number of professionals of color from other areas hold a negative view of Boston, 53 percent of Hub respondents ranked their quality of life in the city as “very good.”

To illustrate Boston’s image nationally, Wiley cited an essay by Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson, who describes colleagues at the Newsday in New York holding last rites for him in a bar just before his move to the Hub.

However, according to Jackson, the lingering image of Boston as a hotbed of racial turmoil should not keep the city from trying to move forward.

“A favorite uncle of mine once told me that if you do not wake up optimistic, you might as well roll back over and stay in bed,” wrote Jackson.

“I’ve been called ‘nigger’ in every city I’ve lived in — Milwaukee, Kansas, New York, and here. So I don’t waste time deciding which city is more racist. The real question is doing your best to get somewhere, wherever you are.”

Citing the Partnership’s efforts to move forward, Wiley said the group has engaged more than 1,300 professionals of color at early, mid, and senior executive levels to make the city’s business leadership class better reflect its population.