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YOUR LINK TO AFRICAN AMERICAN BUSINESS OWNERS A MULTIPLE AWARD WINNING PUBLICATION
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$2.50 SEPTEMBER 2019
CBC Celebrates "Year of Return" 10 Trump to be Impeached 14 Teens Doing Business 32 Africa's Digital Boom 52 Build a Strong Branding Strategy 38 Holiday Shopping Starts on 115
Publisher's Message “History In The Making”
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ow that the process toward bringing Articles of Impeachment against the President of the United States has been initiated by the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (page 14), all citizens of the USA can take action Pubisher/Editor-In-Chief to keep the process moving forward. The Black Business News and the Black Business News Group join with organizations like the NAACP (page 66) in urging those who support the removal of this rouge president to petition their Representatives and their Senators to vote to accept the Articles of Impeachment. For surely, Donald J. Trump has violated the Oath of Office as set forth in the US Constitution, Article II, Section 1: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Earl “Skip” Cooper, II
The companion campaign that we all must rally for is registering our neighbors and our friends as voters and getting them to the polling sites on election day. Active Citizenship is what we are called to at this time. The exercise of the voting franchise is what we as a people have been striving for - by rebellion, marching, rioting, boycotting, striking, educating - for the 400 years we are commemorating this year. We cannot let down those who have struggled on our behalf.
Small Businesses Should Prepare Now for the Projected Recession
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dvisory articles are beginning to proliferate in the business magazines, print and online. It may be prudent to take heed and determine what you may need to do to see that your business has the best chance possible to survive an economic slowdown.
One tip that appears a lot in the aricles is getting a loan now while the economy is good, your business financial profile is strong and banks are still making loans. Having cash on hand will ease decision making when, and if, the economy begins to falter.
Small Businesses Should Prepare Now for the Coming of 5G Infrastructure, Too
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ne key aspect of prepping for the future is monitoring the advance of 5G capability across the nation and the world. One big thing that sets 5G apart from past “G”s is that those iterations have benefited mainly consumers. 5G’s most powerful technological improvements are geared toward businesses, public infrastructure and, in some cases, on devices that haven’t yet been invented. To not belabor or belittle the much used phrase "disruptive technology", the challenge is to be on the right side of the disruption. Use the coming advances in speed of communication, increase in connectivity to mobile and interior devices, and expanded bandwidth to your particular business advantage. • Work with existing regional delivery companies to add pick up and delivery services to your clothes cleaning and laundry business. Take the challenge out of "going to the cleaners." • Don't make your at-home and mobile workers come to the office for the Monday Morning planning meeting, have the African American-owned bakery or restaurant of your choice deliver breakfast (or lunch) to each home in time for the group video conference. • Invest in devices like the Google Jamboard (https:// gsuite.google.com/products/jamboard) to enhance meeting productivity, exchange capability and reach across time and space. Don't wait to be disrupted out of business. Learn about and then adapt technology to enhance and grow your business. In our Black Business News issues we work to provide our community with info on some of the happenings in technology. In this issue check out our regular "Take A Look" column on page 60 and "Resource Vault" on page 180. Then check out the articles on pages 19, 44, and 52. If there is
2 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
information you want or need. Let us know and we will do our best to cover those issues in the publication (mail@bbala.org).
Comemoration of the 400 year anniversary of the first enslaved Africans shipped to America continues across the nation
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he time period for the official commemoration extends to summer of 2020 (H.R. 1242). Recently the Congressional Black Caucus conducted their commemoration event by traveling to the Republic of Ghana. The president of Ghana, early on invited all Africans in the Diaspora to come to Ghana as celebration of the "Year of Return." The story of their jouney is recounted beginning on page 10 of this issue.
Black Business News Group P.O. Box 43159 Los Angeles, CA 90043 USA 1-323-291-7819 Fax: 1-323-298-5064
www.blackbusinessnews.net PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Earl “Skip” Cooper, II
ASSOCIATE EDITORS Sarah Harris Dean L. Jones Phyllis Dixon
ENTREPRENEUR EDITOR Kim Anthony
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Linda Ware
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Compensation for tragic transportation error while new travel channel opens
Narishima Osei
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
W
e offer the report of the $50 million compensation fund for the families of people killed in Boeing 737 Max plane crashes on page 80 of this issue. We are asking that our readers share the notice of the December 31st deadline for families to apply to the fund. In our Black Business News Travel Africa Summer 2019 issue (issuu.com/ blackbusinessnews) we announce that American Airlines joins Delta and United in offering flights from the USA to an African destination. In this case, Morocco. Flying American into Mohammed V International Airport airport in Casablanca, you can take advantage of the OneWorld Alliance and connect to any airline in that system to continue into Africa or on to Europe. So check your Advantage Miles account. That African safari might move up a few notches on your Bucket List.
Bene Uche Linda Ware Ralph D. Sutton Daniella Materson Giavanna Foster P. Yvette Thomas Aman Williams LaSandra Stratton
GRAPHIC DESIGN Sarah Harris Tia RobinsonGRAPHIC DESIGN Sarah Harris Tia Robinson
STORY EDITORS
BBA Veterans' Procurement & Business Conference
Wanda Flagg Jennifer Marie Hamilton
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ach year the BBA brings together government, corporate and social services representatives to place opportunities and salient information before our community of Veteran's. The purpose is to ensure that this special community has access to contracting opportunities and receives information that facilitates their participation in the contract bidding process. Please share the information on this November 7th event with members of our Veterans' community that you know. All veterans should be aware of these business growth opportunities and have the information that will aide them to be successful in bidding, winning and conducting a contract. www.bbala.org
PHOTOGRAPHY Ian Foxx Sabir Narishima Osei
CONTENT ADMINISTRATOR La Sandra Stratton
LAYOUT/TYPESETTING Lion Communications Copyright © 2019 by Black Business News All Rights Reserved. The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
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Cover image: spoonflower, CBC.com
About
ABOUT THE BLACK BUSINESS NEWS GROUP‌ The mission of The Black Business News (BBN) is to inspire and inform public and private sector industry representatives on the importance of smart small business growth. As a versatile source of socioeconomic development activity news, the publications of the Black Business News Group (a division of the Black Business Association) impart current local, national and international industry and social trends and news aecting small businesses across the United States of America (USA), providing guides to greater access to ďŹ nancial capital, management eďŹƒciencies, business education, mentorship opportunities and social media networks. The goals of the Black Business News Group include: •
promoting USA-based black-owned business enterprises to a world wide audience.
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oering business growth enhancing information on education, exhibitioning, international trading, technology, industry trends, and more.
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exploring major public and private sector contracting methods to educate s. black-owned and operated enterprises. MŴŴZ ՗� ª€ŸŴŴ G @@
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or providing an aďŹƒrmative inuence for nemerging entrepreneurs by sharing inal novative design and creative cultural content that exposes them to the his-tory of black enterprises and urgess them to participate in the USA’s fu-ture.
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advocating and promoting on behalf of black-owned businesses by promoting the need for expanding an economic foundation that supports an unfettered and self-sustained urban society with USA job creation and economic opportunity, where blacks work, live and operate viable business enterprises.
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Contents
Black Business News…September 2019 2
Publisher's Message
Government 6 9 10
15
19
24
A North Carolina Court Just Threw Out Republicans’ Gerrymandered State Legislature Map Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of the 1st Recorded Forced Arrival of Enslaved African People Speaker Pelosi says ‘Humbled’ by Ghana Visit to Gateway to Slavery Emmerson Buie Jr. to Become First AfricanAmerican Head of Chicago FBI Field Office The Democratic Party Deepfaked its own 50 Chairman to Highlight 2020 Concerns Rwanda Agrees to Take in 500 African Migrants Trapped in Libya
48 50 52 64
Community/Public Interest 79 80 82 84 86 88 91 93
Editorials/Perspectives
94
68 72
BBN Show Biz Buzz Remembering The Watts Revolt: A Shared Condition, Consciousness and Commentment Violent White Supremacists Threaten Basic Civil Rights — and our Lives
Business 32 34 36 38 40 44 47
Atlanta Remembers: Juanita Abernathy Paule Marshall, Novelist of Diverse Influences, Dead at 90 Robert Mugabe - As Divisive in Death as He Was in Life Greg Hinton, Chicago Native and Democratic Party’s First Chief Diversity Officer, Dead at 66 Emily England Clyburn, Wife of SC Congressman Jim Clyburn, Dies at 80 Andre Emmett Shot to Death near Dallas Home; former Nets Player and Texas Tech Star
International 100 102
Meet Teen Founders Who Are Building Big Businesses -- and Making Big Money The 7 Culture Mistakes Startups Always Make A Simple, Almost Magical Formula For Getting Any Startup Or Product To Work The Importance of a Strong Branding Strategy for Start-Ups You Definitely Need an Elevator Pitch. Here's a Simple Way to Create One. A New Kind of Cybercrime Uses AI and Your Voice Against You Black Woman-Owned Construction Firm Hired to Build New Terminals at JFK and Laguardia Airports
Kenya Northern White Rhinos: Vets Harvest Eggs from Last two Females Families of Boeing 737 Max Crash Victims Could get up to $145,000 each from Compensation Fund Smithsonian Libraries' Adopt-a-Book Program
Obituary/Memorials
Entertainment 26
Black Wealth in America Few Black Conductors Lead Orchestras. For Anthony Parnther, It’s Time to Represent Why Africa's Digital Boom is Only Just Getting Started H&M Partners with their First African Designer, Palesa Mokubung Of South Africa
103 104 106
The Kenyan Dance Parties Where Men are Banned Sudan to Launch Historic Transition to Civilian Rule Nigeria's President Buhari Unfolds Plans on Climate Change at 74th UNGA A Cure for Ebola? Two New Treatments Prove Highly Effective in Congo Uganda Airlines Relaunchess 20 Years After it Vanished
Columns 60 99 115 172 178 180
Take A Look! African Stock Exchanges Shopping Gallery Books to Consider... BBA 2019 Master Planner Resource Vault
5 September 2019 Black Business News www.blackbbusinessnews.net 1-323-291-7819 819
47
Government - Voting Rights
A North Carolina Court Just Threw Out Republicans’ Gerrymandered State Legislature Map By editors@time.com.
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orth Carolina’s state court delivered Democrats a big win, ruling the state’s legislative district map unconstitutional, and paving a path to undo years of Republican gerrymandering in a traditionally competitive state. In a 357-page decision, a three-judge panel ruled the state’s legislative districts violated the North Carolina State Constitution through “extreme partisan gerrymandering.” The case was brought by Common Cause North Carolina, a nonpartisan group working to end gerrymandering in the state. “The 2017 Enacted Maps, as drawn, do not permit voters to freely choose their representative, but rather representatives are choosing voters based upon sophisticated partisan sorting,” the ruling states. The court is leaving it up to the Republican state legislature to redraw the maps, but it is setting specific guidelines for them to follow: The new maps must be redrawn by September 18 (within two weeks), lawmakers can’t use data to try to draw a partisan advantage, and the redrawing process must be public. The court will also appoint a referee to review the redrawn maps before they are enacted, and if the legislature tries to delay, the referee could redraw the maps itself. “We’re thrilled,” Daniel Jacobson, one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, tells Vox. “They can’t try to delay, which has been one of their main tactics.” The fact that this is a state court ruling, based on the state constitution, is crucial. In June, the US Supreme Court ruled that federal courts can’t strike down maps on grounds of partisan gerrymandering, but state courts still have the ability to do so. The state’s Republican state leadership has said they will not appeal the decision, guaranteeing new maps in the state,
according to a statement from state Senate leader Phil Berger. This case could be a blueprint for other states — like Wisconsin, Maryland, and Texas — that have extremely gerrymandered maps. It gives Democrats in North Carolina a bigger chance to win back at least one chamber of the state legislature. North Carolina’s governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, is also up for reelection in 2020. It “suggests even though the federal courts have stepped away from partisan gerrymandering, there may be remedies in state courts, and people should look at their state constitutions,” says Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law. “They didn’t bring it under the US Constitution, they brought it solely under state provisions, that will be what insulates it.”
North Carolina’s gerrymandered maps, explained North Carolina has a long history of gerrymandering, and both parties have played a part. But the current maps were drawn by Republican lawmakers in 2016, after a US Supreme Court case deemed older maps drawn in 2011 to be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander that disadvantaged the state’s black voters. North Carolina’s Republican-leaning gerrymandering was apparent in recent election results. In the 2018 elections, state Republicans received less than half the vote overall, yet they still control 29 out of 50 state
6 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Senate seats and 65 out of 120 state House seats. That is “just is not something in a 50/50 state that occurs naturally,” Li told Vox. “And it didn’t.” When it came time to redraw the maps in 2016, Republicans made clear they were doing it to consolidate political power. Republican state Rep. Dave Lewis publicly admitted as much during the 2016 process. “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats, because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats,” Lewis said at a state House hearing. Recently discovered files showed that GOP strategist Tom Hofeller, who died in 2018, drew the maps in North Carolina Republican Party’s headquarters specifically using prior election results to “construct the district boundaries to advantage Republicans,” the court ruling outlines.
Gerrymandering has bolstered Republicans’ grip on power When Democrats managed to elect Roy Cooper to the governor’s mansion in 2016 — one of the few bright spots for Democrats in a year that was dominated by Donald Trump and Republican victories — their wins were spoiled by the Republican state legislature. Within 48 hours of Cooper’s victory, the Republican-
controlled state legislature passed a series of bills that pulled Cooper’s ability to make key cabinet appointments without their approval, drastically cut the size of Cooper’s administration, and changed the Board of Elections so that Republicans would control it in election years. They ensured lawsuits had to first go through the Republican-controlled appeals court, before the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court. Cooper, and state Democrats, have been fighting these changes since. They’ve been successful on some fronts; for instance, the state Board of Elections move was ruled unconstitutional. But Cooper’s administration has been reduced to trying to energize the people of North Carolina to fight an explicit Republican power grab, while trying to battle the GOPcontrolled legislature in the courts as well. In 2018, other states, like Michigan and Wisconsin, also elected new Democratic governors — who came in to face Republican legislative majorities that have been entrenched through gerrymandering. Since those gerrymandered state legislatures draw their own district lines, it can seem enormously challenging to ever dislodge them. But this case shows that the state courts can still step in and provide a way out. www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/3/20848087/ north-carolina-court-republican-gerrymander-statelegislature-map Image credits: democraticunderground.com
7 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
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8 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Government - Commemoration
Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of the 1st Recorded Forced Arrival of Enslaved African People
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he Congressional Black Caucas (CBC) joined the many organizations that are commemorating the 400th Anniversary of the 1st Recorded Forced Arrival of Enslaved African People. The theme of the 49th Annual Legislative Conference of the CBC is '400 Years: Our Legacy, Our Possibilities’ and throughout the conference the workshops, entertainments and exhibits will reflect the theme. The 2019 conference was be held in the Washington Convention Center from September 11th to the 15th. The CBC also hosted a commemorative program held in the Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capital Building on September 10th. "We must tell the unvarnished truth," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during the ceremony at the Capitol. The observance was organized by the Congressional Black Caucus as part of events this year marking the 400 years since the enslaved people were brought to America in August 1619. The Republican leader of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, said slavery in America led to "many shameful moments" in the country, including in Congress.
"Our nation isn't perfect and there's more progress to make," McCarthy said. Pelosi called for passage of the Voting Rights Act, legislation that is part of a package of House Democratic priorities for Congress, ahead of the 2020 election. Rep. Karen Bass, D-CA., the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, called on colleagues to examine and embrace all parts of the nation's history. "We are so fortunate to live in this amazing country with our incredible history," Bass said. "All of our history is what makes this country a great country," she said, and encourages all Americans to contribute to the "fight to build a more perfect union." The program was recorded on YouTube and may be viewed at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=uEcX0JAu4y4. www.bbala.org www.heartandsoul.com/resources/400-years-our-legacy-ourpossibilities-congressional-black-caucus-foundation-cbcf-49thannual-legislative-conference www.record-eagle.com/nation_world/congress-marks-thanniversary-of-slaves-arriving-in-us/article_c86cea52-e20f-5886b8e7-041bc7d99400.html
9 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Government - Commemoration
Speaker Pelosi says ‘Humbled’ by Ghana Visit to Gateway to Slavery By Francis Kokutse, Associated Press
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks with Speaker of the Parliament Aaron Mike Oquaye at Ghana’s Parliament in Accra, Ghana. Pelosi and other members of the U.S. Congress plan discussions on “regional security, sustainable and inclusive development and the challenges of tomorrow including the climate crisis.” (AP Photo/Christian Thompson)
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.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a congressional delegation to Ghana was “humbled” by a visit to the seaside gateway where many Africans were shipped to America as slaves. Pelosi’s delegation visited Ghana’s Cape Coast and Elmina Castles to observe the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans shipped to America. The delegation included Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of four activist Democratic congresswomen of color whom Trump has urged to get out of the U.S. “right now.” The visit by Pelosi’s delegation marks Ghana’s Year of the Return, which reaches out to the millions of Africans in the diaspora. “It is important that this symbolic year, 400 years later, we commemorate their
existence and their sacrifices,” Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo said. Pelosi called the Year of the Return a “beautiful gesture” that also recognizes a “terrible atrocity” in slavery. She said she and others had been transformed by this week’s visit. “At Elmina Castle we saw the dungeons where thousands were grotesquely tortured,” she said. “At Cape Coast Castle we stood before The Door of No Return, where countless millions caught their last glimpse of Africa before they were shipped to a life of enslavement.” Pelosi also paid tribute to the West African nation’s groundbreaking independence in 1957. Ghana was
10 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
the first British colony to gain independence, an event that inspired people across the continent to push for the same. The House speaker also said Ghana had played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement in the United
States and became a “symbol of great hope in the fight against racial discrimination and segregation.” www.wnct.com/news/politics/pelosi-says-humbled-by-ghana-visitto-gateway-to-slavery/ Image credits: blackstarnews.com, allafrica.com
11 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Working the BUILD Act
How the BUILD Act Can Invigorate U.S. Economic Ties By Ed Royce and Robin Renee Sanders
Ambassador Robin Renee Sanders
Rep. Ed Royce
S
ince the U.S. BUILD Act was signed into law last October, many people across Africa as well as members of the Africa Diaspora have been asking what this global initiative might do to help revitalize American engagement with the continent. The answer is: quite a lot! The goal of BUILD or the -- "Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act" – is exactly what the American private sector has long sought. BUILD does a number of positive things to boost the U.S.-Africa economic, business, and development relationship: it checks China's growing economic influence in Africa; creates more robust and flexible investment tools for US companies to use; and BUILD expands how America's development funding will promote Africa's job creation, support
entrepreneurship, and help grow Africa's small and medium-sized businesses.
Helping American companies compete against subsidized Chinese firms The BUILD Act establishes the United States International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC) and replaces and adds new business tools, including doubling the lending authority of the soonto-be transformed U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). The USDFC will focus on facilitating private sector capital, and skills development of low and lowermiddle-income nations - the economic level at which many African nations fall. The new USDFC also will assist in helping African countries transitioning from nonmarket to market economies, even more important
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today as the continent's 55-nations recently formed the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), creating a $2.4 trillion market. The CFTA, if realized, would further open-up opportunities for US goods, services and the African private sector. Make no mistake - BUILD is about aligning U.S. development assistance with U.S. foreign policy objectives. But BUILD's upside for African nations is that the USDFC will help them achieve their objectives too, such as modernizing their economies, and increase job opportunities and skills training for their citizens, particularly for women and small businesses. And it supports a "Connect Africa Initiative" focused on information technology, transportation infrastructure, logistics, and value chain development, especially for Africa's all-important agricultural and energy sectors. The other good news is that the BUILD Act is bipartisan legislation, in keeping with what has been a tradition. Since the late 1990s, Congressional Republicans and Democrats have worked together on Africa issues to pass key laws. This includes the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), landmark legislation that has drawn investment to Africa and improved the economic well-being being of innumerable Africans. Bipartisan support means that BUILD will be durable and suggests its possible expansion in the future. BUILD and the new USDFC are powerful instruments that should create opportunities in African countries eager for jobs and capital to spur economic development. U.S. businesses active in the region will be able to expand using additional financing tools. More importantly, BUILD will modernize America's antiquated development finance capabilities so they can address the challenges of the 21st century and increase U.S. exports and jobs.
The right mix and the right time BUILD is a needed response to China's rapidly expanding economic presence in Africa. Today Chinese companies are the dominate foreign investor in many African countries. Unfortunately, the practices of many of these companies are harmful. Labor standards are low, quality can be shoddy, and corruption often underlies Chinese deals. The USDFC will help U.S. businesses better compete
against state-subsidized Chinese firms. That will offer Africans more options for potential business partners and the benefits of working with U.S. companies that operate with more elevated standards. Then there is Africa's stability. which is good for U.S. national security. We recognize that economic growth can help stabilize nascent and evolving democracies. The USDFC can play a role in this regard. Its contribution to encouraging market-driven economies can aid in promoting stability. Creation of the USDFC reflects what many of us who have served in the U.S. government have wanted for many years – more support for American businesses in Africa to boost their competitive edge, especially as a counter to China. This also supports what African nations have said they want to see – a more diversified U.S. private sector operating in the region and more sustainable development and social sector initiatives. It is the right mix at the right time, and if the United States is going to be competitive in Africa, BUILD is a timely must-do benefiting both Americans and Africans. We should keep the BUILD Act and its wonderful objectives in view to ensure that it is properly implemented. We must work together to encourage our African partners to see BUILD as an outstretched message that the a vibrant business relationship is both important and potentially very strong. Ed Royce is former Chairman of the U.S. Congress House of Representative Foreign Affairs Committee, who began his Congressional career in 1992, representing Southern California's 39th District until departing Congress after 26 years. He is a wellrespected Africa and Asia policy expert who traveled extensively in Africa, and is a Policy Director at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Robin Renee Sanders is currently CEO of FEEEDS Advocacy Initiative which focuses on Africa development, and FE3DS, LLC, which works on business strategies for Africa. A former U.S. career diplomat who served as ambassador to Nigeria, Republic of Congo, and the West African regional organization ECOWAS, holds a doctorate degree in information systems and communication, is the recipient of six State Department awards and several Africa Diaspora advocacy honors for her work with Africa small businesses. She is the author of two books – The Rise of Africa Small & Medium Size Enterprises and The Legendary Uli Women of Nigeria. https://allafrica.com/stories/201904190747.html Image credits: allafrica.com, One
13 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Government - Impeachment Inquiry
Speaker Pelosi Launches Formal Trump Impeachment Inquiry By Stefan Becket, Kathryn Watson, Camilo MontoyaGalvez, Grace Segers
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced the House is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump. fox46charlotte.com
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peaker Nancy Pelosi announced the House is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump, setting up a dramatic constitutional clash just over a year before the presidential election. "Today I'm announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry," Pelosi said at the Capitol late Tuesday afternoon, September 24th. The inquiry marks just the fourth time in American history a president has faced a viable threat of impeachment. The speaker has long resisted calls from many progressive lawmakers to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president, but Democrats appear to have reached a breaking point over the administration's refusal to hand over a whistleblower complaint related to Mr. Trump's interaction with a foreign leader. "The president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically," Pelosi said. "The actions of the Trump presidency revealed dishonorable facts of the president's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections."
The current furor stems from a call Mr. Trump made to the president of Ukraine in July, in which he admitted discussing Joe Biden in the context of fighting "corruption" in the country. Mr. Trump and his allies, in particular personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, have accused Biden of pushing for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor while he was vice president in order to benefit his son. The prosecutor was widely seen as corrupt, and no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden has emerged. In August, an anonymous member of the intelligence community filed a whistleblower complaint with the intelligence community inspector general, who determined it constituted an "urgent concern" requiring congressional notification under federal law. However, after consulting with the Justice Department and White House, the acting director of national intelligence came to a different conclusion, and has refused to provide the complaint to congressional committees. Pelosi said the administration's refusal to provide the complaint was a "violation of the law" that "undermine[s] both our national security and our intelligence." One after another, Democrats from vulnerable House districts who had been resisting previous
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Government - Another First
Emmerson Buie Jr. to Become First AfricanAmerican Head of Chicago FBI Field Office
E
mmerson Buie Jr. will be the first AfricanAmerican head of the Chicago FBI Field Office, the FBI announced. Buie, a Chicago native, had most recently served as the Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso, Texas Field Office. Buie joined the FBI in 1992, and was first assigned to the Colorado Springs Resident Agency of the Denver Field Office, where he investigated criminal issues, the FBI said. He became a Supervisory Special Agent in 1999, and was assigned to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Operations Unit in the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to the FBI. Buie moved up in 2002 to a Senior Supervisory post at the Fairview Heights Resident Agency under the Springfield, Illinois office. He moved to London as the Assistant and Acting Deputy Legal Attaché for the FBI in 2006, and returned to the Springfield Field Office in 2008.
Buie was named the Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso Field office in 2017, chosen by former FBI Director James Comey. He took the call last month when a mass shooter killed 22 people inside an El Paso Walmart. Before joining the FBI, Buie served four years in the Army as an infantry officer and served in Desert Storm, the FBI said. He graduated from Western Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in 1987. Buie, 54, will take over the Chicago’s field office next month, replacing Jeffrey Sallet, who’s led the office since 2017. Buie is considered an expert in cyber security, human smuggling and corruption investigations.
calls for impeachment came out in favor of initiating impeachment proceedings, citing concerns over Mr. Trump's potential pressuring of a foreign leader to investigate a domestic political opponent. The president directed his acting chief of staff to hold off on releasing nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine shortly before the call in July, according to a senior administration official with direct knowledge of the administration's actions. Mr. Trump, who was in New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, reacted angrily to Pelosi's statement, calling it a "total Witch Hunt!" Earlier in the day he said he would release the transcript of the call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is part of the whistleblower
complaint. "You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call. No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo!" the president tweeted Tuesday afternoon. That concession, however, did nothing to temper Democrats' demands for the complaint itself. Congressman Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the whistleblower wants to testify before the committee. Schiff tweeted that the whistleblower's testimony could come "as soon as this week." -- Stefan Becket
www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/chicago-nativeemmerson-buie-jr-to-become-first-african-american-headof-chicago-fbi-field-office/ar-AAHovfa?ocid=spartandhp Image credit: © Provided by CBS Local, a division of CBS Radio Inc
www.cbsnews.com/live-news/trump-impeachmentdemocrats-march-to-impeachment-speeds-up-overtrump-ukraine-call-live-updates-2019/
15 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Government - State of Safety
These are the World's Safest Cities By Katherine LaGrave
S
afety can be hard to quantify, but a new study from the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit attempts to do that (https://safecities.economist.
Chicago
com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Aug-5-ENG-NEC-SafeCities-2019-270x210-19-screen.pdf). The organization,
which provides research and analysis, ranked 60 cities around the world on 57 safety-minded indicators, including factors like the level of police engagement, access to healthcare, and pedestrian friendliness. Overall, Tokyo was ranked the world’s safest city, scoring a 92 out of 100 overall. The capital of Japan also took first place for digital security (94.4) and scored in the top five for health security (second), infrastructure security (fourth), and personal security (fourth). Coming in second place overall was Singapore (91.5), followed closely by Osaka, Japan, at 90.9. (Singapore also topped a 2018 Gallup poll of countries where locals feel safest.) In fact, locations in the Asia-Pacific region make up six of the study’s top 10 world’s safest cities, which additionally included Sydney, Seoul, and Melbourne. The only U.S. city to crack the top 10 was the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., which took seventh place overall. Chicago, which came in at 11, just missed the top 10 cut. U.S. and African cities that made the top 60 list of cities are: #7 Washington, DC #11 Chicago, IL #13 San Francisco, CA #15 Los Angeles, CA #17 New York, NY #21 Dallas, TX #44 Johannesburg, South Africa #54 Casablanca, Morocco #55 Cairo, Egypt #60 Lagos, Nigeria
World’s Safest Cities (top 20) 1. Tokyo, Japan 2. Singapore, Republic of Singapore 3. Osaka, Japan 4. Amsterdam, the Netherlands 5. Sydney, Australia 6. Toronto, Canada 7. Washington, D.C.
Los Angeles
Lagos 8. Copenhagen, Denmark 9. Seoul, South Korea 10. Melbourne, Australia 11. Chicago, Illinois 12. Stockholm, Sweden 13. San Francisco, California 14. London, United Kingdom 15. New York City 16. Frankfurt, Germany 17. Los Angeles, California 18. Wellington, New Zealand 19. Zurich, Switzerland 20. Hong Kong Image credits: whosdrivingyou.org, Business Insider, YouTube
16 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Government - International Trade
USDA is Accepting Applications for a Trade Mission to West Africa October 28-31, 2019
T
he U.S. Department of Agriculture will lead a trade mission to Accra, Ghana, October 2831, seeking to unlock new export opportunities in several West African countries where strong economic growth is driving demand for imported food and farm products. The mission supports the Administration’s Prosper Africa initiative (www.trade.gov/prosperafrica), which seeks to strengthen the United States’ commercial ties and foster fair and reciprocal trade with countries in Africa. Local staff from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service will arrange meetings between trade mission delegates and potential customers from Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Senegal, helping lay the foundation for long-lasting business relationships. In addition, in-depth economic and policy briefings and local site visits will help participants better understand the opportunities and challenges of exporting to West African countries. Application deadline is: August 2, 2019 Please click here for more information: www.fas.usda.gov/topics/west-africa-october-2019 Bobby Hines, International Trade Specialist 1-213-894-4231 or bobby.hines@trade.gov Los Angeles DownTown | U.S.D.O.C. | International Trade Administration www.trade.gov or www.export.gov Target Country
2018 U.S. Agricultural Exports
2018 U.S. Market Share
Top Prospects for U.S. Exporters
Côte d’Ivoire
$24.3 million
1%
Beef, condiments and sauces, distilled spirits, fresh and processed produce, soybean meal, seafood, wheat, wine
Ghana
$82.6 million
4%
Beef, dairy products, distilled spirits, forest products, prepared food, poultry, rice, seafood, wheat
Nigeria
$308.1 million
11%
Condiments and sauces, corn, prepared foods, soybeans, wheat, wine and beer
Senegal
$11.4 million
<1%
Feeds and fodders, planting seeds, prepared foods, soybean oil, sweeteners and beverage bases
18 S September b 22019 0199 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819 01
Government - Governance
The Democratic Party Deepfaked its own Chairman to Highlight 2020 Concerns By Donie O'Sullivan, CNN Business
T
he Democratic National Committee wanted to demonstrate the potential threat to the 2020 election posed by deepfake videos — clips created with artificial intelligence that can make people appear to do or say things they never did (www.cnn.com/ videos/business/2019/06/11/deepfake-videos-2020election.cnn). So the committee came up with a
novel solution: It had experts make one, with its chair as the victim. The deepfake video was shown Friday in Las Vegas at the A.I. Village at Def Con, one of the world's biggest conventions for hackers (www. cnn.com/2019/08/08/tech/def-con-vegas-lawmakers/ index.html).
People in the room for a presentation by the DNC were told that DNC Chair Tom Perez was supposed to be there, but was unable to make it. They said he going to connect by Skype instead. Then Perez came on screen and apologized for not being in attendance — except that he'd said no such thing. With the cooperation of the DNC's chief security officer Bob Lord, experts in artificial intelligence had altered Perez's facial expressions to make it appear as if he was apologizing. Then they'd used Lord's voice to put the words in Perez's fake mouth. While many people in Washington might have recognized a difference in Perez's voice, the audience at Def Con largely appeared not to. And when the video was over and the audience was told what had happened, they clapped. Speaking in Vegas, Lord told CNN Business that the Perez deepfake was a demonstration to warn about what could possibly happen in 2020. Lord is a former tech executive who was hired by the DNC as part of an overhaul of its cyber security after it was hacked in 2016. Experts, lawmakers and the intelligence community have all said deepfakes could pose a threat to national security and may be used as part of disinformation campaigns targeting the United States. One of the potential problems that could arise from deepfake videos is that they may make people feel that all video can't be trusted, leading to what some
observers have termed an "information apocalypse." By creating the deepfake of Perez, the DNC could risk contributing to that effect — but Lord says it is important to educate people about deepfakes so they are on the lookout for them. On the other hand, some critics say the threat of deepfakes has been overblown and point out that there is no known case of a deepfake being used to interfere in the political process. But some people who study the issue say it's only a matter of time. Last month, Symantec, a cybersecurity company, said that one company had been duped by fake audio. In that case, Symantec said, scammers had used fake audio of a company's CEO to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars by calling a senior finance employee at the company and asking for an urgent cash transfer. Symantec did not publicly release the name of the company involved. The audience at Def Con is a prime one for the DNC's warning. Besides hackers, multiple members of Congress and dozens of congressional staffers and members of the intelligence community are expected to attend. Election security has been a growing area of interest at the conference since 2016. www.cnn.com/2019/08/08/tech/def-con-vegas-lawmakers/ index.html Image credits: rappler.com
19 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Government - Building Named
Illinois Post Office to Be Named for Tuskegee Airman By Content Curated By MG Media
P
resident Donald Trump signed bipartisan legislation, authored by Congresswoman Robin Kelly, to rename the U.S. Post Office in Olympia Fields, IL for the decorated Tuskegee Airman, Captain Robert L. Martin. Legislation, in late February, was signed into law by the President on August 21st. The U.S. House of Representatives approved the renaming legislation on April 30th and the U.S. Senate concurred on August 1st; all members of the Illinois Congressional delegation co-sponsored the bill. Captain Robert L. Martin A member of the famous World War II Tuskegee Airmen, Captain Martin, served as a combat pilot in the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter well. Tuskegee University President, Dr. Lily McNair Group. On his 64th mission, he was shot down over said, “starting in the early 1940's, Tuskegee University German-occupied territory and evaded capture for five was at the forefront of helping prepare young African weeks as he made his way safely across Allied lines. He American pilots to fight for freedom in the skies. We retired from the U.S. Army in 1945. For his bravery and applaud Congresswoman Kelly’s efforts to ensuring service, he received several war decorations, including their legacy of valor and patriotism endure.” For more the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with information, contact James Lewis at james.lewis2@ mail.house.gov or 202.225.0773. Six Oak Leaf Cluster and the Purple Heart. In 2007, he was awarded the Congressional TBTNEWS Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush at a ceremony honoring the Tuskegee Airmen. After the war, he made his home in Chicago and worked as an electrical engineer. He married Odette Ewell; the couple was married for 68 years and had four children. In 2008, he moved to Olympia Fields where he passed away in 2018. “Through his life and career, Captain Robert L. Martin taught us to pursue excellence and be dedicated to service. Honoring Captain Martin’s life and accomplishments by naming the post office in Olympia Fields is a fitting tribute to this American hero,” said Congresswoman Kelly. Congresswoman Kelly will be working with the Post Office and Martin family (Dominique, Captain Martin’s daughter) to arrange a renaming ceremony. The news is being celebrated outside of Illinois as sites.google.com 20 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
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WHY WE CELEBRATE VETERANâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DAY
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In collaboration with Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, the Small Business Administration (SBA); Southern California Gas Company, Southern California Edison, and the California Council for Veteran Affairs, Inc.; the Black Business Association (BBA) will present its 2019 Veterans Procurement & Business Conference.
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Thursday, November 7, 2019 8:00 am –3:00 pm Bob Hope Patriotic Hall – 1816 S. Figueroa – Los Angeles, California 90015
WƵƌƉŽƐĞ͗
The Veterans Procurement & Business Conference is designed to provide Veteran business owners with contracting and procurement opportunities with private and public sector companies, as well as major Government agencies. Contract procurement matchmaking opportunities that enable business owners to present their capabilities; their financial literacy sessions; resources for access to capital; and business service resources, specifically for Veterans, will be available. This business conference is FREE to all Veterans. For more information, contact the BBA office at (323) 291-9334 or email: mail@bbala.org.
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PLATINUM EVENT CHAIR: $5,000
Company name & logo prominently featured as a Platinum Event Chair on all event signage, promotional and press materials Logo and links to your Company’s website(s) on the BBA’s website providing branding exposure to each of their vast and strong networks, which is also linked to Veterans Procurement & Business Conference Public acknowledgment of Corporate Sponsorship throughout the Conference Full-Page Color Ad (premium placement) in the event Souvenir Journal Announcements in October and November 2019 Press Releases sent to national media outlets and their accompanying network of members Major coverage in The Black Business News, the official online publication of the Black Business Association and other minority, small business media outlets Certificate of Recognition Prime exhibitor space location to display your products and/or services Provided complimentary private area for contracting/procurement matchmaking vendor interviews
GOLD SPONSOR: $2,500
Company name & logo featured as a Gold Sponsor on all event signage, promotional and press materials Logo and links to your Company’s website(s) on the BBA’s website providing branding exposure each of their vast and strong networks, which is also linked to Veterans Procurement & Business Conference Public acknowledgment of Corporate Sponsorship during the event conference One Full-Page Color Ad in the event Souvenir Journal Certificate of Recognition
SILVER SPONSOR: $1,750
Company name & logo featured as a Silver Sponsor on event signage Logo and links to your Company’s website(s) on the BBA’s website providing branding exposure to each of their vast and strong networks, which is also linked to Veterans Procurement & Business Conference Public acknowledge of sponsorship during the Business Conference Full-Page B&W or Half-Page Color Ad in event Souvenir Journal
EXHIBITOR SPONSOR: $750
Company name & logo featured as Exhibitor on event signage Logo and links to your Company’s website(s) on all event partner event partner websites providing branding exposure to each of their vast and strong networks, which is also linked to Veterans Procurement & Business Conference Public acknowledge of sponsorship during the Business Conference
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Government - Protest Statements
Rwanda Agrees to Take in 500 African Migrants Trapped in Libya By Theodora Aidoo
Migrants and refugees are assisted by members of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, as they crowd on board of a rubber boat sailing out of control at 34 kilometers (21 miles) north of Sabratha, Libya. European Union leaders are poised to take a big step on Friday in closing off the illegal migration route from Libya across the central Mediterranean, where thousands have died trying to reach the EU, the EU chief said. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
R
wanda has agreed to take in hundreds of African refugees and asylum-seekers being held in detention centres in Libya. This is contained in an agreement reached by the government of Rwanda, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the African Union (AU).”
A joint statement announced on Tuesday said the first group of 500 people, predominantly from the Horn of Africa, will be evacuated, including children and youth at risk. After their arrival, UNHCR said it will continue to pursue solutions for the evacuees. “While some may benefit from resettlement to third
24 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Rwanda President Paul Kagame
countries, others will be helped to return to countries where asylum had previously been granted, or to return to their home countries if it is safe to do so. Some may be given permission to remain in Rwanda subject to agreement by the competent authorities,” the joint statement said. In the coming weeks, evacuation flights are expected to begin and this will be carried out in co-operation with Rwandan and Libyan authorities. Some 4,700 people are currently estimated to be held in dire conditions inside detention centres in Libya. Rwanda had earlier said it could take as high as 30,000 when talks about evacuation began. There are at least 641,398 migrants who originated from more than 39 countries currently present in Libya. They were identified in all 100 municipalities, within 565 communities, according to the 25th round of the International Organization for Migration’s Displacement Tracking Metrix (DTM) data collection, which took place in March, April and May 2019. Out of the total number of migrants identified, 602,282 individuals (94%) originated from 28 different African countries while 38,897 individuals (6%) came from 10 Asian and Middle Eastern countries. The remaining 219 individuals were recorded as of unknown nationality or other countries of origin. At least 21 African nationalities were identified in Libya during this round. Out of the African nationals identified, 417,117 originated from Sub-Saharan countries. Fifty-five percent of Sub-Saharan migrants
were identified in the West. The region of Tripoli hosted 20% of the Sub-Saharan migrants identified in Libya. Thirty-one percent of the Sub-Saharan migrants were identified in the South, mainly in Murzuk and Sebha. The remaining 14% were identified in the East mainly in the region of Ejdabia, which hosts half of the SubSaharan migrants identified in the East. In 2017, CNN uncovered a very worrying development in Libya, where migrants were auctioned like ornaments. “Not a used car, a piece of land, or an item of furniture. Not “merchandise” at all, but two human beings,” CNN wrote of the heartrending discovery. First Lieutenant Naser Hazam of the government’s Anti-Illegal Immigration Agency in Tripoli told CNN that although he had not witnessed a slave auction, he acknowledged that organized gangs are operating smuggling rings in the country. “They fill a boat with 100 people, those people may or may not make it,” Hazam says. “(The smuggler) does not care as long as he gets the money, and the migrant may get to Europe or die at sea.” “The situation is dire,” Mohammed Abdiker, the director of operation and emergencies for the International Organization for Migration, said in a statement after returning from Tripoli in April. “Some reports are truly horrifying and the latest reports of ‘slave markets’ for migrants can be added to a long list of outrages.” https://face2faceafrica.com/article/rwanda-agrees-to-takein-500-african-migrants-trapped-in-libya
25 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
BBN Show Biz Buzz By Linda Ware
Eddie Murphy Returns to 'SNL' in December while Leslie Jones Elects to Leave
S
eason 45 early details on the "Saturday Night Live" schedule has revealed that Eddie Murphy will host the December 21st "SNL" episode. This will be Murphy's first time hosting "SNL" since 1984. He was last seen on the show for a brief appearance on the 40th anniversary special, "SNL 40," in 2015. "SNL" is nominated for 18 Emmys this year, including Outstanding Variety Sketch Series and seven nominations for Outstanding Guest Actor or Actress in a Comedy Series. TVLine has learned that SNL cast member Leslie
Jones will not be returning for show’s upcoming 45th season to focus on other opportunities (like her forthcoming Netflix standup special). An SNL staple since 2014, Jones has twice been nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the Primetime Emmy Awards (in 2017 and 2018). She’s an Emmy nominee again this year for co-writing the lyrics to “Upper East Side,” a song featured in SNL‘s 44th season. www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/woody-harrelson-to-host-snlseason-45-premiere-eddie-murphy-returns-in-december/arAAGmbIE?ocid=spartandhp www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/snl-shocker-leslie-jones-is-leavingkate-mckinnon-is-staying/ar-AAGpm5M?ocid=spartandhp
The US Arrives in China for the World Cup
A
fter a month of practice and years of planning, the U.S. men's basketball team has arrived at the World Cup. "The challenges begin," U.S. coach Gregg Popovich said. A handful of fans waited outside the team hotel on a rainy morning, getting there a couple hours before the buses from the airport pulled in just with the hope of grabbing a few autographs. Some players obliged, as did Popovich — who used a gold marker to carefully sign his name on an array of photos, sneakers and basketballs.
usab.com
Players said finally getting to China brought a different feel. "It's kicked in," U.S. guard Kemba Walker of the Boston Celtics said after practice. "The next game we play, it's the real thing. We're focused, we're locked in and we're ready to play." "I think we're good," said Donovan Mitchell, the Utah Jazz standout who has seen quite a following in China on his past trips to the basketball-crazed nation. "I think we're doing well. We got here and guys' energy in practice was great." The Americans went 3-1 on their pre-World Cup tour, beating Spain in Anaheim, California, then splitting two games against Australia in Melbourne — the loss snapping a 78-game winning streak for the senior national team against major competition, dating back to 2006 — before topping Canada in the final tune-up. "We have a great team of guys, very unselfish group," said Bucks center Brook Lopez. "We all have the same goal in mind. A lot of young guys, so we have a lot of guys who are learning on the fly. We don't have a problem being a team. Our guys have come together really quick." "That's the way it is," Popovich said. www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/at-last-theus-arrives-in-china-for-the-world-cup/arAAGugK0?ocid=spartandhp
"WU-TANG: AN AMERICAN SAGA" Now Showing on Hulu
H
ulu‘s Wu-Tang: An American Saga (2019) TV Mini-series trailer has been released (https:// film-book.com/category/tv-mini-series-trailer). The mini-series stars Ashton Sanders, Shameik Moore, Siddiq Saunderson, Marcus Callender, and Zolee Griggs. Wu-Tang: An American Saga is based on the books The Wu-Tang Manual and Tao of Wu, and is based on the true story of the Wu-Tang Clan. Set in early ’90s New York at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, the show tracks the Clan’s formation, a vision of Bobby Diggs aka The RZA, who unites the men torn between music and crime into a performance team who eventually rise to become the unlikeliest of American success stories.” https://film-book.com/wu-tang-an-american-saga-2019tv-mini-series-teaser-trailer-the-chronicle-of-the-wu-tangclans-formation-hulu
Gemini Man Due in October
G
emini Man is an upcoming American science fiction action film directed by Ang Lee and written by David Benioff, Billy Ray, and Darren Lemke. The film stars Will Smith as an aging hitman who is targeted by a younger clone of himself. Originally conceived in 1997, the film went through development hell for nearly 20 years. In 2016, Skydance Media purchased the rights to the screenplay (which had been through several rewrites) from Disney, and in October 2017, Ang Lee signed on to direct for Skydance with Paramount handling distribution rights. Filming took place from February through May 2018. Gemini Man is scheduled to be theatrically released in the United States on October 11, 2019 by Paramount Pictures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_Man_(film) see page 28
27 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
BBN Show Biz Buzz from BBN Show Biz Buzz on page 27
D
Don't Let Go
etective Jack Radclifff (David Oyelowo)) receives a shocking phone call from his recently-murdered niece Ashley (Storm m Reid). Working together acrosss time, they race to solve herr murder before it can happen. Don't Let Go, a supernatural thriller, opened nationwide in theaters release date was Friday, August 30, 2019. www.movieinsider.com/m17705/dont-let-go / 17705/d / tl t
L
and may also be viewed online at 123movies (https://123movies.gr/movie/overcomer-2019). www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/after-investigation-neil-degrassetyson-will-keep-his-job/ar-AAEUrTd?ocid=spartandhp
‘Family Feud’ Format to Expand to South Africa and Ghana
S
teve Harvey and “Family Feud” are headed to Africa. Harvey will host South African and Ghanian versions of the popular game show. Rapid Blue (www. rapidblue.com) will be his (through Steve Harvey Global) and Fremantle’s (www.fremantle.com) local production partner on the ground over there.
Overcomer
ife changes overnight for Coach John Harrison when his high school basketball team and state championship dreams are crushed under the weight of unexpected news. When the largest manufacturing plant shuts down and hundreds of families leave their town, John questions how he and his family will face an uncertain future. After reluctantly agreeing to coach crosscountry, John and his wife, Amy, meet an aspiring athlete who’s pushing her limits on a journey toward discovery. Inspired by the words a n d Priscilla C. Shirer prayers familyfiction.com of a new-found friend, John becomes the least likely coach helping the least likely runner attempt the impossible in the biggest race of the year. Stars of the film include Alex Kendrick Cross Kendrick, Ben Davies, Elizabeth movieswatchfreeonline.com Becka, Priscilla C. Shirer and Kendrick Cross. It is playing in theaters nationwide
“Bringing ‘Family Feud’ to Africa has long been a dream of mine,” Harvey, who has hosted the American version of the format since 2010, said recently. “I believe ‘Family Feud’ will become a household name for local South African and Ghanaian families. And this is just the beginning in Africa. I expect this show to lead to multiple media and business projects in and throughout the continent.” The Johannesburg version will begin production in the fourth quarter of 2019 and begin airing in Africa in the second quarter of 2020. “We are thrilled to be working closely with Steve
28 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Harvey and his team to produce two African versions of ‘Family Feud,'” said Duncan Irvine, CEO of Rapid Blue. “Family is the cornerstone of life in South Africa and Ghana, and we are confident that we will see some wonderful families take part and that both seasons will resonate well with audiences here. We’re planning additional projects with Steve Harvey and his team for viewers here in Africa, so watch this space!” Rapid Blue, is part of the BBC Studios international (www.bbcstudios.com) production company system. www.yahoo.com/entertainment/family-feud-expand-southafrica-165200139.html Image credits: teeveetee.blogspot.com, complex.com
‘Black Panther’ Sequel Set for 2022 Release
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yan Coogler, “Black Panther” director, announced the release date of the muchanticipated follow-up film. “Black Panther 2” will hit theaters May 6, 2022. “Black Panther,” starring Chadwick Boseman as the titular superhero, was a massive success when it premiered in February 2018. It grossed $700 million domestically and $1.3 billion worldwide, becoming the second h i g h e s t grossing Marvel movie of all time domestically, b e h i n d “ Av e n g e r s : Endgame.” It was also nominated for seven Academy A w a r d s , including best picture — a first for a Marvel Chadwick Boseman © Courtesy of Marvel superhero movie — and took home three. The film also made history with its nearly all-black cast. Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Forrest Whitaker, Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira, and Angela Bassett starred alongside Boseman.
Miss Virginia Out in October
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struggling inner-city mother sacrifices everything to give her son a good education. Unwilling to allow her son to stay in a dangerous school, she launches a movement that could save his future - and that of thousands like him - by helping him get access to private schools. Uzo Aduba (from "Orange Is the New Black") stars, with Matthew Modine, Vanessa Williams, Adina Porter, Aunjanue Ellis, Amirah Vann, Samantha Sloyan, Nadji Jeter, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, and April Grace. www.imdb.com/title/tt6246534/ Image credit: netflixcenter.com
"Slave Play" - New York
www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/black-panther-sequel-set-for2022-release/ar-AAGh7kW?ocid=spartandhp see page 30
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BBN Show Biz Buzz
boundaries and shines a light on stories of important social relevance,” BAFTA Los Angeles CEO Chantal Rickards said in a statement. “His imaginative storylines, inclusive casting, and bold style evokes John Schlesinger’s spirit of independence, integrity and commitment to excellence. We are honored to celebrate Jordan’s talents at this year’s ceremony.”
from BBN Show Biz Buzz on page 29
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lave Play is coming to Broadway. Written by Jeremy O. Harris, “one of the most promising playwrights of his generation” (Vogue), this “dazzling mix of satire and psychodrama” (The New York Times) is directed by two-time NAACP and Obie Award® winner Robert O’Hara. At the MacGregor Plantation, nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is as it seems. It’s an antebellum fever-dream as three interracial couples converge to rip open history at the intersection of race, love, sex, and sexuality in 21stcentury America. Don’t miss this “furiously entertaining… altogether staggering new play.” (The New York Times)
www.thewrap.com/jordan-peele-to-receive-john-schlesingerbritannia-award-for-excellence-in-directing
Jeremy O. Harris Andrew White for The New York Times
Emmy Award Winners 2019
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he 71st Primetime Emmy Awards honored the best in U.S. prime time television programming from June 1, 2018 until May 31, 2019, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The ceremony was held on September 22, 2019, at the Microsoft Theater in Downtown Los Angeles, California, and was broadcast in the U.S. by Fox;.
Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary WINNER Independent Lens, PBS I Am Not Your Negro Robert O'Hara An Rong Xu for The New York Times
https://slaveplaybroadway.com/
Competition Program RuPaul's Drag Race
Jordan Peele Claudette Barius
Jordan Peele to Receive John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing
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ordan Peele is set to receive the John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing, BAFTA Los Angeles on October 25th at Beverly Hilton Hotel. “Jordan Peele has earned record-breaking success and critical acclaim through work that pushes
Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie Jharrel Jerome, When They See Us
Drama Actor Billy Porter, Pose
www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2019/09/22/emmy-awards2019-the-winners-list/#46526fc7741c
30 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Image Credits: ucsc.edu
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Business - Teen-preneurs
Meet Teen Founders Who Are Building B
By Entrepre Founder/CEO, Mr. Cory’s Cookies https:// mrcoryscookies. com At 6, Cory Nieves had an ambitious plan: Sell hot chocolate in his Englewood, N.J., neighborhood, and save enough money to buy his mom a car. “I was tired of taking the bus,” he says. “And I wanted to help my mom.” Nieves sold Swiss Miss for $1 a cup. When he sensed an opportunity for more substantial treats, he started searching online for the perfect cookie recipe. After three months of baking with his mom, Nieves bit into what he thought was the perfect chocolate chip cookie. The recipe was a hit. “That’s when we knew we had a business -- when people started taking our cookies seriously,” says Nieves. He and his mom began taking cookies to local races and festivals, where Nieves would pitch potential customers with irrefutable lines like “Life’s too short to not eat a cookie!” Business (and local press) grew consistently, and in 2015, Nieves was invited to appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show -- and the response was overwhelming. More orders came in than Nieves and his mom could possibly fill. “It caused a huge supply-and-demand issue,” he says. To scale, they sought outside investment and hit TV gold again: An appearance on CNBC’s The Profit earned Mr. Cory’s Cookies a $100,000 cash infusion. An e-commerce site was launched, “cookie helpers” were hired, and product started shipping across the country. Today, the company offers 14 flavors, and Nieves has high hopes for expansion -- and for his own future. “When I get older and finish college, I want to leave Mr. Cory’s Cookies for a little bit,” he says. “I’ll start somewhere at the bottom and work my way up.” He’s done it once -- no reason he can’t do it again.
Founder/CEO Maya’s Ideas https://mayasideas. com At the age of 8, when Maya Penn told her mom she wanted to build a sustainable fashion collection, she got a response that would serve her well throughout her entrepreneurial journey: “Figure out how to do that and what you need to accomplish that goal.” She used old clothing found in her home to create headbands and scarves, and at age 10, taught herself HTML and built a website to sell her goods. Today her Atlanta-based fashion line, Maya’s Ideas, has 10 employees, and customers around the world. “That first sale was so crazy to me, and still is,” Penn says. “It’s an honor when people like what you create. It keeps me moving forward.” Penn is now 19, and she has spent the past 11 years nurturing plenty of other passions. She launched a nonprofit, Maya’s Ideas 4 the Planet, which distributes eco-friendly sanitary products to women in developing countries. In 2016, she created an animated digital short that was presented to Congress as part of an effort to get a national women’s history museum built in Washington, D.C. (“They have museums for stamps but not women,” she says.) She has since launched an animation studio, given three TED Talks, been celebrated by Oprah, and is now working on a second book. Her first covered young entrepreneurship. Penn’s businesses and speaking engagements have earned her a million dollars over the years, and she has raised more than $500,000 from angel investors. And though all her projects are about creating change for others, she has learned that it’s good to put yourself first. “I’m always pushing myself to do more, but that can take a lot out of you, especially when you’re still trying to figure out who you are,” she says. “You have to find ways to calm yourself. Take a walk. Read a book. Stay grounded. Taking care of yourself makes you a better entrepreneur.”
32 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Big Businesses -- and Making Big Money
eneur Staff
Cofounder/CEO ScholarMe
Cofounder/CIO SafeTrip
www.scholarme.co/
www.safetrip.co
Four years ago, at 16, Femi Adebogun was building his first startup. He hired five remote employees -and because he wasn’t sure how they’d react to working for a teenager, he just decided to omit that piece of information. “I was really good at hiding my age,” he says. But the ruse was up a little while later, when his company won an award and he flew his entire team out for the ceremony. “That’s when my employees found out I was underage.” Today, Adebogun is no longer bashful about his age -- or his success. He’s on to his third company, ScholarMe, a platform that lets kids apply for all sources of college financing through one online set of questions. “People are so confused about how to pay for college, and there are 400 students assigned to every one guidance counselor at most schools,” he says. “We tell them how to do it, step by step.” Since launching in 2018, ScholarMe has racked up more than 40,000 users, just less than $1 million in funding, and an $8 million valuation. Adebogun and his two cofounders, Caleb Cross and Evan Farrell -- all of whom, ironically, are college dropouts -- are currently in the Y Combinator accelerator in San Francisco, where they’re eager to absorb some much-needed expertise. “There’s so much we don’t know,” he says. “YC is helping us become better leaders, builders, and salesmen.” Part of that is figuring out how to monetize ScholarMe. “We do not want to harvest student data,” he says. “We’re building trust with our users, and we’re focused on creating long-term relationships. We’ve tested different ideas, like a ScholarMe debit card, and people are into it. We don’t want to help them just pay for college but also find financial health while they’re there.”
It sounds like the windup to a punchline: a techy teen and an opera singer walk into a community outreach event and…stumble upon a million-dollar app idea. But that’s what happened when Langston Whitlock and Ja’Nese Jean -- who met years prior working at these kinds of local gatherings -- learned of a problem facing their community. “A homeless veteran told us that [people across Atlanta] don’t have transportation to get to medical appointments,” says Whitlock, a longtime coder. “Ja’Nese turned to me and said, ‘Can you make an app for that?’ ” In 2018, they launched SafeTrip, a ride-sharing app geared to the homeless and elderly that lets patients, caretakers, and healthcare providers book medical transportation; it accepts various forms of insurance. The company has raised $2 million, with $3.4 million in revenue last year. With Jean as CEO, Whitlock serves as CIO, overseeing a team of 10 -- all older than he is, of course. “We have a great bond,” he says. “They love me cause I’m a kid, I guess.” That youthful perspective has proven valuable, like when Whitlock told his team that plenty of teens today learn defensive driving and CPR. The company created a feeder program, in which high school seniors train to become SafeTrip drivers after graduation. As for Whitlock, who works at SafeTrip full-time yet will still graduate in 2020, his plans are singular for now. “My mom has worked since I was little, and my goal is for her to have her ultimate happiness,” he says. “So whatever it takes, that’s what I’m gonna do.” www.entrepreneur.com/topic/young-millionaires Image credit: yahoo.com, maya's ideas, scholarmedev,com, events.ajc.com
33 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Company Culture
The 7 Culture Mistakes Startups Always Make By Paula Cizek
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very founder knows that culture is crucial to a startup’s success — as Fred Wilson says, “If you want to be in business forever, you need to build a culture that sustains the business” — but there are seven common mistakes that startups make when creating their culture:
1. YOU THINK CULTURE JUST “HAPPENS” Running a startup means your burn rate is always in the forefront of your mind, and as a result, everything takes a backseat to get to MVP. Culture can be fixed later, right? The truth is that “culture” is just another way of saying “how we work here,” and by the time you get to your MVP, it will be deeply entrenched. FiveStars’s founder Victor Ho never took the time to officially define the culture— he felt it was too “cheesy”. But as they grew from 40 to 80 employees, their culture got diluted and as people clashed over ways of getting work done. As quoted in Fast Company, Ho described it as “one of the hardest periods of the company.” Rather than waiting to define your culture, consciously shape your culture while you build your MVP. You don’t have to go on an expensive company retreat or write an elaborate culture deck. It can be as simple as writing down five words that describe your culture and once a month, as a team, discussing whether they’re still appropriate.
2. YOU ONLY HIRE YOUR FRIENDS Hiring for a startup requires a high level of trust: you need your team to work hard and make the right decisions, and the team has to believe in you and your vision. So it’s only natural to look for people from your existing network. This can be useful at first — homogenous teams communicate better and demonstrate greater cohesion — but can quickly lead to trouble. Hyperloop One was launched with great fanfare but was hit with a lawsuit due to (among other things) the co-founder hiring his brother as general counsel, and dating their PR consultant, whose fees then nearly tripled. Avoid this by establishing the rules of engagement early on, including what happens in a
worst-case scenario (such as firing your friend). You should also think about how you’re going to integrate people into the existing culture; your goal is to prevent cliques from forming or for people to feel excluded from an “inner circle.”
3. YOU THINK HIRING MORE PEOPLE MEANS SUCCESS Celebrating is so important because success at a startup can be so rare in the first months. It’s comforting to be able to point something that’s a clear sign it’s all working. And as Buffer’s founder noted, “Team size is easy to understand. Sometimes it impressed people when I told them how big the company was, and I was proud to share it.” But the company brought on too many people, too fast, and was forced to lay off 11% of the company. Protect team morale by tracking more accurate measures of success, and find ways to celebrate small wins regularly.
4. YOU SPEND TOO MUCH $$ ON PERKS TO COMPETE WITH OTHER STARTUPS Bribing employees is a common Silicon Valley practice — what else are meals by gourmet chefs, meditation classes, and laundry service but attempts to get more work out of employees? And those bribes don’t come cheap: shrinking VC funds forced Dropbox to cancel its free shuttle and limit free meals. If you really want your team to do their best work, regardless of your compensation budget, give them meaningful work. Show them how their work is directly impacting the organization, and how the organization is making a difference in the world. In other words, give them purpose. Oh, and don’t worry — “purpose” doesn’t necessarily have to be a product or service that saves the world (though that’s a plus); it just means that you have a compelling vision and mission.
5. YOU OVERWORK PEOPLE IN PURSUIT OF THE PRODUCT Signing up for a startup is a commitment; long hours and outrageous goals are part of the bargain. But push too hard, and you’ll flare out. At Zynga, for instance,
34 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
long hours, “aggressive” deadlines, and an obsession with performance metrics led to a talent drain, and even hampered its ability to acquire companies. To prevent burnout, hold regular check-ins with your team to help them manage workload and stress levels. And don’t forget to check-in with the founder: 30% of founders report being depressed, as opposed to only 7% of the general population. Again, we’re not saying you won’t spend some long nights and weekends at this office, but don’t make it a cultural norm.
6. YOU DON’T FIRE JERKS BECAUSE THEY’RE SMART Hiring the best talent is highly competitive, but ignore the “no asshole” rule at your own peril. Despite their superior skill set, their personality will destroy your team culture, not to mention their productivity. In one of our engagements, we worked with an executive whose attitude turned the rest of the team against him. This led him to protect his own job by guarding his data more and more closely, leaving the startup completely in the dark when making crucial decisions. Still not convinced? Jump to Building 43 to hear Paul Graham, founder of YCombinator, talk about his “no asshole” rule. (www.bing.com/videos/search?q=paul+grah am+no+asshole+rule&view=detail&mid=ECC16B3B9DFD6 1A5F503ECC16B3B9DFD61A5F503&FORM=VIRE)
screen for jerks during the interview process, listening for self-centered a n s w e r s and trash talking past employers. (As Raylan Givens of Justified noted, “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”) But if one has slipped past your radar, talk to them and make it clear how you expect their behavior to change. If they don’t shape up, then it’s time to go your separate ways — the rest of the team will thank you.
7. YOU BELIEVE THE RULES DON’T APPLY TO YOU Pushing the limits is a great way to get new customers and attract attention… until it isn’t. Zenefits was lauded as a major disruptor in the insurance industry, and its investors pushed it to increase its sales goals. Unfortunately, to meet those goals, the company ignored state regulations — which ultimately threatened to destroy the organization and forced the CEO out. Before you even think about lawyering up, sit down with your founders and determine your company values. What’s most important to your team? When might you need to debate an action before moving forward? Check-in every quarter so that when money’s on the line and deadlines approaching, you know what you stand for. www.theladders.com/career-advice/the-7-culturemistakes-startups-always-make Image credit: connectnigeria.com
The best way to avoid this problem is to carefully 35 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Problem Solving
A Simple, Almost Magical Formula For Getting Any Startup Or Product To Work By Shane Snow
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back. They didn’t really want what I offered; at least not the way I’d set it up. And I’d agonized over those features for years! And Pinterest, well, it’s Pinterest now. A few things happened here that taught me one of my most enduring lessons in building startups and products. Analyzing what I did wrong led to a pretty simple framework — a sort of startup magic formula I’ve been using
couple of years before Pinterest came out, I created Pinterest. Or rather, I created a really crappy proto-Pinterest. My website allowed you to paste in a URL from the Internet, and it would grab the photo and description. Then you could put whatever it was in one of three collections: Things You Have, Things You Want, Things You Like. Tragically — even though I built it earlier — I didn’t release it until after Pinterest. 2010 happened, Pinterest dropped, and I panicked. I hurriedly released my site and got a few tech blogs to write about it, and… crickets. People signed up for my site and never came
ever since. And it works!
Here’s a quick summary of mistakes I made that time around: • I kept stalling the launch of my product, deciding that it wouldn’t work without X, Y, or Z new feature, which I would then have to build. • I was hesitant to show my baby to people until it was perfect. I didn’t want to blow my shot at impressing everyone. Of course my friends were all praise and encouragement, but friends are friends. • I came into the business with a whole laundry list of assumptions: about what people wanted; about
36 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
what I needed to do to get people using my product; about what was important for the success of my startup. But experience repeatedly taught me that what I’d assumed at the outset simply wasn’t true. • In general, I held on to my early ideas about what the thing needed to be like for…way too long. Then I was out of money and out of steam. Over the years, I’ve seen other entrepreneurs make these same mistakes time and again. Whenever friends or acquaintances come to me with startup ideas, asking for advice, I always tell them this same thing: When creating a startup or product, your job is to make a list of assumptions that must be true for it to work, and then… ELIMINATE THEM! The quicker the better. Anything else is a waste of time and money. Say you’re launching a lemonade stand. You might be assuming any number of things: a) that people like lemonade; b) that people like YOUR lemonade; c) that people are willing to pay actual U.S. dollars for your lemonade; d) that you can make people aware of the fact that your lemonade even exists; e) that there will be enough of these clued-in citronophiles (CICs) out there to make it worth your while; f) that you can get your lemonade into the hands of said CICs before it goes rancid… And so on, and so on. Neophytes (like I was) will launch their lemonade stand on a dream and a prayer. Squeeze some lemons. Mix it according to our own individual preference. Set up shop. Wait for Whole Foods to come knocking. Then we wonder why we’ve got a fifty-gallon drum of rancid lemonade sitting in the garage. And this is where we often mix up our assumptions. Maybe we conclude that assumption b) was buggy: people don’t actually like our particular lemonade; it’s back to the cutting board. But while we waste time and money tweaking the recipe, we’re totally unaware that assumption d) was the culprit all along: no one knows we even exist. Candidly, you have better odds of picking a Powerball jackpot than you do of launching a startup with 100% correct assumptions. So your ongoing task is to prove that entire laundry list right or wrong, and, when wrong, to find a different way.
Now for the framework. It’s simple: 1. Have an idea? Great! Make that list of assumptions. Everything that has to be true to get your baby off the ground. 2. Go into excruciating detail. Force yourself to think through everything. Even the obvious (e.g., people have to be alive in order to buy your lemonade). 3. Divide your assumptions into two groups:
Things other people have figured out; and Novel things. Yeah, maybe all your competitors accept bitcoin. But you’rethe only person in the world who knows how to make lemonade that tastes 10X better than Snapple. 4. Now, rank those assumptions in order of the most crucial to least crucial. What does everything really hinge on? 5. Eliminate! Go down the list and figure out how to kill each assumption as quickly as possible. Nonnovel items? No sweat. It’s okay to use someone else’s solution in the beginning so long as you can cross off the assumption. Later on your’ll make a better way. And finally: 6. Rinse and repeat. The product will evolve, but the framework still applies. Okay, okay — I’ll admit it: I’m not the first person to try something like this. Socrates beat me to it by 24 centuries. My magic framework is a lot like the scientific method we learned in elementary school: isolate a hypothesis, make an experiment to try to disproveit, repeat. Simple? Yes. Also terrifying! We don’t like to be proven wrong, not even by ourselves. We’re all susceptible to bias. We start with the conclusion we want to be true (“I’m gonna be bigger than Snapple”), and then we work backward, only considering the evidence that supports our conclusion (“My mom said it was pretty good lemonade”). Like the ghosts in a certain Shyamalan movie, we see what we want to see. The most useful thing about the Assumption/ Elimination framework is simply this: it takes my ego out of the equation. My ego isn’t bruised if an assumption I made turns out to be wrong — that was the goal all along! The game is to go down the checklist and eliminate, not to try to be right every time. It would have been nice to have started Pinterest. (No shade on Ben, Paul and Evan; they earned it.) It would have been really, really nice not to have wasted three years almost starting Pinterest. But Pinterest didn’t get there in one go and neither will you nor I next time. Which is okay. Because for nerds like us, testing that water rocket is way more fun than the lame ol’ Science Fair anyway.
WANT TO WORK SMARTER? I’ve created a little cheat sheet (ebook) for how to use lateral thinking to change your work and life. It’s battletested, and free. Get the cheat sheet here (http://sha. ne/lateral-thinking). https://medium.com/the-mission/a-simple-almost-magicalformula-for-getting-any-startup-or-product-to-work7d07318a92d0
37 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Branding
The Importance of a Strong Branding Strategy for Start-Ups From fishbat
https://fishbat.com
To help new businesses find their footing with online media, digital marketing company, fishbat (https://fishbat.com), explains the importance of a strong branding strategy for start-ups.
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eveloping a start-up business comes with a host of challenges. These include, but aren't limited to, time management, long-term planning, and funding. One of the most overlooked challenges, however, is branding. This is essential since it helps start-ups establish their identities and become what they'll be known by in the public eye. The overall importance of branding, no matter what industry a start-up is in, is undeniable. One of the reasons why a strong branding strategy is important for start-ups is that it helps customers recognize them. This logic can be applied to any well-known business, including Target, Apple, and Microsoft. They have certain identities that can be quickly recognized, whether it's due to a sharp logo, smart use of colors, or any key variable. Branding leads to recognition, which is what start-ups require early on. Branding can also help establish customer loyalty over time. While a logo alone isn't what will sell a buyer on a product or service, it goes a long way in creating a sense of trust. If someone purchases a brand of milk that they enjoy, not only are they inclined to continue buying it again, but they may be interested in pursuing other food products by the same company. A recognizable brand can create trust among buyers, increasing the likelihood of them becoming repeat customers. Depending on the brand, an emotional connection can be created between a start-up and its audience. Today, most people are inclined to give their business
to companies that do well by others or strive to make differences. When this happens, customers feel like they're helping others as well. Transparency has become one of the most important aspects of any business and NYC SEO Agency alike, which is understandable given the prominence of digital media in everyday life. Emotional investment goes a long way in branding for any start-up. Lastly, branding leads to credibility. Reputation management is one of the most important parts of any digital marketing strategy and the value of a brand plays a prominent role in this. The more credible a start-up business is, the more weight it's going to carry in the eyes of the public. Few, if anyone, will desire to give their business to a company that lacks credibility. This takes time to develop, but once it's established, a start-up will see their business bloom. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/digital-marketingcompany-fishbat-explains-090000450.html?utm_ medium=40digest.7days3.20190827.carousel&utm_ source=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=campaign Image credit: dreamstime.com
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400th Commemoration Year of Enslavement 1619-2019 ALL ANCESTRY TEST KITS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL Don't be fooled by other ancestry test kits pushing highly discounted prices this holiday season. Over the years, countless people have called us disappointed with the lack of specificity from other ancestry test kits. Get the results you want, the first time. Order today! Get the results you want, the first time. Order at https://shop.africanancestry.com www.facebook.com/africanancestry/videos/363773494403533/
Sincerely, Gina Paige President, African Ancestry Maternal Country of Ancestry: Nigeria Maternal Tribe of Ancestry: Fulani
www.africanancestry.com
Business - Start-Up Tools
You Definitely Need an Elevator Pitch. Here's a Simple Way to Create One. By Alison Davis
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hat's an elevator pitch? "It's the rare ability to capture the interest and imagination of someone you have just met--in about the time it would take both of you to enter an elevator, travel down to the lobby level, and then cross the office building foyer together." That definition is by Mark Wiskup, author of The It Factor: Be the One People Like, Listen To, and Remember. Here's why elevator pitches are so important, according to Wiskup: "Great communicators, those who connect quickly and strongly with others all the time, know how to communicate the essence of their message-succinctly and in a memorable way-whether or not there's an elevator in sight." Effective elevator pitches, writes Wiskup, are "memorable, vivid, and unique to your voice and the way you talk." Once you know how to deliver your elevator pitch, you can use it all the time: "at industry conferences, at community networking meetings, on soccer or Little League fields, or at the board meetings at church." There are many methods you can use to build a pitch--for example, here's how to overcome many common obstacles--but today I'll share Wiskup's four-step approach:
1. Describe your business without using any (not even a little) jargon "The first words that come out of your mouth in your elevator pitch should be a brief and memorable description of your business," writes Wiskup. Easy, right? Not so fast! "Here comes the hard part: I'm going to ask that your description exclude all industry jargon" because jargon "destroys your ability to be compelling and unique." That means avoiding acronyms, corporate speak or tech talk. Chris O'Leary, another elevator pitch expert, advises that your pitch should be easily understood by "your grandparents, your spouse or your children." And you should stay away from abstract concepts; choose concrete images instead. For example, "quality" doesn't mean much on its own; my sense of what it's like may be cool and blue, while yours maybe square, stark and white. But replace the word with a more tangible description--"This solution will reduce repairs by 45%"--and suddenly the concept comes to life.
2. Focus on your clients/ customers/audience Describe what you do for your clients (whether those clients are paying customers or people you serve in your organization) in plain
and distinct language. An effective pitch always addresses the needs and concerns of the audience, answering the classic questions, "What does this mean to me?" and "How will this help me?" For example, an internal communication manager I know describes what she does this way: "I help leaders (her clients) communicate in a way that helps employees understand how to do their jobs to support our company's success."
3. Tell a story of how you've helped overcome a challenge Wiskup's third step is this: "Launch into a single, highly specific issue or problem with which you helped a single customer." Of course, one single example is not all you do, but being specific helps bring your work to life. Part of your story should emphasize what's most remarkable. Merriam-Webster defines remarkable as "worthy of being or likely to be noticed especially as being uncommon or extraordinary."And marketing guru Michael Katz advises that you identify the thing that's so interesting, or unusual, or creative about what you're doing that your audience members will remember you.
4. Conclude by sharing the
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successful result of your efforts "When you describe a single problem or issue that your product or service resolves for a client, you are telling listeners that you are worth the investment others make in you," writes Wiskup. "The successful solving of a customer issue or problem gives you instant credibility, which you can never hope to achieve by simply reciting marketing slogans." Wiskup shares this example of an elevator pitch that follows his four-step formula: Step 1: We are accountants. Step 2: We make sure you understand your financial statements. We want the process of billing your customers and paying vendors' bills every month to wind up making you money, instead of giving you continual unprofitable headaches. Step 3: We do lots of things, but here is a good example. Just last week we showed a client that his company was mistakenly using two different vendors to buy the same thing for different offices instead of getting the vendors to compete for one big order at a lower price. Step 4: That change will save our client's company $100,000 during the next quarter alone. You might notice that Wiskup's
formula creates an elevator pitch that's longer than usual. Wiskup believes that great elevator pitches "run to five sentences or even longer. As long as your elevator pitch is sound, well thought out, and compelling, your listeners will give you the length of time and attention you deserve.".
www.inc.com/alison-davis/youdefinitely-need-an-elevator-pitchheres-a-simple-way-to-create-one. html?cid=nl029week33day16_5&utm_ source=newsletter&utm_ medium=email&utm_ campaign=Inc%20Must%20Reads&p osition=1&partner=newsletter&campai gn_date=16082019 Image credits: blackenterprise.com
41 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Fashion
Kimora Lee Simmons is Relaunching Baby Phat By Sharon Kanter
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aby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons is coming back, thanks to its original founder. Former model and fashion designer Kimora Lee Simmons Leissner announced that, this summer, she will relaunch the brand that helped put hip hop-inspired women’s fashion at the forefront of pop culture. “It’s the rebirth of my baby,” she told PEOPLE recently, after delivering the keynote address announcing the news at the UN Women and the Gender Innovation Coalition for Change event celebrating the new “She Innovates” campaign
( w w w. s h e i n n o v a t e s g l o b a l . c o m / gicc-principles) on International
Women’s Day. The brand had originally launched in 1999 as a subsidiary of thenhusband Russell Simmons’ Phat Fashions line. Thanks to some signature pieces — like the line’s signature baby tee featuring the Baby Phat rhinestone cat and a pink tufted flip phone — and major celebrity endorsements (from Britney Spears, Alicia Keys and more), it became a popular line of the aughts. However, Simmons Leissner exited from her long-held role as Creative Director in 2010,
Kimora Lee Simmons with daughthers Ming and Aoki tumultuously, it had been reported at the time, as it became a part of the Kellwood Company. Now, Simmons Leissner has bought it back, and she’s bringing her two teen daughters, Ming, 19, and Aoki, 16, (with ex-husband Russell Simmons) along with her to help rebuild and relaunch Baby Phat into the world. (She’s also mom to Kenzo Lee, 9, with ex actor Djimon Hounsou, and Wolfe Lee Leissner, 3, with investment banker husband Tim Leissner.) “Here we are again, 20 years later in 2019, and now [my daughters] are with me taking the reigns,” she
tells PEOPLE. “This is a womanowned company, run by me and my daughters. I’ve been in fashion for 30 years. But now it’s about passing the torch from one to the next.” Simmons Leissner says her daughters, who often used to join her on the Baby Phat runways as young girls, will help her translates Baby Phat’s core ideas to the next generation. “It’s going to be an ode to the past but then they will pick it up where we left off,” she says. “They are involved in every aspect of the business,” she explains.
42 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
“Ming studies business and fashion in college in New York, and Aoki is in Los Angeles and will be in college next year. They’re very much innovators and influencers. We’re like the Three Musketeers.” The first collection will drop “in May or June,” says Simmons Leissner. “It’s going to feature our key
pieces and nostalgic moments,” she explains, hinting at the return of the famous “Baby Cat Phat” rhinestone tee. “It’s all going to be still cool, still sexy and still fun.” Simmons Leisner says many of her famous friends are excited about the relaunch, including Kim Kardashian West. “She was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ It has to be the Baby
Phat that we remember from then, like not necessarily all new, it has to be the original,” says Simmons Leissner. The brand will relaunch this spring on babyphat.com though the exact date is still to be determined. www.yahoo.com/entertainment/kimora-leesimmons-relaunching-baby-172521836. html
43 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Security Alert
A New Kind of Cybercrime Uses AI and Your Voice Against You By Ephrat Livni
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t’s easy enough to forge a signature for fraudulent purposes. However, until recently, some things—like our voices—have been distinctive and difficult to mimic. Not so in our brave new world. A new kind of cybercrime that uses artificial intelligence and voice technology is one of the unfortunate
appear in accounts and a third call came from Austria, with the caller again alleging to be the parent company’s chief executive requesting another urgent transfer, the CEO became suspicious. Despite recognizing what seemed to be his boss’s voice, the CEO declined to make the transfer,
developments of postmodernity. You can’t trust what you see, as deep fake videos have shown, or what you hear, it seems. A $243,000 voice fraud case, reported by the Wall Street Journal, proves it. In March, fraudsters used AIbased software to impersonate a chief executive from the German parent company of an unnamed UK-based energy firm, tricking his underling, the energy CEO, into making an allegedly urgent large monetary transfer by calling him on the phone. The CEO made the requested transfer to a Hungarian supplier and was contacted again with assurances that the transfer was being reimbursed immediately. That too seemed believable. However, when the reimbursement funds had yet to
realizing something was amiss. Although the CEO recognized the familiar accent and intonations of the chief executive, it turns out that the boss wasn’t making the call. The funds he transferred to Hungary were subsequently moved to Mexico and other locations and authorities have yet to pinpoint any suspects. Rüdiger Kirsch, a fraud expert at insurer Euler Hermes, which covered the victim company’s claim, tells the Journal that the insurance company has never previously dealt with claims stemming from losses due to AI-related crimes. He says the police investigation into the affair is over and indicates that hackers used commercial voice-generating software to carry out the attack, noting that he
tested one such product and found the reproduced version of his voice sounded real to him Certainly, law enforcement authorities and AI experts are aware of voice technology’s burgeoning capabilities, and the high likelihood that AI is poised to be the new frontier for fraud. Last year, Pindrop (www.pindrop.com) , a company that creates security software and protocols for call centers, reported a 350% rise in voice fraud between 2013 and 2017, primarily to credit unions, banks, insurers, brokerages, and card issuers. By pretending to be someone else on the phone, a voice fraudster can access private information that wouldn’t otherwise be available and can be used for nefarious purposes. The ability to feign another’s identity with voice is easier than ever with new audio tools and increased reliance on call centers that offer services (as opposed to going to the bank and talking to a teller faceto-face, say). As the tools to create fakes improve, the chances of criminals using AI-based voice tech to mimic our voices and use them against us are heightened. https://qz.com/1699819/a-new-kindof-cybercrime-uses-ai-and-your-voiceagainst-you/?utm_source=email&utm_ medium=daily-brief Image credit: blog.just199.com
44 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
A
re you a Small Business interested in selling your product or services to Metro or to Prime Contractors that do business with Metro? Would you like to learn how to win contracts as a Prime Contractor through SB Prime, Metro's exciting set-aside initiative? If so, we invite you to come grow with us and learn about Metro Connect. Start now and register for a How to Do Business with Metro Workshop. Metro staff will show you how to take advantage of the vast array of products, services and transportation related opportunities projected over the coming weeks, months and year. As an added bonus, Metro's procurement staff will host informal interviews with firms before the workshop, starting at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, October 8, 2019 8:30 a.m.: Registration 9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. One-on-One with Contract Administrators and Continental Breakfast 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.: Program
Metro Headquarters 3rd Floor, Board Room, One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Topics: Highway Project Update, Procurement Update, Certification Update, Small Business Prime Update, LA SAFE/511 Next Generation Update To learn more about how Metro Connect's Small and Disadvantaged Business Certifications can help open the door to contracting opportunities with Metro visit Metro Vendor Portal. For further questions, please contact Marisela Villar at VillarM@metro.net or via phone at 213.922.2235.
(323) 868-2621
Business - eCommeerce
Black Woman-Owned Construction Firm Hired to Build New Terminals at JFK and Laguardia Airports By Parker Diakite
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heryl McKissack Daniel is the CEO and President of McKissack & McKissack (https:// mckissack.com), the oldest black-owned and female-run construction company in the United States. In a male-dominated and competitive industry, Daniel’s company has been assigned to major projects across the New York City area, including the revamping of Long Island’s railroad hub, which runs underneath the Brooklyn Nets’ home, as reported on CBS News. Her load just got bigger. Recently, her company was assigned to handle construction at LaGuardia Airport and the new Terminal One at JFK. In an interview with CBS News, McKissack Daniel said that competing for projects with the big leagues,
“takes relationships, and getting people to realize that you bring value to the table something unique and different.” The company’s history dates back more than two centuries with her grandfather Moses McKissack, a former slave from Tennessee. In 1905, he founded the business and more than 30 years later, the company was awarded a $5 million contract to design and build the 99th Pursuit Squadron Airbase in Tuskegee, Alabama, where black pilots were trained to desegregate World War II. At the time, it was the largest federal contract given to a black-owned firm. Over the years, the company has built homes, hospitals, and colleges. It was McKissack Daniel’s father William, who took over the company in 1968, that inspired his three daughters to consider a career in construction. “We would go to work with him every Saturday starting at ten years old, walking construction sites, tracing documents, you know, learning about building systems early in life,” McKissack Daniel told CBS News. “It was all ingrained in us.” Once McKissack Daniel obtained both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Howard University, she took over the family company in 2000. She credits the company’s success to affirmative action after she moved the company from Nashville to the Big Apple. “People do business with people who look like them. All the work that we’ve done outside of New York, it didn’t matter in New York.” Making it her mission to prioritize hiring minorities, 61% of her employees are minorities, and 34% are women. https://legacy.travelnoire.com/black-womanconstruction-terminals-jfk-laguardia-airports/
47 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Black Wealth
Black Wealth in America
By By Stacey Tisdale, Financial expert compensated by On
Despite these income gains, the wealth gap in the U.S. remains significant. In 2016, the median wealth (www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/ reports/2018/02/21/447051/systematic-inequality) for black families was just $17,600 (www.americanprogress. org/issues/race/reports/2018/02/21/447051/systematicinequality) — significantly lower than other racial and
A Story of Resilience I was recently speaking to a group of young black women in an after-school STEM program in Harlem, New York, about black wealth (https:// figureskatinginharlem.org). I began by asking them what came to mind when they think about blacks and money. Their comments were telling. “We struggle with money.” “We don’t understand money.” “We don’t know about things like investing.” The whole energy in the room changed when I shared with them that: • Black households in the U.S. earning $75,000 or more are the fastest growing income group, with the biggest gains coming in those who earn more than $200,000. (www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2015/ african-americans-are-increasingly-affluent-educatedand-diverse)
• Blacks read financial magazines 28% more than consumers from other racial or ethnic groups. (www. nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2013/african-americanconsumers-are-more-relevant-than-ever)
• Black buying power in the U.S. is $1.2 trillion and is expected to reach $1.4 trillion by 2020. (www.nielsen. com/us/en/insights/article/2018/black-impact-consumercategories-where-african-americans-move-markets)
• Between 2013 and 2016 net worth increased 29% for black families, and just 17% for white families. (www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2017-septemberchanges-in-us-family-finances-from-2013-to-2016.htm)
• Nearly 70% of blacks under the age of 40, who earn at least $50,000 a year, invested in stocks. (www. arielinvestments.com/content/view/3006/1850)
Closing Our Gaps
ethnic groups. When compared with other families across the U.S., • blacks tend to have fewer assets, like owning their own home or business; • less savings; • limited access to 401(k)s and IRAs; and • often hold higher interest loans for automobiles and mortgages. In addition, systemic racism, discrimination and a lack of access to wealth-building opportunities remain significant impediments to the black community. But possibly the most destructive hurdle to overcome is the negative mindset these impediments have created for many blacks, like the young women I mentioned earlier.
The Financial History of Blacks in the U.S. The financial history of blacks in the United States is a surprising and devastating untold story that serves as a reminder of how tough it has been for blacks to accumulate wealth in the U.S. (www.huffpost.com/entry/ treasury-department_n_566735fae4b079b281907ab3). For example: Between 1865 and 1874 newly emancipated slaves amassed $57 million in the Freedman’s Bank. Their deposits were taken to build the Treasury Annex building, and they were never reimbursed. During the Great Migration between 1916 and 1970 (www.history.com/topics/black-history/great-migration) , more than 6 million blacks left the South and moved to the North, Midwest and West to search for employment and opportunity. It was also to escape brutal violence, including what’s been called terror lynchings (https:// lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report), according to The Equal Justice Institute (https://eji.org/history-racial-injustice-
48 September 2019 Black Business News www.blackbbusinessnews.net 1-323-291-7819
neMain
great-migration). They left behind millions
of acres of some of the most lucrative land in the U.S. The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 destroyed the affluent black community of Greenwood, also known as the Black Wall Street for having a high concentration of black wealth and entrepreneurship in the United States. When you consider the financial, psychological and emotional scars events like these have left, the financial gains the black community has made serves as an incredible reminder of the resilience in all of us.
Understanding Your Financial DNA The young women I shared these facts with were shocked, curious and now had new information that would allow them to change their perceptions about blacks and money, which meant they were able to change their perceptions about their own financial possibilities. As new generations of blacks try to create financial security for themselves and their families, they must look inside and see how this historic conditioning is impacting how they feel about themselves. We should all examine the role race and culture play in our financial beliefs and ask ourselves: What are some of the stereotypes that are associated with my racial or ethnic group? Do I see some of these stereotypes playing out in my own behavior? How would I need to change the messages I’m telling myself if I were living my ideal relationship with money?
The Truth Will Set You Free Awareness is the place where transformation can occur. As we see from the financial history of blacks
in this country, we were born with everything we need inside of us to thrive, even when faced with tremendous challenges. Resilience is our birthright, and a tremendous asset for our journey to financial freedom. www.onemainfinancial.com/resources/community/black-wealth-inamerica
49 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Image credits: complex.com
Business - Breakthrough
Few Black Conductors Lead Orchestras. For Anthony Parnther, It’s Time to Represent By Tim Greiving
Aww
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n t h o n y Parnther made the sobering comment: Of about 2,000 professional orchestras in the U.S., the number of black conductors today can be counted on one hand. Which makes Parnther’s new appointment as Anthony Parnther is the new music director of the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra. Music Director of (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) the San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra all the more notable. He’ll director of the orchestra. “This is not normal. So he can kick off the 2019–2020 season with a performance of rile up an audience!” “Carmina Burana,” followed by a Nov. 16 concert with Parnther, who studied music performance at Jennifer Holliday and Lynn Harrell. Northwestern and orchestral conducting at Yale, “I’ve seen it many times when I’m conducting, and I chucks out academic program notes and engages see young children of various colors sitting in the front audiences personally, explaining why he programmed three or four rows,” Parnther said. “You can just tell, it’s each piece and what it means to him. At intermission, like: ‘Wow, that’s not what I was expecting to see come he wades into the hall and chats with the crowd. around the corner.’” “I take a very personal approach to breaking down San Bernardino Symphony — in its 91st year, among all the formalities that have crept into classical music,” the oldest professional orchestras in California — he said. “I’m really attracted to musicians or styles of hired Parnther because of his charismatic, captivating music where there’s a lack of inhibition. Which is why conducting. At an audition concert in 2017, he received I think gospel music is possibly one of the greatest art three standing ovations — “one of them was before forms that we have, because of the rawness of the the intermission started,” said Anne Viricel, executive music, because of the emotion.”
50 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
ww.southeastsymphony.com Parnther, the son of Jamaican and Samoan immigrants, grew up in a “conservative, well-to-do black neighborhood” in Virginia where he attended the Baptist church every Sunday. “If I had my choice, I would probably be a gospel singer, but I was not blessed with that talent. So I settled for classical music,” he said, laughing. He joined band in junior high so he could go on group trips to theme parks. He was guided by a dictionary into picking the bassoon, but the instrument stuck. He still plays regularly on Hollywood scoring stages. He recently performed on Hans Zimmer’s score for the new “The Lion King.” The other half of his life is conducting — and not just classical. He conducts live video game concerts and film scores, and he has brought an orchestral element to live and recorded projects by the likes of Kanye West, Imagine Dragons and, recently, RZA of WuTang Clan. He has studied the electric relationship between popular artists and their audiences and wants to bring that same dynamism and lack of inhibition to the concert hall. “Music, to me, is emotional first and intellectual second,” he said. “When I was 13 years old and listening to Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, I had no idea what they were saying, I had no idea what they were playing, but I knew that the sounds had a profound effect on me — the way it made me feel.” The San Bernardino appointment puts Parnther on a path first paved by black music directors such as the late Henry Lewis at the New Jersey Symphony, the late Calvin Simmons of the Oakland Symphony, the
late James DePreist of the Oregon Symphony and Jon Robertson, now music director emeritus of the nearby Redlands Symphony. Parnther also is entering his ninth season as music director of the Southeast Symphony, the historically black orchestra in Los Angeles founded in 1948. In a city full of performing ensembles, he’s proud that the group is doing well financially and drawing capacity crowds. It also reflects the diversity of L.A., with people of color making up more than half of its members. Making music is an avocation for most of the orchestra, but they’re all paid. Another point of pride for Parnther, and something he intends to bring to San Bernardino: Southeast Symphony has premiered nearly 50 pieces by female composers in the last decade and staged nearly 100 works by black composers. “It’s a little audacious for me to say this,” he said, “but I think that we have been the leading platform for composers of color.” He believes his programming, and his presence onstage, will have a ripple effect in the Inland Empire. “It’s a little uncomfortable to walk into a room where you see no one that looks like you,” Parnther said. “Of course, most of my career has been like that. I’ve almost always been the one minority in a symphony orchestra. Communities come out to a ton of things where they feel that they’re being represented.” www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-09-10/ black-conductors-anthony-parnther-san-bernardino?utm_ medium=10today.ad3li.20190911.421.2&utm_ source=email&utm_content=article&utm_campaign=10-fortoday---4.0-styling
51 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Opportunities for Growth
Why Africa's Digital Boom is Only Just Getting Started By Acha Leke and Tawanda Sibanda
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frica is digitizing rapidly – but this trend has been hidden from the view of many global investors and executives. For example, Africa already has 122 million active users of mobile financial services, more than half the global total, and smartphone connections and mobile data traffic are increasing rapidly. Digital technologies allow innovative businesses to address massive unmet demand. Consider retail: There are 60,000 people per formal retail outlet in Africa, compared with just 400 people per store in the United States. E-commerce start-ups such as Jumia (www.jumia.co.ke) – which already has over 4 million customers in 14 African countries – are turning that gap into an opportunity. The company is betting that online sales will grow from 1% of total retail sales in Africa today to as much 15% in 10 years. Jumia’s listing on the NYSE in April valued it at over $1 billion, giving it claim to be Africa’s first technology unicorn. Another of Africa’s successful digital start-ups is Interswitch (www.interswitchgroup.com) – founded by Nigerian engineer Mitchell Elegbe after he observed people carrying piles of cash to pay for everything from groceries to cellphone airtime to utility bills. Today, Nigerian consumers and businesses make more than 300 million digital transactions a month across a suite of
Interswitche n a b l e d channels. Interswitch, too, plans a global listing. There is room for many more such digitally driven innovations in Africa. Consider higher education, where Africa’s rate of enrollment is half that of India’s. One tech-enabled innovation to close that gap is the African Leadership University (ALU), whose campuses in Kenya, Mauritius and Rwanda empower students to manage their own education using technology – so bringing costs down to less than 10% of traditional universities. The ALU (www.alueducation. com) was recently named one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world. To scale and replicate such innovations, much greater investment will be required in the African technology sector. Although investment in African tech startups reached a record $1.2 billion in 2018, it still lags other regions such as south-east Asia, where tech startups attracted more than $10 billion in financing in 2018. Shortages of digital talent can be a further barrier to growth for technology firms. That calls for innovative approaches – such as that taken by Andela, another fast-growing start-up. It recruits African software engineers, staffs and trains them in its campuses in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda, then hires them out as full-time “distributed teams” to companies across the world. Andela has hired 1,200 African developers over the past four years and supplies their services to 200 companies worldwide. The company is also headed for unicorn status: It is already valued
52 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
November 7 - 10, 2019 Oakland, California AfroTech: https://experience.afrotech.com Register: https://e.sparxo.com/Afrotech19 Partner: https://experience.afrotech.com/partner Tracks: Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Engineering & Design The groundbreaking, revolutionary experience for Black techies, startups and entrepreneurs returns! Come join 6000+ of your fellow founders, entrepreneurs and engineers for a 360-degree look at how culture, innovation and tech run the world. Collectively, we can scale our collective power in culture, innovation and tech. Buy your tickets today! Together we have the power to drive innovation, redefine how we do business, and create our own future. at as much as $700 million. Last but not least, technology firms in Africa must navigate some big infrastructure challenges – including the fact that internet data is still significantly slower and more expensive in Africa than on other continents. Although penetration is growing fast, two-thirds of
Africans still lack internet access altogether. Even in this arena, though, some firms are recasting challenges as opportunities. For example, Loon (https:// loon.com), a sister company of Google (www.google. com), is building a network of high-flying balloons to connect people in rural Kenya to the internet. That is an apt metaphor for Africa’s digitization, where the sky is indeed the limit. www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/why-africasdigital-boom-is-only-just-getting-started/?utm_ medium=40digest.7days3.20190903.carousel&utm_ source=email&utm_content=&utm_campaign=campaign Image credits: opportunitiesforafricans.com, en.wikipedia. org, businesslist.com.ng, nigeriacommunicationsweek.com, loon.com, essa-africa.org, blogoscoped.com
53 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Crenshaw Blvd. Stocker St. to Obama Bl. Los Angeles, California October 19, 2019 10am-7pm tasteofsoul.org
Business - New Winery
This Black Woman Is Behind North Carolina’s Newest Urban Winery By DeAnna Taylor
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ess than 1% of winemakers are Black women. Let us repeat that again. Less than 1% of the people who create the wines we love are Black women. Ohio native Lindsey Williams is one of the latest women to be included among that number. After spending over 13 years in her career as a Corporate Attorney, she decided that opening her own business was next on the list. She recently opened Davidson Wine Co., an urban winery concept just outside of Charlotte, NC. “I really love wine and I had the chance to visit Italy,” Lindsey told Travel Noire. “I really caught the wine bug after seeing the process up close.” When people think of wine country or wineries in general, they think of California or international destinations like South Africa or Italy. But, more and more wineries are popping up in unconventional places too. While the initial plan was to buy a farm, open a vineyard, and grow the grapes herself– Lindsey found
that there was a better way to do things for now. She decided to introduce the Charlotte area to its first urban winery. “With an urban winery you still make your own wine but you don’t grow your own grapes. I source grapes from growers from all over the world like California, Chile, Italy, and France.” She works closely with an affiliate partner who helps her to choose the best grapes around the world. But, Lindsey has full control when it comes to putting together the flavor palettes for her private label, under the same name as the winery. “Wine production takes time. A good red takes up to four months,” Lindsey explained. “While I get my private label fully up and running, I also offer wines from other labels.” She is learning day by day what her customer base enjoys most. She plans to use that to create the different wines that will be offered in the future. The community where her winery is located couldn’t be happier to have a concept like this. It’s the first of its kind in the Davidson area, which is only a short 30-minute drive north of Charlotte. As a woman in an industry that is typically ruled by men, Lindsey is just excited to be here. Although, at times people are surprised to see that it is a Black woman that is the owner and maker. As far as her advice to other aspiring winemakers out there, Lindsey had this to say: “Do your research. There are lots of opportunities in the wine industry, not just as winemakers. There are all sorts of executive careers as well. Find the path that works best for you, do the homework, and see where you can fit in. Be prepared to hear ‘no’ a lot, but keep going.” To learn more about Lindsey and Davidson Wine Co., you can check out their website or catch them on Instagram: @davidsonwineco. https://legacy.travelnoire.com/black-woman-north-carolinaurban-winery Image credits: Photo by Elena Rogers @elenarogers
56 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
57 February 2019 Black Business News www.blackbbusinessnews.net 1-323-291-7819
Business - Cybersecurity
Hit by Ransomware? Here's What the FBI Says You Should Do From Regional Cal Black Chamber San Fernando Valley
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fter at least 23 Texas towns were hit by a “coordinated” ransomware attack recently, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an “escalated response” and the state’s Department of Information Resources stepped in to work with the affected groups. But what happens if cybercriminals target your personal computer or business with ransomware? FBI officials said in a recent podcast that victims of ransomware should not pay the ransom. Ransomware is a type of malware that encrypts the information on a computer. It’s spread through spam emails and malicious websites. When a user tries to use the computer, they receive a message demanding payment to unlock it. But paying up is no guarantee that the crook will unlock the computer, according to Herbert Stapleton, the FBI’s Cyber Section chief. In one case, he said the “bad actors” took the money and provided a key to unlock the victim company’s data. But instead, the key actually erased all the data. “These are fairly rare instances, but the risk is there,” Stapleton said on the podcast. There were more than 1,400 victims of ransomware with losses of $3.6 million, not including costs like lost businesses, wages or time, according to the FBI. But officials said that figure only represents a small fraction of the incidents, as many victims don’t report the attacks.
Paying the people who spread ransomware also just encourages them to continue, according to Stapleton. “They basically will continue to attack as long as it’s profitable for them,” he said. “So, continuing to contribute to that profitability just encourages more ransomware attempts.” Instead of paying, the best thing to do is to contact blog.shi.com the FBI and report the cyberattack as soon as possible, FBI spokesperson Mollie Halpern said. Victims of crimes like ransomware attacks can report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center online (www.ic3.gov/default.aspx). In Texas, officials didn’t disclose which agencies or jurisdictions were targeted by the ransomware attack. But government agencies appear to be popular targets for cybercriminals. Earlier this year, officials in Baltimore said a ransomware attack crippled its computer systems and cost the city millions as hackers demanded a payment of $76,000 in bitcoin. Officials in the small Florida town of Riviera Beach voted to have its insurer pay nearly $600,000 in bitcoin after hackers paralyzed its computers. In Georgia, Jackson County officials said they paid hackers nearly $400,000 to stop an attack that had left the sheriff’s office filling out paperwork on paper instead of on a computer. “One of the reasons they can extract such large ransoms is they often target entities whose data is either a critical part of their business or that entity provides critical services, like emergency services,” Stapleton said. “So a police department is a really good example of that. If a police department can’t access the necessary data and systems they have, then there is a potential public safety risk. And so, as a result, the criminals have found that, often, these entities ar e willing to pay high ransoms to get their data back.”
58 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Technology / Take A Look! Technology:
Take A Look! Duolingo: Time to Learn Another Language
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frican Diaspora cultural and economic activity is on the rise. It may be time to give some consideration to becoming somewhat if not fully functional in one or more languages other than English. Duolingo (www.duolingo.com) has been available for a long time. It is free and a tool that you can put to good use during the downtimes in your day via your tablet or smartphone - bus rides, Uber/Lyft journeys, waiting for your car at the car wash. T h e s y s t e m offers most of the languages you will encounter in the coming expanded economic universe - German, French, Portugese, and Swahili. Also available are: Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Latin and, for those planning way ahead, Klingon - Qaplá. www.duolingo.com
Find Black-Owned Restaurants
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ith more than 2,000 restaurants on its online database, Edward Dillard is trying to make it easier for consumers to find and support black-owned restaurants. (www.eatblackowned.com) EatBlackOwned.com officially launched back in June 2019 and is an online database full of black-owned restaurants. From soul food, vegan, BBQ, seafood, Caribbean, and African cuisine, the website features a diverse inventory of eateries in any town. “There’s only one thing that everyone in this world has in common: we all love great tasting food,” Dillard told the Charleston Chronicle. “I believe that if people
have a place where they can find all the minorityo w n e d restaurants in this c o u n t r y, more of us will start to support these small businesses. Ninetythree cents of every dollar spent by Black consumers produce no economic benefit for the Black community, as the dollar only circulates in the community for six hours.” Data from the National Restaurant Association revealed that minority-owned businesses have grown phenomenally between 2007 and 2012 in 48 states (www.restaurant.org/Articles/News/Women-ownedrestaurants-driving-growth-in-48-state). According to Small Business Trends, the number of African-American-owned restaurants surged to 49% between 2007 and 2012 (https://smallbiztrends. com/2016/03/women-and-minority-owned-restaurantbusinesses.html).
It took Dillard nearly five months to research blackowned restaurants for the website. Once you type in your location, the data reveals the names, addresses, and phone numbers of each listing. “I hope this website will get more people to support Black-owned businesses,“ Dillard said. “There’s a huge racial wealth gap in this country. We need to do everything we can to build ourselves up.” If black-owned businesses would like to add a listing, they can do so by completing the online form that asks for the name, location, contact information and other details of the restaurant. Company logos and other images can also be added, along with a restaurant description. https://legacy.travelnoire.com/eat-black-owned-restaurantswebsite
ProductHunt: Find the tools you need to succeed
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roduct Hunt (www.producthunt.com) surfaces the best new products, every day. It's a place for
60 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
or refinance your home or buy us out, up to 10 years later. If the value of your home goes up, we share in the portion of the gains with you. If the value of your home goes down, we share the loss with you. Check out whether you are eligible for instant approval, access our free, no-commitment estimate tool visit: https://app.patchhomes.com/home-address/ SO75OaIKzuMyAMpiM.
product-loving enthusiasts to share and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations. www.producthunt.com Image credit: macctrast.com
Your "Private" Images Can be Hacked & Shared!
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he research team at BuzzFeed.News (www. buzzfeednews.com) has found a "hack" that allows knowledgeable 'followers' to share the private images and videos that you post on Instgram and Facebook. Read the full story and see the Hack code at: www.buzzfeednews.
com/article/ryanhatesthis/privateinstagram-posts-arent-exactlyprivate.
Remember: there is no real privacy on the Internet. All data resides in some database somewhere for a while. Take care. www.bbala.org
Patch Homes: another finanancing option
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he Patch Homes (www.patchhomes.com) system provides access up to $250,000 of your home equity. No Interest. No Monthly Payments. Ever. We offer an innovative, debt-free way for homeowners to access their home equity wealth. Homeowners can access the funding in as little as a few weeks and use the money however they want—to reduce their debt, finance home renovations or cover education or other expenses. Instead of charging interest or requiring monthly payments, Patch Homes shares in a portion of the change in value of your home from the time of our initial investment until the time that you choose to sell
www.patchhomes.com
ToTo Toilets: upgrade client and employee experiences
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estaurants and other businesses are not only are offering cleaner and well stocked bathrooms, but ones that are also experiences unto themselves. A probable feature in this new-wave bathroom: a Toto toilet. The Toto has a range of features you never thought yyour toilet needed: h heated seats, a rremote control b bidet, a lid that automatically rraises when yyou enter the b bathroom, and a d deodorizer that n neutralizes any u unpleasant scents a after your visit. It’s worth m mentioning that tthese toilets aren’t ccheap. The higherend models can e rrun $13,000 (they iinclude “bacterianeutralizing u ultraviolet light” and a “titanium dioxide–fired toilet bowl”). A Toto toilet is an investment. www.bonappetit.com/story/toto-toilet www.totousa.com Image credit: joscoshowroom.com Curatted by LaSandra Stratton, Chief Content Administrator of the Black Business News.
61 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Jane e Reese-Wilkins s & Associates s e Black k Business s Association n Memberr off the Will assist you with your FREE Covered California Enrollment for No Cost! We assist with the quote, plan selection and enrollment. Depending on your situation, you may receive Premium Assistance. Dental and vision coverage is available at the time of enrollment. We represent the following plans:
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63 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Business - Fashion
H&M Partners with their First African Designer, Palesa Mokubung Of South Africa By Kelsey Marie
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ega retailer H&M has partnered with South African designer Palesa Mokubung in its firstever collaboration with an African designer. Mokubung’s brand, Mantsho (https://mantsho.co), was created by the Johannesburg-based designer in 2004. Since then, then Mantsho label has appeared worldwide, gracing runways in the U.S., India, and Greece. The word Mantsho in Mokubung’s native language of Sesotho translates to “Black is beautiful.” A statement released by H&M and Mantsho shares, “Mantsho x H&M is an exciting collection celebrating the elegance and vibrancy of Africa with modern edgy designs created for the stylish carefree woman.” The joint collection introduces South African traditional prints to the world. Launched on August 15, there are women’s clothing and accessories featuring a rich and vivid color palette. “I hope customers around the world will enjoy the ensemble of my stand out pieces from my last three collections,” says Mokubung in a statement. https://legacy.travelnoire.com/hm-african-designer-palesamokubung Image Credits: 1000logos.net, mantsho.co.
safashionweek. co.za, pinterest.com
64 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Adarrius Joseph www.facebook.com/swift.bitness
Impeach Hate
I
n July, the NAACP passed a historic resolution at our 110th Annual National Convention, when over 2,000 delegates voted unanimously to call for the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.
Today, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Contact your Congressperson and your Senators now and urge them to support impeachment as well. Congress has done our nation a disservice by overlooking President Trump’s egregious actions and words against our nation’s values. The time to act is now. Contact your Representative and Senators now, and join a community of activists who
are demanding their voices be heard. Time is running out. We must make strides to put our nation back on the path of unity, understanding, and a true democracy. In solidarity, Derrick Johnson @DerrickNAACP President and CEO NAACP
66 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Commentary
Remembering The Watts Revolt: A Shared Condition, Consciousness and Commentment By Dr. Maulana Karenga
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he anniversary of the 1965 Watts Revolt occurs in the context of a larger history of Black struggle, sacrifices and achievements: the assassination, sacrifice and martyrdom of Min. Malcolm X; the Selma March; the Voting Rights Act; the founding of our organization Us and the African American Cultural Center; and the introduction of the Black value system, the Nguzo Saba, which became the core values of the pan-African holiday Kwanzaa and of Kawaida, a major Movement philosophy of life and struggle. Moreover, placing the Revolt in its larger context, means first of all, seeing it, not as an isolated action or event, but as a part of our long history of revolt and resistance that stretches from the Holocaust of enslavement thru segregation and the Sixties, to the revolts and resistance of our time. Indeed, all these revolts are part of our larger struggle for liberation and our right to live lives of dignity, decency, security and flourishing. It requires also that we understand Watts (as well as its sister sites of struggle), not only as a geographical site, but also as a shared condition, consciousness and commitment to righteous and radical struggle. This means a shared condition of oppression, a shared consciousness of the need and obligation to resist our oppression, and a shared commitment to the struggle to end our oppression. Indeed, the Revolt did not begin in Watts and only reached is center on the third day of the six-day uprising. The National Guard cordoned off South Central Los Angeles and Black people from all over L.A. often claimed to be from Watts, claiming not the place, but the shared condition, consciousness and commitment to radical and transformative struggle it represented. The Watts Revolt, then, grew out of a long history of righteous resistance and revolt. The Watts Revolt, as well as revolts in Ferguson and elsewhere, was a collective act of resistance to achieve three fundamental goals and affirm and secure three basic rights: self-determination, selfrespect and self-defense, a definition we also used to define Black Power. And these remain rights and responsibilities which we must still secure and defend are: (1) to control our communities and have effective participation and representation in every critical social
space and in every decision that affects our destiny and daily lives; (2) to be ourselves without penalty, oppression, disguise or erasure and to live our lives Dr. Maulana Karenga in culturally grounded and dignityaffirming ways; and (3) to defend ourselves against all forms of systemic and social violence—police, vigilante, economic, political, educational, etc. Fifty-four years ago, on August 11, 1965, Black people of L.A. and especially of Watts rose up in righteous resistance to police violence, merchant exploitation and systemic oppression. They confronted the police who had for so long acted in our community as an occupying army and burned stores and other externally controlled institutions as sites and symbols of exploitation and humiliation. Thus, they did not burn what was theirs, but the sites and symbols of their oppression, their exploitation and degradation. At the end of the Revolt, there were 34 martyrs, 1,032 injured and 3,952 arrests. It was clearly a heavy price paid for a freedom from oppression which was their right by birth and being human. However, as Harriet Tubman taught, “We must go free or die, and freedom is not bought with dust”, but is achieved and secured with sacrifices of all kinds, including the lives of the oppressed and struggling people. The tendency is for the established order to frame the narrative of the Revolt in negative ways, but we must frame it in ways that criticizes the society for its oppression of us and others; its failure to follow thru with commitments made under the pressure of our struggle, its deep-rooted hypocrisy which Malcolm X constantly condemned and its false claims which Fannie Lou Hamer continuously questioned. Also, we must not confuse what the established order did not do with what we did, in fact, do. And we must not let the oppressor’s claim that the Revolt achieved nothing be used to discredit the right to resistance or deny the things we achieved against overwhelming odds. For not only did we struggle
68 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
rightfully and righteously for our rights, but also, we built many organizations and institutions, achieved a new expanded sense of self and built an enduring model of struggle for oppressed and struggling peoples and groups in this country and around the world. In the aftermath of the Revolt, there were community demands which spoke to the urgent need for racial and social justice. Our people first demanded, like today, the end to police violence. We began a systematic monitoring of police thru the Community Alert Patrol (CAP), securing pro bono legal services from Black lawyers who taught people their rights and often volunteered representation of them in cases of police violence. But eventually as the Movement declined, the police violence returned and reversal of gains began. Our people demanded also jobs and an equitable share of development resources; early education programs; teen programs; improved education; increased and effective representation in the political arena; adequate housing and health care; support for cultural institutions; and prisoner rights and real programs of rehabilitation and reentry. During the early period, following the aftermath of the Revolt, there was also the building and strengthening of institutions and organizations to respond to the people’s needs and demands. These included the Watts Health Foundation, Kedren Community Mental Health Center, King/Drew Hospital and Medical School, the Watts Summer Festival, Mafundi Institute, Ujima Village, the Black Congress, the Brotherhood Crusade, the Social Action Training Center, the African American Cultural Center (Us), the Organization Us, and other social change organizations as well as other new and reinforced formations and structures. Moreover, there arose also a new sense of self, which Frantz Fanon tells us can only come from struggle and which Dr. Martin L. King asserts was “the greatest victory of this period”, i.e., “something internal”. For “we armed ourselves with dignity and self-respect” and “we straightened our backs up”. We must then, learn from these struggles and intensify our struggle in the face of new and old
realities. Among these are increased police violence; the continuing problems of gangs and drugs; increased homelessness and health issues; increasing class differences; mass incarceration; higher levels of poverty; and racist and class injustice deceptively called “disparities”. Problems remain, but we have a new consciousness and an increasingly heightened commitment. We must continue to strengthen our collaborative and cooperative initiatives like with the Black Community, Clergy and Labor Alliance (BCCLA), a Black united front concerned with building what we have called since the 60s operational unity, unity in diversity, in order to increase our strength, coordinate our efforts and cooperate on common ground issues of racial and social justice, and the well-being and flourishing of our people. And we must rebuild the Movement. FINALLY, WHAT CAN WE OFFER AS A WAY forward except to repeat and reaffirm the ethical and enduring message of our ancestors concerning life, love and struggle. And it is this: “Continue the struggle. Keep the faith. Hold the line. Love and respect our people and each other. Seek and speak truth. Do and demand justice. Be constantly concerned with the well-being of the world and all in it. And rebuild a righteous Movement which prefigures and makes possible the good world we all want and deserve, and work and struggle to bring into being.” www.us-organization.org/position/documents/ rememberingthewattsrevolt08-29-19.pdf Image credits: nbcnews.com.
69 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Commentary - Challenge of Violence
August 26, 2019
Violent White Supremacists Threaten Basic Civil Rights — and our Lives
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very right we have fought for and won since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his monumental “I Have a Dream” speech 56 years ago this Wednesday is under unrelenting attack and in grave peril — from the right to drink fresh water and breathe clear air, to the right of workers to organize for better wages and safer conditions to the right to vote without interference from “enemies foreign and domestic” to the rights of women, children, the LGBTQ community and immigrants. But it’s not just our rights that are in danger. It is our very lives. After the horrendous mass shooting in El Paso, Texas by a white supremacist — who drove more than 600 miles to the city with the explicit purpose of slaughtering Latinos in response to the mythical “invasion” President Donald Trump and the right ranted about — new attention has been paid to the growing violence of white supremacists. In the few weeks since El Paso, six white supremacists have been arrested for plotting violent attacks. The Anti-Defamation League reports that white extremists killed
blackhistorythetruthgoingforward.wordpress.com 50 people last year — people of all races. Some compare the threat posed by white supremacists here at home to the terrorist threat posed by ISIS or al-Qaida. What too often is overlooked, as MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes noted in his show last Friday, is that white terrorist violence has been part of the American experience from the beginning.
Hayes notes that the first real terrorist cells in the U.S. arose after the Civil War as a response by white southerners to the freeing of slaves. When slaves became free men, the power of the white establishment in the South was threatened. The reaction was violent — with community leaders joining to create terrorist cells — most of which became known as the Ku Klux Klan. To preserve white dominance,
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m
the Klan launched a wave of terror against blacks and their white allies across the South, including lynching, murder, abduction and rape. Hayes cites the 2,000 murders in the state of Kansas in the lead-up to the 1868 election, designed to terrorize potential black voters, with the explicit aim of sustaining white power. When Ulysses S. Grant became president, Congress passed legislation in 1870 — the Enforcement Acts — that empowered the federal government to respond to the wave of terror. For the first time, the newly created Department of Justice began prosecuting the Klan in federal courts, backed by federal troops on the ground in the South. They made great progress against the Klan until a political compromise that led to the withdrawal of federal troops and the reassertion of “states’ rights.” That opened the floodgates to a wave of terrorist attacks launched by the Klan and others against blacks that enforced apartheid across the south. White terrorism goes hand in hand with slavery. White slave owners were in constant fear of slave revolts and on constant guard against slaves running away to seek their freedom. Slave patrol militias — made up of volunteers from the leading slaveowning families of the South — were created to police the plantations, to track down runaway slaves and to put down any insurrection. Again, violence — from whipping to murder — was employed
routinely by the slave patrols. The Second Amendment — the right of people to join militias and bear arms — was added to the Constitution in large part to protect the right of slave owners to sustain the slave patrol militias. In 1788, when Virginia met to consider ratification of the Constitution, slave owners attacked the Constitution for giving the federal government the right to organize militias. At the time, slaves outnumbered the white population in much of eastern Virginia. James Madison wrote the Second Amendment largely to protect the rights of slave owners to enforce the reign of terror against slaves in the South. It had nothing to do with the right of individuals to bear arms, because blacks — free or enslaved — were prohibited from owning and bearing arms across the South. Today when demagogues like Trump fan the fears of an “invasion” of Latinos and blacks that he believes will erode white dominance, white supremacist violence is once more on the rise. As Hayes argues, when the federal government acts to condemn and to prosecute this domestic terrorism, it can largely stamp it out. But when it fans the flames or turns its back or leaves it to the states that terrorism can easily get out of control. Today, America is still wrestling with how and whether it will grow out of its racial divides. By fanning the flames of those divides, Trump is dangerously choosing to feed an increasingly violent white supremacist reaction. www.rainbowpush.org Image credits: blackhistorythetruthgoingforward. wordpress.com, onsizzle.com
73 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
FOR
Grandparent's Day OR ANY SPECIAL OCCASION
Community/Public Interest - Conservation
Kenya Northern White Rhinos: Vets Harvest Eggs from Last two Females
There are only two northern white rhinos le in the world - both of them female and infer le
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team of vets has successfully managed to harvest 10 eggs from the last two surviving female northern white rhinos in Kenya, in an unprecedented procedure. It is hoped the harvested eggs will be fertilised using frozen sperm from a deceased northern white rhinoceros. The last male, who was named Sudan, died in March 2018. The rare rhino has been brought to the brink of extinction by poaching and loss of habitat The procedure was a joint effort by Ol Pejeta Conservancy, the Leibniz Institute for Zoo & Wildlife Research (IZW), Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). "We are delighted that this partnership gets us one step closer to prevent extinction of the northern white rhinos," said John Waweru, KWS director general. "This is particularly touching given the heartbreaking death of Sudan, the last male, who died of old age last year in Kenya." The two surviving rhinos, a mother and a daughter
called Najin and Fatu, live under 24-hour armed guard at Ol Pejeta in central Kenya For genetic reasons they are, however, both unable to breed. Any embryos will be implanted into a surrogate southern white rhino in the near future. The technique for the process has been developed over several years, experts say, but is not without risk. It remains uncertain if the implanted embryos will result in pregnancy. Last year, a team removed eggs from female southern rhinos and fertilised them with frozen sperm from a male northern white rhino, to create hybrid embryos. Rhinos are the second-largest land mammal after elephants. The white rhinoceros consists of two subspecies - the southern white rhino and the much rarer and critically endangered northern white rhino. Poaching is the primary threat facing all rhino species. Loss of habitat is the other main threat and conservationists say governmental protection of parks and reserves is now essential. www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-49447145
79 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Image credit: Ami Vitale
Community/Public Interest - Compensation Fund
Business Insider
Families of Boeing 737 Max Crash Victims Could get up to $145,000 each from Compensation Fund
Business Insider
Irina Ivanova contributed reporting
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NewsX
$50 million compensation fund for the families of people killed in Boeing 737 Max plane crashes has begun taking claims. Fund officials said Monday that they have begun accepting applications, with a deadline of December 31 for submitting claims. Boeing is providing money for the fund, which works out to nearly $145,000 for each of the 346 people who died in crashes in Indonesia in October and in Ethiopia in March. Dozens of families are suing the company, with families of about 60 victims yet to file, according to Reuters. Families will not be required to sign away their rights
to sue in order to claim compensation from Boeing's fund, the company said. Administrators of the fund include Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw compensation for victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks. The 737 Max has been grounded since March, shortly after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. The Federal Aviation Administration is meeting with international regulators to explain its review of changes that Boeing is making in the plane, including updates to a flight-control system implicated in the accidents. Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has said he hopes to win approval to resume flights in October. www.cbsnews.com/news/boeing-max-737-crash-victimsfund-starts-taking-claims-will-get-up-to-145000-each
80 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Community/Public Interest - Preserving History
Smithsonian Libraries' Adopt-a-Book Program Over 400 books are on the "Books Available for Adoption" list. Many of these treasures are related to the history, art and culture of African Americans, Continental Africans and Africans of the Diaspora. Of great concern are books that address the history and culture of Ancient Egypt (Kemit). This early history and foundational culture documentation must be preserved. The Smithsonian Libraries’ Adopt-a-Book Program provides essential funding to support the conservation, acquisition, and digitization of books and manuscripts held by the world’s largest museum complex and research institution. Your donation allows the Smithsonian Libraries to continue to build the collection, preserve it for future generations, and make materials available to curious minds around the world through digitization. Book adoptions are an excellent way to commemorate an occasion, celebrate a milestone, or honor a great achievement, while supporting the mission of the Smithsonian Libraries. When you adopt a book, you will be acknowledged via a virtual bookplate in our online catalog and on a physical bookplate in your selected item. Adoptions of $500 or more will allow for
n the Sm S mit ith it hsonian participation in Smithsonian Libraries Society (https://library. si.edu/donate/smithsonian-librariessociety), our giving program that
provides exclusive engagement opportunities for annual Smithsonian Libraries supporters. If you would like to adopt a book in honor of or in memory of someone, please indicate this during your adoption. All Adopt-a-Book donations are taxdeductible. Donors will receive a gift acknowledgment from the
Smithsonian LibrariesAdva Libraries Advancement Office and a tax receipt from the Smithsonian Institution.
Adopt a Book Today! We truly appreciate your generosity and your ongoing support of the Smithsonian Libraries. For additional information, please contact Allie Swislocki, Advancement Officer at swislockia@ si.edu or 202.633.7263. https://library.si.edu/donate/adopt-abook
82 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
LOCATIONS 6321 West Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90043
323-295-8223
west@shopwordoflife.com
7223 S. Main Street Los Angeles, CA 90003
323-758-2733
main@shopwordoflife.com
Community/Public Interest - Obiturary/Memorial
Atlanta Remembers: Juanita Abernathy By Rosalind Bentley and Ernie Suggs
W
hen the stories of the civil rights movement are told, they are usually centered around men, men so iconic they are recognized by first name only: Martin, Ralph, John, Andrew among them. The women were always there, side-by-side with the men or working behind the scenes to help dismantle this country’s system of legal racial segregation and subjugation of African Americans. But in the retelling of those battles, only a few women’s names have become rote: Rosa, Coretta, Fannie Lou, and sometimes, Ella. Yet the narrative of the American civil rights movement is incomplete without the name, Juanita Abernathy. In the 2014 film, “Selma,” an account of “Bloody Sunday” and the pivotal 1965 battle for voting rights in the small Alabama town, no actress portrays Juanita. There is only a brief reference to her by the actors portraying Martin Luther King Jr., and Ralph David Abernathy Sr., as they laugh before being served a meal. It’s a respectful name check, but one that doesn’t begin to explore the role Juanita Odessa Jones Abernathy played. She was the wife of Ralph Abernathy, who led the movement with King. To look at her role only through the adjacency of marriage to a leader misses the power and importance of the part women played in the struggle’s success. From the days before the Montgomery Bus Boycott through to the
desegregation of Atlanta Public Schools and the oversight of Atlanta’s mass transit system, MARTA, Juanita Abernathy was always there, pushing along the front lines. She died Thursday at Piedmont Hospital surrounded by her three surviving children and four grandchildren. The family has not released a cause of death. In her late husband’s autobiography, “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down,” Juanita Abernathy’s early strong will and sense of dignity is described in a story of an encounter with a grocery store cashier near her hometown. The teen-aged Juanita demanded the white cashier have a clerk, who was also white, take her groceries to the car as he had just done for a white female customer. When the cashier said that service was reserved for whites, Juanita reportedly said, “Well, if the boy can’t take my groceries to the car, then I guess he’ll just have to put them back on the shelves.” Her boldness earned the family threats from local whites who didn’t think she knew her place, but the story also endeared her to Ralph Abernathy Sr. They met around the late 1940s. According to their children, they got married in August 1952. Thus, began their partnership. The couple moved to Montgomery, where Ralph Abernathy was pastor
of First Baptist Church. One evening about 1954, the couple played host to a new pastor brought in to lead Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr. That night, Juanita Abernathy made a meal of chopped sirloin steak, green beans, sweet potatoes and rolls for the young, incoming pastor, according to Abernathy’s autobiography. It was the first of many meals the Abernathys would share with King and his wife, Coretta Scott King. Some downplay the role women played in making food during the movement. Even Juanita Abernathy often said she did not want to be known as “the cook of the movement.” She had a business degree from Tennessee State University, was a high school teacher and secretary of the Alabama NAACP chapter. But those dining room and kitchen tables were the places where strategy for fighting Jim Crow laws was hatched. Women such as Abernathy and Scott King often had seats when the conversation took place in their homes. This was the case with planning the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was designed in part over food at Juanita Abernathy’s dining room table.
84 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
She designed the business strategy to help keep the boycott of the segregated public transit system going, a boycott designed by a circle of activist pastors and organizers and triggered into action by Rosa Parks. The overall strategy also helped domestic workers get rides to and from their jobs cleaning white people’s homes. But just as Montgomery provided triumph, those early years in Alabama also served tragedy and danger. The couple lost their first child, Ralph Abernathy Jr., days after he was born. In the months after the boycott, in an effort to break the growing protest movement, the Abernathys’ house in Montgomery was bombed one evening while Juanita Abernathy was home alone with her oldest daughter, Juandalynn, and pregnant with her youngest daughter, Donzaleigh. To this day, over the breakfast room table where she, her husband, and the Kings met and strategized even after they all moved to Atlanta, there hangs a black and white photo of the bombs’ carnage. Juanita Abernathy would often repeat what she said fire investigators told her the night of the bombing: that had
the bomb been set just a few feet over, it would likely have exploded the main gas line to the house. Her husband’s church was bombed the same night She wasn’t deterred. “She endured the terrorism of harassing telephone calls to her home, threats on her life and her husband’s life, the doubts of naysayers who feared the movement would fail, the sleepless nights of worry and suffered the slings and arrows of hate that were a part of non-violent change in this country,” said U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Atlanta, one of the last remaining civil rights leaders. Juanita Abernathy was there for the March on Washington and walked near the front of the line in the third and successful voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. She was in nearly the same position 50 years later during the commemorative march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, led by then-President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Once the Abernathys and Kings moved to Atlanta in the early 1960s, her activism continued. Just as she had had a private school education,
she wanted the same quality education for her children. In the early 1960s, Atlanta’s premier private schools were still segregated. Her daughter, Donzaleigh said Friday, she remembers that when her mother couldn’t crack the private schools, she searched for the best public school. She was told the Spring Street Elementary school, the current site of the Center for Puppetry Arts, was the place where Georgia Tech professors sent their children. So Donzaleigh, Juandalynn and their late brother, Ralph Abernathy III were among the first to integrate the school along with at least two of the King children. Juanita Abernathy made sure her children later studied in Europe and pushed to make sure they could attend opera performances here in Atlanta. Her daughter Juandalynn later become an opera singer in Europe and Donzaleigh an actress in Hollywood. “With grit and grace, Juanita Abernathy served tirelessly for the cause of freedom and justice,” said Bernice King, chief executive officer of the King Center. “She was one of the few remaining members of Dr. King’s inner circle.” Juanita Abernathy joined the board of MARTA 11 years after her husband’s death in 1990. She served until about two years ago. In her final hours, her family surrounded her at her home, which she would often say had been bugged during the height of the movement, was flooded with mourners as family and friends came to celebrate the warrior’s role she played. There was food and there was laughter at the kitchen table where a modern freedom struggle took shape. www.ajc.com/news/local/throughout-thecivil-rights-movement-juanita-abernathystood-tall/QypuI5alaqlGjBE2uAud0I/ Image credit: denverurbanspectrum.com, myajc. com
85 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Community/Public Interest - Obituary/Memorial
Paule Marshall, Novelist of Diverse Influences, Dead at 90 By Hillel Italie
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aule Marshall, an exuberant and sharpened storyteller who in fiction such as "Daughters" and "Brown Girl, Brownstones" drew upon classic and vernacular literature and her mother's kitchen conversations to narrate the divides between blacks and whites, men and women and modern and traditional cultures, has died at age 90. Marshall's son, Evan K. Marshall, told The Associated Press that she died in Richmond, Virginia. She had been suffering from dementia in recent years. First published in the 1950s, Marshall was for years virtually the only major black woman fiction writer in the U.S., a bridge between Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and others who emerged in the 1960s and '70s. Calling herself "an unabashed ancestor worshipper," Marshall was the Brooklyn-born daughter of Barbadian immigrants and wrote lovingly, but not uncritically of her family and other upholders of the ways of their country of origin. From the start, she contrasted the values of Americans and other Westerners with those from the Caribbean and tallied the price of assimilation. In "Brown Girl, Brownstones," her autobiographical debut, a young Brooklyn woman seeks her own identity amid the conflicting values of her Barbadian parents — her hardheaded mother and tragically hopeful father. In "The Chosen Place, the Timeless People," idealistic American project workers in the Caribbean encounter the skepticism of the local community. "Praisesong for the Widow" tells of an upscale American black woman's awakening during a Caribbean vacation. "I like to take people at a time of crisis and questioning in their lives and have them undertake a kind of spiritual and emotional journey and to then leave them once that journey has been completed and has helped them to understand something about themselves," Marshall told The Associated Press in 1991. Marshall's admirers included Dorothy Parker, Edwidge Danticat and Langston Hughes, an early mentor who sent her encouraging postcards in green
ink, brought her on a State Department tour of Europe and urged her to "get busy" when he thought the young writer was working too slowly. Marshall received several honors, among them MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships and, in 2009, won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for books "that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and human diversity." She taught at Virginia Commonwealth U n i v e r s i t y and New York University. Fellow writers mourned her passing, which came a week after the death of Morrison. Nicole Dennis-Benn, Ishmael Reed and Jason Reynolds were among those posting tributes on social media. Award-winning playwright Lynn Nottage, Marshall's goddaughter, tweeted that Marshall was the "first champion" of her work and had urged her mother to "Just let her write." "I wouldn't be here without her," Nottage wrote. "#RIP
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Another beloved elder has crossed over." Born Valenza Pauline Burke in Brooklyn, she was an immersive reader who loved old British novels, from "Tom Jones" to "Great Expectations." But she longed for books that included people more like herself and so made an instant and deeper connection to the poetry
in dialect of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and later to writings by Hurston and Hughes among others. All along, she had been listening to her mother and various neighborhood women gather in the kitchen and expound in "free-wheeling, wide-ranging" style, voices she fictionalized in "Brown Girl, Brownstones" and other works. "They were women in whom the need for selfexpression was strong, and since language was the only vehicle readily available to them they made of it an art form that — in keeping with the African tradition in which art and life are one — was an integral part of their lives," she wrote in "The Poets of the Kitchen," a 1983 essay. Marshall graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brooklyn College and during much of the 1950s worked as a magazine researcher, traveling to Brazil and the West Indies among other places. Since childhood she had been "harboring the dangerous thought" of becoming a writer and in her spare time completed "Brown Girl, Brownstones," published by Random House in 1959 after editor Hiram Haydn suggested she trim her 600-page "sumo-sized manuscript" to the "slender, impressive" novel buried within. In her early 20s, she had married Kenneth Marshall, with whom she had Evan Marshall, but they divorced when their son was still little. (She later married Nourry Menard, a Haitian businessman.) Raising a child alone weighed down her already deliberate style and she published just five novels, a memoir and two books of short fiction. She disparaged the old expression "As for living, our servants will do that for us" by adding, "Well, I was the servant." Virtually all of her books not only featured women, but also women who had adventures and influence. One of her favorite characters was Merle Kinbona of "The Chosen Place, the Timeless People," a brave and troubled and conflicted soul torn between the Caribbean, England and Africa, a sage and an eccentric who never stops talking, but somehow keeps those around her listening. "Traditionally in most fiction men are the wheelers and dealers. They are the ones in whom power is invested," Marshall wrote in Essence magazine in 1979. "I wanted to turn that around. I wanted women to be the centers of power. My feminism takes its expression through my work. Women are central for me. They can as easily embody the power principles as a man." www.yahoo.com/entertainment/paule-marshallnovelist-diverse-influences-141859766.html
87 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Community/Public Interest - Obituary/Memorial
Robert Mugabe - As Divisive in Death as He Was in Life By Roger Southall
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obert Mugabe, the former president of Zimbabwe, has died. Mugabe was 95, and had been struggling with ill health for some time. The country's current President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced Mugabe's death on Twitter on 6 September: The responses to Mnangagwa's announcement were immediate and widely varied. Some hailed Mugabe as a liberation hero. Others dismissed him as a "monster". This suggests that Mugabe will be as divisive a figure in death as he was in life. The official mantra of the Zimbabwe government and its Zimbabwe African National Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) will emphasise his leadership of the struggle to overthrow Ian Smith's racist settler regime in what was then Rhodesia. It will also extol his subsequent championing of the seizure of white-owned farms and the return of land into African hands. In contrast, critics will highlight how - after initially preaching racial reconciliation after the liberation war in December 1979 - Mugabe threw away the promise of the early independence years. He did this in several ways, among them a brutal clampdown on political opposition in Matabeleland in the 1980s, and ZanuPF's systematic rigging of elections to keep he and his cronies in power. They'll also mention the massive corruption over which he presided, and the economy's disastrous downward plunge during his presidency. Inevitably, the focus will primarily be on his domestic record. Yet many of those who will sing his praises as a hero of African nationalism will be from elsewhere on the continent. So where should we place Mugabe among the pantheon of African nationalists who led their countries to independence?
Slide into despotism Most African countries have been independent of colonial rule for half a century or more. The early African nationalist leaders were often regarded as gods at independence. Yet they very quickly came to be perceived as having feet of very heavy clay. Nationalist leaders symbolised African freedom and
liberation. But few were to prove genuinely tolerant of democracy and diversity. One party rule, nominally in the name of "the people", became widespread. In some cases, it was linked to interesting experiments in one-party democracy, as seen in Tanzania under Julius Nyerere and Zambia under Kenneth Kaunda. Even in these cases, intolerance and authoritarianism eventually encroached. Often, party rule was succeeded by military coups. In Zimbabwe's case, Mugabe proved unable to shift the country, as he had wished, to one-partyism. However, this did not prevent Zanu-PF becoming increasingly intolerant over the years in response to both economic crisis and rising opposition. Successive elections were shamelessly perverted. When, despite this, Zanu-PF lost control of parliament in 2008, it responded by rigging the presidential election in a campaign of unforgivable brutality. Under Mugabe, the potential for democracy was snuffed out by a brutal despotism.
A wasted inheritance Whether the economic policies they pursued were ostensibly capitalist or socialist, the early African nationalist leaders presided over rapid economic decline, following an initial period of relative prosperity after independence. In retrospect, it's widely recognised that the challenges they faced were immense. Most post-colonial economies were underdeveloped and depended upon the export of a small number of agricultural or mineral commodities. From the 1970s, growth was crowded out by the International Monetary Fund demanding that mounting debts be surmounted through the pursuit of structural adjustment programmes. This hindered spending on infrastructure as well as social services and education and swelled political discontent. In contrast, Mugabe inherited a viable, relatively broadbased economy that included substantial industrial and prosperous commercial agricultural sectors. Even though these were largely white controlled, there was far greater potential for development than in most other post-colonial African countries.
88 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Robert Mugabe during his swearing-in ceremony in Harare, 2008. The former Zimbabwean president has died aged 95. EPA-EFE
But, through massive corruption and mismanagement, his government threw that potential away. He also presided over a disastrous downward spiral of the economy, which saw both industry and commercial agriculture collapse. The economy has never recovered and remains in a state of acute and persistent crisis today.
Reputation On the political front, the rule of some leaders - like Milton Obote in Uganda and Siad Barre in Somalia - created so much conflict that coups and crises drove their countries into civil war. Zimbabwe under Mugabe was spared this fate - but perhaps only because the see page 90
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Community/Public Interest - Obituary/Memorial have lasted. He inherited the benefits as well as the costs of settler rule but reduced his country to penury. political opposition in Matabeleland in the 1980s was He destroyed the best of its institutional inheritance, so brutalised after up to 30,000 people were killed, notably an efficient civil service, which could have been that they shrank from more conflict. Peace, then, was put to good use for all. The cynics would say that the reputation of Patrice merely the absence of outright war. Lumumba, as an African revolutionary and fighter for Congolese unity has lasted because he was assassinated in 1961. In other words, he had the historical good fortune to die young, without the burden of having made major and grievous mistakes. In contrast, there are many who would say that Mugabe simply lived too long, and his life was one of Greek tragedy: his early promise Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young meets with and virtue marked him President Robert Mugabe of the Republic of Zimbabwe. a photo by Pan-African News out as popular hero, Wire File Photos on Flickr. from page 89
Some leaders, notably Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, are still revered for their commitments to national independence and African unity. This is despite the fact that, domestically, their records were marked by failure. By 1966, when Nkrumah was displaced by a military coup, his oneparty rule had become politically corrupt and repressive. Despite this, Nyerere always retained his reputation for personal integrity and commitment to African development. Both Nkrumah's and Nyerere's ideas continue to inspire younger generations of political activists, while other post-independence leaders' names are largely forgotten. Will Mugabe be similarly feted by later generations? Will the enormous flaws of his rule be forgotten amid celebrations of his unique role in the liberation of southern Africa as a whole?
A Greek tragedy The problem for pan-Africanist historians who rush to praise Mugabe is that they will need to repudiate the contrary view of the millions of Zimbabweans who have suffered under his rule or have fled the country to escape it. He contributed no political ideas that
Robert Mugabe with Nelson Mandela npr.com but he died a monster whom history will condemn. https://allafrica.com/stories/201909060071.html Roger Southall, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand This article is republished from The Conversation Africa under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article at: https://theconversation.com/robert-mugabe-asdivisive-in-death-as-he-was-in-life-108103
90 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Community/Public Interest - Obituary/Memorial
Greg Hinton, Chicago Native and Democratic Party’s First Chief Diversity Officer, Dead at 66 By Mitch Dudek
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reg Hinton, a Chicago native who became the Democratic Party’s first chief diversity officer, has died. He was 66. Mr. Hinton was hired in 2011 to ensure diversity of staffing and vendor contracts with the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic National Convention Committee. “What he did is he made the DNC accountable for diversity,” said Virgie Rollins, chair of the Democratic National Committee Black Caucus. “Before Greg came in, we were always asking the question ‘Can you give us some data on hiring? You can say you’re doing these things, but ...’” Rollins said. “Then Greg came in and made sure they hired folks of color, and he kept us up to date on the status on a monthly basis on DNC hiring.” Mr. Hinton died over the weekend at his South Side home, according to family. Mr. Hinton’s influence could be seen in the staff and vendors chosen for the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, Rollins said. “Everybody respected him because he knew what he was doing, and he knew how to relate to the DNC and constituent caucuses and how to hire good candidates and connect with diverse businesses,” Rollins said. “Plus, he was just the nicest guy in the world.” Mr. Hinton held the position for five years while former President Barack Obama occupied the White House and stepped down in 2017. “He knew Obama and had a great amount of respect for him. ... When Obama left, he left. It just went together,” said Hinton’s sister, Vanessa Hinton Jordan. “What really illustrated what Greg was able to accomplish was looking at the range of diverse faces of people who stood behind President Obama when he spoke during his second presidential campaign,” Hinton Jordan said. “Greg told me that was the result
Greg Hinton Provided by family
of hard work, that was not by accident.” Mr. Hinton was a graduate of Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Bronzeville and the University of Illinois. He earned a master’s degree in Human Resources Management from Loyola University Chicago. He worked as a human resources and staffing executive with Pepsi Cola General Bottlers, Abbott and U.S. Cellular Corp. before tackling diversity in national politics. “He was most proud of his ability to help people become successful,” Hinton Jordan said. Mr. Hinton is survived by sons Kyle Hinton, Christopher Britto, Greg Brookins Hinton and daughter Arifa Brookins Hinton, as well as two granddaughters. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/8/27/20835570/ greg-hinton-chicago-native-and-democratic-partysfirst-chief-diversity-officer-dead-at-66
91 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Community/Public Interest - Obituary/Memorial
'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' Actor John Wesley has Died at 72 By Cydney Henderson,
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ohn Wesley, best known for playing Dr. Hoover on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," has died from cancer. He was 72. The actor's manager and producer, Gerry Pass, confirmed to USA TODAY that Wesley died at CedarsSinai Hospital following complications from a long battle with multiple myeloma, a type of cancer that forms in plasma cells. "John Wesley was a gift to the world, for his kindness and grace are immortalized in his works of theatre, TV and film," Pass said in the statement. "I am heartbroken to have lost a dear friend today." Wesley had more than 100 acting credits to his name, working alongside stars like Denzel Washington, Barbra Streisand, Tim Burton and Morgan Freeman. His credits include the TV series "Martin" and "Dirty Dancing," and films "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" and "Hang Em High."
But Wesley is most recognized for his role on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" as Dr. Hoover, the father of a student who was bullying Ashley Banks (Tatyana Ali). During the 1991 episode, Dr. Hoover eventually came to blows with Phillip Banks (James Avery) over a "Yo Momma" joke. Wesley's other credits include "Missing in Action," "Always Outnumbered," "Frasier," "The Jeffersons," "Benson," and most recently, "NCIS" and the short film, "Second Acts." Prior to his acting career, the Louisiana native served in the Army during the Vietnam War before he was honorably discharged. He also earned degrees from the University of California, San Diego and the University of San Diego. www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/ celebrities/2019/09/09/fresh-prince-bel-air-actor-johnwesley-has-died-72-cancer/2268812001/
92 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Community/Public Interest - Obiturary/Memorial
Emily England Clyburn, Wife of SC Congressman Jim Clyburn, Dies at 80 By Jamie Lovegrove
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mily England Clyburn, a former librarian and the longtime wife of South Carolina’s U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, died Thursday, September 19th in Columbia. She was 80. The couple celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary in June. Emily Clyburn, known affectionately by many as “Ms. Emily” or “Dr. Em,” was a public school librarian in Columbia and Charleston before spending 29 years as a medical librarian at the Charleston Naval Base and Dorn VA Medical Center in Columbia. Clyburn extensively detailed his relationship with Emily in his 2014 autobiography, “Blessed Experiences.” Emily would become a critical motivating force behind her husband’s lengthy political career. After Clyburn delivered a wellreceived speech to a housing and community development conference in 1971, he recalled his wife’s sobering reaction. “I just wonder when you are going to stop talking about South Carolina’s problems and start doing something about them,” she told him. Clyburn would go on to enter Congress in 1993 and has risen to become the third-ranking member of the House as majority whip. Over the years, Clyburn would constantly call Emily for advice on some of his most vexing problems in Washington, lovingly referring to
his wife as his “most severe outsidethe-beltway critic.” The Clyburns have raised millions of dollars for the endowment and need-based scholarships at their shared alma mater, S.C. State University. Emily Clyburn received an honorary doctorate from the university in 2010, and a pedestrian bridge there was named after her last year. State Sen. John Matthews, the Orangeburg Democrat who introduced legislation in the Statehouse to rename the bridge, said at the time it would honor someone “who has paved the way for future generations in our community and our state.” “Dr. Clyburn’s contributions will forever remain not only in the history books of South Carolina, but also in the hearts, minds and lives that will be touched and impacted by her work,” Matthews said. Well-wishes poured in from the rest of South Carolina’s congressional delegation and other high-profile leaders around the country.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. told The Post and Courier that Mrs. Clyburn’s body of work was significant. “She was a workhorse. She pulled a wagon for students and voters,” said Jackson, who grew up in Greenville. “She is in that tradition of strong women.” H o u s e S p e a k e r Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., offered the prayers of the entire Congress to the Clyburn family, calling Emily “a champion of equality and opportunity who made a difference for countless young people in her beloved South Carolina.” “In the Congress, we all were blessed to see the great love that Jim and Emily shared over nearly six decades of marriage,” Pelosi said. “Their love, forged during the fight for civil rights, brought joy to all who were fortunate enough to know them.” In addition to her husband, Emily Clyburn is survived by her three daughters, Mignon L. Clyburn, Jennifer Clyburn Reed and Angela Clyburn, and four grandchildren. The family requests that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Emily England Clyburn Honors College Endowment at South Carolina State University and the Emily E. Clyburn Huddle Room at the Cathy Novinger Girl Scout Leadership Center in Columbia. www.postandcourier.com/politics/emily-englandclyburn-longtime-wife-of-sc-congressman-jimclyburn/article_5bda0d18-d958-11e9-8df61f926f387491.html Image credit; dailyentertainment ews.com
93 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Community/Public Interest - Obiturary/Memorial
Andre Emmett Shot to Death near Dallas Home; former Nets Player and Texas Tech Star was 37 By The Associated Press
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sense of the loss… saying the father of two had no enemies. “That’s why we’re so shocked, we don’t know anybody that would want to hurt him. He wasn’t like that. He wasn’t involved in anything like that, he was strictly about basketball, family, business, that was it, said Emmett’s sister, Sasha. The Dallas Carter and Texas Tech standout is perhaps best known for playing in a professional three on three league called ‘The Big 3’. Basketball legend Nancy Lieberman came to comfort the family saying she just spoke with Emmett on Friday. “We spent so many days talking about his children, and his family,” said Lieberman. “I coach a lot of men; but, you also create great friendships. And he called me his mentor…and it meant a lot to me.” As tributes pour in, friends said Emmett would want to be remembered for being a good father, and what he
ormer NBA player Andre Emmett, who played two seasons with the Nets and Grizzlies, was killed Monday morning Septembeer 23rd in Dallas, his family confirmed. Emmett’s body was found by a passerby at 2:30 a.m. on the side of the street at 1800 N Prairie Avenue, near Munger Avenue. Dallas Fire Rescue arrived and observed Emmett had a gunshot wound. They transported the 37-yearold to a local hospital where he died. Police said he was running away from his attackers when he was gunned down. The heartbroken family is asking for the community’s help to find them. “This is a senseless tragedy, and we do not want it to go unsolved… if anyone knows anything, we’re asking that they reach out to the police,” said Emmett’s Aunt, Karen Oliver. Family and friends gathered, struggling to make
did for others. “We had this Dreams Really Exist foundation, he knew growing up some of the confidence issues he faced in not having some of the shoes, haircuts and the basic things — so we wanted to eliminate that,” said friend Baylor Barbee. The BIG3 is in a state of shock over the sudden and tragic death of Andre Emmett. Andre was a member of the BIG3 family for two seasons and never without a smile on his face. His kindness towards others and easy-going demeanor made him a joy to be around. Witnesses told police that the men who shot Emmett drove away in a white Chrysler 300 and one of them was wearing a red hat. https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2019/09/23/former-nbaplayer-andre-emmett-found-dead-in-dallas/ Image credit: cassiuslife.com
94 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
95 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
International - Victory Celebration
Sudanese civilians ride on a train to join in the celebrations of the signing of the Sudan's power sharing deal, that paves the way for a transitional government, and eventually elections, following the overthrow of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah
97 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
International
For information: www.frasernet.com, gfraser@frasernet.com, mary@ctoinc.com
International
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www.kse.com.sd Libyan Stock Market - www.lsm.ly/_layouts/ membership/login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fEnglish%2fP ages%2fdefault.aspx Lusaka Stock Exchange (Zambia) - www.luse. co.zm Nairobi Stock Exchange (Kenya) - www.luse. co.zm Malawi Stock Exchange - www.mse.co.mw Namibian Stock Exchange - www.nsx.com.na Nigerian Stock Exchange - www.nse.com.ng/ Pages/default.aspx Rwanda Stock Exchange - www.rse.rw/ Stock Exchange of Mauritius - www. stockexchangeofmauritius.com Swaziland Stock Exchange - www.ssx.org.sz Tunisia Stock Exchange - www.bvmt.com.tn Uganda Securities Exchange - www.use.or.ug
Read the lastest issue of The Exchange Magazine www.nse.co.ke/media-center/e-communique/exchangemagazine/category/50-free-version.html
99 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
International - Safe Spaces for Women
The Kenyan Dance Parties Where Men are Banned By Esther Akello Ogola
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n a warm evening in a suburb of the Kenyan capital, a residential outdoor space has been hired out to be used as a dance floor. Music is playing loudly and women are dancing. "You have to be so strict in a place with men. You just want to go out with your friends and men interfere," says Jane, 26, who's come to the party with her best friend Shani. "So having a space where it's all women immediately feels safe and you feel you are with people who understand you." Security is tight and while a few men are let in, it is only to drop off the women they are accompanying. After that, the men all have to leave immediately. And it's not just the partygoers who adhere to the single-sex policy: the bar tenders, security officers, DJs, sound mixers, MCs and ushers are also all women. Unpleasant experiences when out with friends in mixed clubs is part of the reason the two welcomed the idea of an all-women's rave. "When I learnt that it is a safe space for women I immediately signed up," says Shani. Shani and Jane enjoy clubbing and heard about the all-women's dance party on Twitter. The night, called Strictly Silk, was conceived by Njoki Ngumi, Njeri Gitungo and Akati Khasiani, all members of The Nest Collective (www.thisisthenest. com), a Kenyan multi-disciplinary arts collective that also works across film, music, fashion and other arts. They started the all-women's dance parties in 2018 but the inspiration behind it was more than simply a night of fun. "2018 was a difficult year for a lot of Kenyan women. There were a lot of stories about violence and people were becoming bolder about misogyny online and offline," says Ms Ngumi. "There were a lot of stories around sexual harassment. We just wanted to curate this energy in celebration of women in spaces that are not usually welcome for women and especially things to do with nightlife," she adds. Kenya has been in the spotlight recently with some
well publicised cases of rape and alarming cases femicide (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46292919). In 2018, international charity Plan International (https://plan-international.org) ranked Nairobi sixth among 22 global cities where women were most likely to be sexually harassed. The interviewed experts said Kenyan women stood a 50% chance of being sexually harassed in public spaces. And in May 2019 the Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya (Fida Kenya), raised the alarm, saying they had recorded over 50 femicide cases in the first five months of the year.
Not only for lesbians Munira, 22 and Khadija, 25 are best friends. As practising Muslims, they often find themselves with minimal options when it comes to night life. They say that, although women from all faiths attend the all-women parties, they particularly suit Muslims. "Some of us have to remove our hijabs to blend in when we are out dancing. When they see you with a hijab, people are surprised and wonder what you are doing there. "A space like this is also better because we are forbidden from freely mingling with men," Khadija says. "It's difficult because there are simply no exclusive all-women clubs," adds Munira. Although all-women dance parties may seem like
100 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
The Nest Collection
Gay sex is illegal in Kenya and punishable by up to 14 years in prison. In May 2019, Kenya's High Court upheld the law criminalising gay sex after campaigners had challenged it. "Unbeknown to a lot of people, there is a large lesbian community in Nairobi and sometimes we want to be in a space with just women and being in a place where people are of like mind, is safer," says 22-year-old Ann Marie, who is bisexual. Binti, 23, who also identifies as queer, adds that having an all-women rave without judgment has been the highlight of her year so far. Ms Ngumi hopes to make the all-women dance parties not only regular in Kenya but across Africa. "This is a worldwide issue. There are conversations around the toxicity of club culture and nightlife particularly towards women, gender identity and orientation," she says.
a novel concept, the idea of exclusive safe spaces for women is not new. Ms Ngumi asserts that Indian, arab cultures and even some religions like Islam, have long had exclusive spaces for women, although these spaces were mediated by patriarchal or religious systems. There is however a belief among some Women from all communities are welcome at the party people that an allwomen rave is simply "As we shift towards mainstream club culture, code for a gay party, something Ms Ngumi dispels: we must have spaces that celebrate women both "We are deliberately queer-affirming and queerexclusively and in the mainstream." celebrating but people would imagine that this is an The names of some of the people in this article have exclusive queer event. There are events that are exclusively queer but this is not that kind of party. We been changed to protect their identity. welcome all people, including non-binary people." www.bbc.com/news/world-africaIt's an assurance that those in the LGBT community, 49016171?ocid=socialflow_twitter who face intimidation and even violence in public in Kenya, have openly embraced. 101 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
International - Call For Talks
Sudan to Launch Historic Transition to Civilian Rule
The cabinet is due to be unveiled on August 28, with the newly-appointed ministers due to meet the sovereign council on September 1 for the first time. Elections must be held after the 39-month transitional period that began on August 4.
- Just paper? Khartoum (AFP)
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udan's military rulers and protest leaders on Saturday (8/17/19) are scheduled to sign a landmark deal reached after a bloody uprising which is meant to pave the way for civilian rule. The ceremony will officialise a constitutional declaration inked on August 4 between the country's Transitional Military Council and the opposition coalition of the Alliance for Freedom and Change. The deal brought an end to nearly eight months of upheaval that saw masses mobilise against the 30year rule of Omar al-Bashir, who was eventually ousted in April. The deal brokered by the African Union and Ethiopia was welcomed with relief by both sides, with protesters celebrating what they saw as the victory of their "revolution" and generals taking credit for averting civil war. While the compromise meets several of the protest camp's key demands, its terms leave the military with ample powers and its future civilian government with dauting challenges. With the official signing of the transitional documents on Saturday, Sudan will kick off a process that will include important immediate first steps. The composition of the new transitional civilianmajority ruling council is due to be announced on Sunday, followed two days later by the naming of a prime minister.
Until then, the country of 40 million people will be ruled by the 11-member sovereign council and by a government which the deal makes clear will be dominated by civilians. There are exceptions for the posts of interior and defence ministers, which are to be chosen by military members of the council. The move towards civilian rule could lead the African Union to lift the suspension slapped on Sudan in June after a bloody crackdown on a sit-in in Khartoum. The legislative body to be formed within three months will be at least 40% female, reflecting the significant role played by women in the protest movement. The paramilitary force and intelligence services blamed for some of the worst abuses under Bashir and against the protesters are to be brought under the authority of the army and sovereign council respectively. With many issues still unaddressed, however, observers warn that describing the latest events as successful regime change would be premature. "The biggest challenge facing the government will be dismantling the Islamist deep state... which took control of all state institutions and key sectors of the economy, including hundreds of businesses owned by the military-security apparatus," she said.
- Whitewashing Some within the protest camp feel the power-sharing deal did not do enough to curb the powers of the
102 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Nigeria's President Buhari Unfolds Plans on Climate Change at 74th UNGA
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r e s i d e n t Muhammadu Buhari in New York, United States of America (USA) announced strategic plans by his administration to reverse the negative effects of climate allafrica.com change in Nigeria. In his address to the United Nations (UN) Climate Action Summit with the theme: "A Race We Can Win; A Race We Must Win," Buhari said that he shared the sentiment expressed by the secretary-general that the world was on the verge of climate catastrophe. Buhari stated that "undeniably, climate change is a human-induced phenomenon." According to him, "it is now imperative that we must step up our collective climate actions in line with the request of the secretary-general. It is in this regard that I wish to reiterate Nigeria's commitment to its obligation under the Paris Agreement, the aspirations enshrined in our Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and ensure a resilient future that mainstreams climate risks in our decision making." The president announced that the Nigerian government would develop a more robust sectorial action plan and expand the scope of "our Sovereign Green Bonds in line with our intended upward review of Nigeria's NDC's towards the inclusion of the water and waste sectors by 2020." In the water sector, he said that Nigeria would issue a Green Bond for irrigation and construct multi-purpose
dams for power, irrigation and water supply. Buhari further pledged that his administration would strengthen solid and liquid waste management systems to attract more private sector investors. President Buhari added that "we will take concrete steps to harness climate innovative ideas by including youths in the decision-making processes as part of our overall climate governance architecture. We will mobilise Nigerian youths towards planting 25 million trees to enhance the country's carbon sink." In the energy sector, Nigeria is at present diversifying its energy sources from dependence on gas-powered system to hydro, solar, wind, biomass and nuclear sources. Specifically, Nigeria is progressively working to realise 30% energy efficiency and renewable energy mix by 2030. This is envisaged to lead to 179 million tonnes of carbon dioxide reduction per annum by 2030, he said. Buhari also told the UN summit that his administration would develop a shelter belt in 11 states of the federation spanning a distance of 1,500 km and 15km across the Great Green Wall initiative. Furthermore, he said that the federal government had commenced the implementation of the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Programme in Ogoniland to recover the carbon sink potential of the mangrove ecosystem of 1,000 square kilometres polluted site in the affected area. "I should also inform the summit that our government has introduced Climate Smart Agricultural Practices to unlock 74 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum through relevant technologies, advocacy and best practices.
military and guarantee justice for demonstrators killed by security forces. The whitewashing in recent days of walls that bore some of the many murals painted during the protests was seen as a bad omen. "The signals we are getting tell us that there is no real change, no real freedom," graffiti artist Lotfy Abdel Fattah told AFP. Absent from Saturday's ceremony are also the
various rebel groups from marginalised regions such as Darfur, Blue Nile and Kordofan. The Sudan Revolutionary Front that unites these movements has supported the protest movement but rejected the constitutional declaration, demanding representation in the government and more guarantees on peace talks..
https://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00070104.html
www.france24.com/en/20190815-sudan-to-launch-historictransition-to-civilian-rule
103 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
International - Ebola Cure Possible
A Cure for Ebola? Two New Treatments Prove Highly Effective in Congo By Donald G. McNeil Jr., Gina Kolata contributed reporting
I
n a development that transforms the fight against Ebola, two experimental treatments are working so well that they will now be offered to all patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo, scientists announced on recently. The antibody-based treatments are quite powerful — “Now we can say that 90% can come out of treatment cured,” one scientist said — that they raise hopes that the disastrous epidemic in eastern Congo can soon be stopped and future outbreaks more easily contained. Offering patients a real cure “may contribute to them feeling more comfortable about seeking care early,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who joined the World Health Organization and the Congolese government in making the announcement. That prospect should greatly lessen the aura of terror that surrounds Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever virus whose reputation has been shaped by its deadliness and its incurability. Since its discovery 40 years ago, the virus has haunted Africa. Until now, many believed that anyone catching Ebola was doomed to be die alone among space-suited strangers and to be buried without ceremony in a bleach-misted body bag. Fear of the virus and mistrust of health workers have been major obstacles to combating Ebola’s spread in eastern Congo, where terrified families often hide their sick and even attack health teams. If word spreads that a cure exists, people may begin to summon help early in the disease’s progress, which would be crucial to saving lives and preventing further spread. “The more we can learn about these two treatments, the closer we can get to turning Ebola from a terrifying disease to one that is preventable and treatable,” said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and a co-chair of a W.H.O. committee evaluating Ebola therapeutics. The epidemic, which was declared a public health emergency last month, has now infected about 2,800 known patients, killing more than 1,800 of them, according to the W.H.O. The new experimental treatments, known as REGNEB3 and mAb-114, are both cocktails of monoclonal
antibodies that are infused intravenously into the blood. REGN-EB3 is made by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals of Tarrytown, N.Y., which also makes other antibody treatments. Dr. Fauci’s institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, developed mAb114 and licensed production last year to Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, a Miami company. A health worker wearing Ebola pro Antibodies are Y-shaped Demo proteins normally made by the immune system that clump onto the outer shells of viral particles, preventing them from entering cells. The two new treatments are synthetic versions grown under laboratory conditions. The two new therapies were among four that were tested in a trial that has enrolled almost 700 patients since November. The two worked so well that a committee meeting on Friday to look at preliminary results in the first 499 patients immediately recommended that the other two treatments, ZMapp, made by Mapp Biopharmaceutical, and remdesivir, made by Gilead Sciences, be stopped. All patients will now be offered either the Regeneron or the Biotherapeutics drug. Among patients who were brought into treatment centers with low viral loads — which suggested that they had been infected only days before — only 6% of those who got Regeneron drug died, and only 11% of those who got the Biotherapeutics drug died, Dr. Fauci said. By contrast, 33% of those who received the antiviral drug made by Gilead died, as did 24% of those who got ZMapp, an older monoclonal antibody cocktail that was tested briefly during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. The death rate among untreated and unvaccinated patients in this outbreak is thought to be over 70 %, said
104 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
otection gear at a Biosecure Emergency Care Unit treatment center in Beni, ocratic Republic of Congo. Baz Ratner/Reuters
Dr. Michael J. Ryan, director of emergency response for the W.H.O. The difference in mortality rates between the Regeneron product and the Ridgeback one was considered too small to be statistically significant, so both are still being used, Dr. Fauci said. Regeneron and Ridgeback have said they can make enough doses to treat all patients, Dr. Fauci said. It is helpful to have two options in case supply problems develop with one drug or the other, said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, the W.H.O.’s chief of emergency response. Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, joined Dr. Fauci and Dr. Ryan in announcing the trial results. Psychologically, Dr. Muyembe said, news of a cure could change the course of this outbreak, which is the worst of the 10 that Congo has endured. Residents of eastern Congo, many of them traumatized refugees from wars and genocides in the region, are deeply distrustful of the government in the capital, Kinshasa. Rumors have spread that Ebola does not exist, or that treatment teams steal blood and body parts for witchcraft. Treatment centers have been shot up or burned down. “Now we can say that 90% can come out of treatment
cured, they will start believing it and developing trust,” Dr. Muyembe said. “The first ones to transmit this information will be the patients themselves.” Dr. Muyembe, 77, whom Dr. Fauci referred to as a “true hero,” has been fighting Ebola since it first appeared in what was then Zaire in 1976. Decades ago, he pioneered the use of survivors’ blood serum — which contains antibodies — in order to save patients. The two experiment treatments that proved successful last week descend in part from his original research. Asked how he felt about that during a telephone news conference, Dr. Muyembe said through a translator: “I’m a little sentimental. I had this idea a long time ago, and I’ve waited patiently for it. I’m very happy, and I can’t believe it.” The Regeneron treatment — the one with the best results — was added to the clinical trial at the last minute only after reconsideration by a W.H.O. panel of experts, the company said. “We’re extremely moved to know our therapy is helping save lives,” said Neil Stahl, the company’s executive vice president of research. “Our team worked tirelessly to discover, develop and produce REGN-EB3 in record time.” The four treatments were tested in units run by three medical charities: Doctors Without Borders, Alima and the International Medical Corps. Formal testing, which began in November, was known as the PALM trial, for Pamoja Tulinde Maisha, which means “Save Lives Together” in Swahili. Patients were assigned at random to get one of the four treatments. Before that, some patients were being given whatever was available. Early testing on 113 patients released in October suggested that the treatments could substantially cut mortality rates if given early, but there was not enough data to tell which ones were working the best. Development of the new treatments was supported by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services concerned with fighting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, and pandemic diseases. A spokeswoman for Regeneron said the company had “not considered pricing yet” but was currently offering the treatment for free for “compassionate use” purposes. www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/health/ebola-outbreakcure.html
105 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
International - Technology
Uganda Airlines Relaunches 20 Years After it Vanished By Samson Ntale, for CNN
A
fter a delay to flights that lasted nearly 20 years, Uganda Airlines has once again taken to the skies above Africa, restoring its status as the country's national carrier.
Congo, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Ghana, South Africa, and Rwanda are expected to be added from September. The airline was initially scheduled to resume
Newly acquired Uganda Airlines Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft stand on the runway at Entebbe Airport © NICHOLAS BAMULANZEKI/AFP/AFP/Getty Images
Commercial services resumed on August 27th with a flight from Entebbe to Nairobi in neighboring Kenya that the airline hoped will usher in a profitable new era for the formerly debt-ridden brand. Uganda Airlines said its fleet of twin-engined Bombardier CRJ-900 regional jet airliners will soon connect to destinations including Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, Mogadishu in Somalia and Juba in South Sudan. More farther flung places will follow, says Jennifer Bamuturaki, the airline's director of marketing and public affairs. Services to Democratic Republic of
operations in July but had to gain certification to prove its crews can fly safely to any part of the world.
Passenger traffic to boost the economy The revival of the brand, orginally founded by dictator Idi Amin in 1977 but grounded in 2001 amid financial difficulties, is aimed at capitalizing on opportunities in agriculture, minerals, tourism and oil and gas sectors, said Monica Ntege Azuba, Uganda's minister of works and transport. Recent years have seen growing international interest in Uganda as a vacation destination with travelers drawn by beautiful national parks, beach resorts and
106 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
◄◄◄ Aerial view of Entebbe International Airport © Samson Ntale
▼▼▼ Baggage handling at Entebbe International Airport © Samson Ntale
wildlife such as rare mountain gorillas. Increased passenger traffic at the country's E n t e b b e International Airport will contribute to the country's national economy, Vianney Luggya of the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority said. Luggya said Entebbe's 1.85 million annual passengers could rise to match the 7 million experienced by Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Kenya. "This is largely attributed to the fact that they have a national airline," he said. "Airports like Jomo Kenyatta International Airport earn a lot of foreign exchange from transit passengers." In the same year, an attempt to resurrect the government-owned airline through a private sector initiative was made. But the operation did not last long as a result of limited capital. Uganda Airlines flew to eight destinations and had a fleet of 15 aircraft at the time of its closure in 2001 when a more than a decade of financial difficulties resulted in its liquidation. To compete with big regional players like Ethiopia
Airlines and Kenya Airlines, the relaunched Uganda Airlines is running promotional fares that will run for two months. Nairobi and Mombasa return tickets cost $278 and $325 respectively. Return tickets to Mogadishu, Somalia, and Juba, South Sudan, cost $590 and $225 respectively. "Passengers have the choice of paying their ticket fares in US dollars or Uganda shillings," said Bamuturaki. www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/ugandaairlines-relaunches-20-years-after-it-vanished/arAAGoPRO?ocid=spartandhp
107 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
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eaturing forty trailblazing black women in American history, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of breaking boundaries and achieving beyond expectations. Illuminating text paired with irresistible illustrations bring to life both iconic and lesser-known female figures of Black history such as abolitionist Sojourner Truth, pilot Bessie Coleman, chemist Alice Ball, politician Shirley Chisholm, mathematician Katherine Johnson, poet Maya Angelou, and filmmaker Julie Dash. Among these biographies, readers will find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come. Whether they were putting pen to paper, soaring through the air or speaking up for the rights of others, the women profiled in these pages were all taking a stand against a world that didn't always accept them. The leaders in this book may be little, but they all did something big and amazing, inspiring generations to come. www.amazon.com/dp/B072V4QDCF/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_ encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
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It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten. Hearing the call of her ancestors, tenyear-old Ahmyah embarks on a voyage of self-discovery as she reconnects with her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and a host of cousins and other family and friends from halfway around the world, in Ghana, West Africa. As Ahmyah travels and explores, she learns about her heritage and is ďŹ lled with love from her family while ďŹ nding joy in this new adventure. www.thesankofajourney.com/book/
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So much of hip hop is about who we are and where we come from. We decided that had to be in this game. As part of the game’s design, we came up with close to 500 “life events” that could happen to an artist going through their career. We have cards like, “Winning a talent show,” “Selling 35 CDs out of your trunk,” or “West coast tour.” When the game ends you can see exactly how you went from nothing to something. That to us is what hip hop is all about. All the games we are working on are clearly related to hip hop culture and black culture.
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Beyoncé's New Adidas Collection
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f you're in need of cool workout gear or comfy athleisure to lounge around in, who better to design it for you than the Queen B herself? Beyoncé and Adidas have announced that they're teaming up on a signature collection that includes footwear and apparel. The best news? Beyoncé will also be relaunching her athleisure line, Ivy Park, with the brand. According to a press release from Adidas, she will be a creative partner for the brand and work with them to design performance and lifestyle products. "This is the partnership of a lifetime for me," Beyoncé said in the press release. "Adidas has had tremendous success in pushing creative boundaries. We share a philosophy that puts creativity, growth and social responsibility at the forefront of business. I look forward to relaunching and expanding Ivy Park on a truly global scale with a proven, dynamic leader." Ivy Park was first introduced in 2016 and was previously sold at Topshop, but after allegations of sexual harassment and bullying surfaced against Topshop chairman Sir Philip Green, Beyoncé ended her partnership with the businessman and bought back her athleisure line from the brand. It's unclear if she did so because of the allegations, but either way, we're about to see Ivy Park in stores again soon. "Beyoncé is an iconic creator but also a proven business leader, and together, we have the ability to inspire change and empower the next generation of creators," Eric Liedtke, executive board member at Adidas, said in a statement. No word yet on when the collection is due to drop, but we'll be anxiously awaiting the arrival of Beyoncé x Adidas. www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/heres-whatwe-know-about-beyoncés-new-adidas-collection/arBVCQFl?ocid=spartandhp
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hile timepieces or watches are usually a luxury for most, there are several Blackowned brands that create and market high-quality watches that won't break the bank... and they are definitely worth taking time to look at! Here are seven Black-owned watch brands that you should support:
Youngblood Timepieces: Launched in 2006, this brand of high-end signature watches continues to be one of the most sought-after Black-owned watch brands. Its co-founders Paul Youngblood and Patrick Martin created the brand to offer both accessory and apparel products for savvy shoppers who sought to maximize their value without compromising on quality. https://youngbloodworldwide.com/collections/menswristwatches
Talley & Twine: Started with just a few sketches and no previous knowledge of the watch industry, Robert Williams designed his first watch that eventually became a successful luxury watch brand. Since then, they aimed to create quality, detailed, attention-grabbing timepieces that are reasonably priced and resist the status quo.
Seventeenth Watches: Owned and operated by an army veteran, Chris Johnson, who is also Black, this brand creates watches that are a perfect union between simplicity and class. Their styles are usually unisex and minimalist that makes it a timeless piece that would seem to still be in trend even in the next decades. www.seventeenth-watches.com/ Benson Watch: Established on the principle that "time should be spent doing what you love," its founder, Marcel Benson, wanted to encourage people to take charge of their time and live life on their terms. Additionally, this brand produces exclusive collection watches that are available for limited time only and will not be replicated anymore. https://www.bensonwatch.com/ SPGBK Watches: Founded by two African-American fraternity brothers from Fayetteville, North Carolina, this brand aims to create original culturally-inspired watches that are inspired by diversity and inclusion. The name is an abbreviation of "Springbreak" as the two founders, who were both HBCU graduates, wanted the company to be collegethemed. www.springbreakwatches.com/
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Enbois by Maxim: Named after the French word which means "wooden," this brand's watches are designed with the finest sustainable materials. Also, an acronym for Each New Bead Offers Its Support, its founder Maxim Thuriere sought a way to give back to his country of heritage, Haiti, where a portion of each transaction is donated to help improve educational opportunities as well as reforest Haiti. http://enbois-originals.com/
Vitae London: Based in London, England, this brand features watches that are made of either a high-quality genuine leather band or a stainless steel mesh band with scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass that are stylish, elegant, and built to last. What's more, for every watch sold, the company supports an underprivileged child in South Africa through education. https://vitaelondon.com/
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Black Business. Black Culture. Black Thought. Black Love https://shoppeblack.us
L.A. Live, 800 W. Olympic Boulevard, Suite A150, Los Angeles, CA www.shaquilles.com ï&#x201A;³ 213-746-7427(SHAQ)
CHEF MARCUS SAMUELSSOM'S Black Panther Breakfast Recipe Makes 2-3 servings. Ingredients Gnocchi ( buy from your local grocery store) Hominy (canned ) Béchamel ¼ cup of unsalted butter ¼ cup of flour 1 qt of milk 1 tsp of salt Cheddar Cheese (shredded) Parmesan Cheese (shredded) Diced pork belly Minced habanero peppers Eggs Directions Cheese Sauce • Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat, once butter is melted stir in flour until it is smooth; continuing stirring until flour is light brown then lower the heat and continue to cook for five minutes. • In a separate pot bring milk to a simmer then add the hot milk to the roux while continuously stirring. • Allow to cook on low heat for about 15 mins or until you no longer taste flour • Then add your shredded cheese and stir until well blended Making the breakfast • In boiling salted water blanch off your gnocchi, for 30 secs or until they float • In a medium sauté pan, make sure your pan is hot, add a tsp of olive oil then render down your pork belly. Drain excess fat but leave some in the pan for flavor. • Next add in the diced habanero and the blanched gnocchi. Cook until the gnocchi is golden brown on each side. • Then add in your cheese sauce; add in veg stock if the consistency is too thick . • In a separate small frying pan, cook your eggs sunny side up • Assemble https://marcussamuelsson. n. com/recipe/black-panther-breakfast-recipe https://marcussamuelsson. n. com/
21720 Avalon Blvd. Suite 102B Carson, California 90745 1-424-570-0531 www.darrowsNewOrleansgrill.com
@DarrowsNewOrleansGrill Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Drinks Eat-In, Take Out, Catering
Shop for all of the NoMu products at: https://shop.nomu.co.za and www.amazon.com
www.amazon.com/Pattie-Labelle-Sweet-Potato-Family/dp/B07KFXM2QV/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1543253889&sr=8-2-fkmr0&k eywords=patty+labelle+pies Image credits: nbcbayarea.com, popsugar.com, cbs4indy.com, www.amittenfullofsavings.com/patti-labelles-banana-pudding/
Parker House Sausage
(www.parkerhousesausage.com) was started by Chicago entrepreneur, Judge H. Parker who came to Chicago from Montgomery County, Tennessee with little more than the conviction that there was a potential market for homemade sausage products prepared according to his mother’s recipes. By 1919 Judge Parker began selling his unique blend of herbs and spices mixed with flavorful, savory sausage from a horse drawn cart on a retail basis. Recognized as one of the oldest family owned businesses in the U.S. In 2014 Parker House expanded its product line to include chicken products including breakfast sausage, hot links, and smoked sausage.
LOOK FOR US IN THE FROZEN FOODS SECTION!
SHOP ONLINE! //shop.parkerhousesausage. com
We invite you to browse through our store and shop with confidence. Need a dinner idea. Go to the Recipe Page on our website. Thanks for visiting!
S
ince people from all walks of life really enjoy Down South cooking, NFL Pro Reggie Kelly thought, why not bring a piece of the South to their homes. Reggie and his wife founded KYVAN® FOODS. KYVAN® Foods is a supplier to great customers like Kroger, Walmart, Sam’s Club, Firehouse Subs, Performance Foodservice, Hot Shots Distributing and more. As stated by Reggie, “It’s my goal to pass down to my kids (Kyla & Kavan) and to everyone the gift passed down to me… An Appreciation Of Good Food.” Thanks and God Bless! Website: http://kyvan82.com Shop Online: http://kyvan82.com/store Store Locator: http://kyvan82.com/storelocator
Delicious Southern Flavors At Home!
Whether you’re north or south of the Mason-Dixon line, east or west of the Mississippi, Grandma Maud’s gives you a taste of the South in your own kitchen.
Try our Recipes: //grandmamauds. com/recipes
You’ll find our Bean Meals, Southern Seasonings and Pie Fixin’s in supermarkets throughout the U.S.A. (Jewel-Osco, Mariano’s, Safeway and Kroger Stores) – and online at: (h ps://eyelevellink.com/collec ons/ vendors?q=Grandma%20Mauds) or call us at: 1-773-493-5353!
Not Just Cookies
NJC is a cookie company providing, natural desserts superior in quality and taste. Our cookies and pies are made with the finest ingredients.We offer select gluten free and vegan desserts that are rich in taste. Not Just Cookies is a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) founded by Johnathon Bush. We can cater for any event or party.We offer custom packaging for all of our cookies and pies to suit any need. Corporate ggifts, company parties, restaurants looking to ooutsource pastries, we're here for you. es.com for online shopping, store locations, sshipping and catering details. Talk to us by ccalling: 1-800-833-4541 or send NJC an inquiry aat: info@notjustcookies.net.
W
hen our daughter began to exhibit food allergies naturally, I set out to find the healthy, allergy-friendly snacks we'd need to fuel our family's active lifestyle. I came away from the stores frustrated and mystified. Nothing on the shelves met our dietary needs and my healthy standards. So I set out to create my own. Making allergy-friendly, healthy snacks (from scratch) for my daughter was hard work, but I refused to give up or give in â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and Partake Foods was born. Our products are deliciously made for just about everyone from those with restrictions to those who simply want to eat more healthfully. Find out more about our family and our products at: https://partakefoods.com. Our products are also available via Amazon.com (www.amazon. com partake foods). Enjoy.
Denise,
Founder of Partake Foods
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Now available at Whole Foods!
Ma's Best is a bakery specializing in the production of home-style yeast rolls and baked products. www.facebook.com/masbestrolls/#!/masbestrolls/?tab=page_info#!/masbestrolls/info
Try all 3 flavors!
In your local grocery store or shop online for syrups, recipes, and books. Learn about our special projects and join the recipe contest.
MICHELE FOODS, INC. 1-708-331-7316 www.michelefoods.com
www.wosa.us www.winetalkwithmarcia.com
http://aaavintners.org
http://visioncellars.com
http://shallwewine.com
https://unclenearest.com h ttps://unclenearest.com
www.blackmommavodka.com www.blackmommateas.com/black
Coffees of Cameroon www.BamendaCoffee.com
https://kivunoir.coffee/pages/buy-online
Eso Won Books
African American Books 4327 Degnan Boulevard, Leimert Park, Los Angeles
Give the Gift of Books and Music Come see our unsurpassed collection of books, music, videos, childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s books, and games!
1-323-294-0324
www.esowonbookstore.com ď&#x192;&#x201D; //esowon.booksense.com for Calendar of Events
Books to Consider
Books to Consider... A Fool's Errand:
www.amazon.com/Fools-Errand-Creating-NationalAmerican/dp/1588346684/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=a+fools+e rrand&qid=1566507800&s=gateway&sr=8-5
The Memo: What Creating the National Women of Color Need to Museum of African American Know to Secure a Seat at the History and Culture in the Table Age of Bush, Obama, and By Minda Harts Trump he Memo is the much-needed career advice
I
By Lonnie G. Bunch III
n its first four months of operation, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture surpassed one million visits and quickly became a cherished, vital monument to the African American experience. And yet this accomplishment was never assured. In A Fool's Errand, founding director Lonnie Bunch tells his story of bringing his clear vision and leadership to bear to realize this shared dream of many generations of Americans. Outlining the challenges of site choice, architect selection, building design, and the compilation of an unparalleled collection of African American artifacts, Bunch also delves into his personal struggles--especially the stress of a high-profile undertaking--and the triumph of establishing such an institution without mentors or guidebooks to light the way. His memoir underscores his determination to create a museum that treats the black experience as an essential component of every American's identity. This inside account of how Bunch planned, managed, and executed the museum's mission informs and inspires not only readers working in museums, cultural institutions, and activist groups, but also those in the nonprofit and business worlds who wish to understand how to succeed--and do it spectacularly--in the face of major political, structural, and financial challenges.
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guide for women of color specifically, finally ending the one-size-fits-all approach of business books that lump together women across races and overlook the unique barriers to success for women of color. In a charismatic and relatable voice, Minda Harts brings her entrepreneurial experience as CEO of The Memo (http://mindaharts.com) to the page, as well as her past career life as a fundraising consultant to top colleges across the country. With wit and candor, Harts begins by acknowledging the "ugly truths" that keep women of color from getting the proverbial seat at the table in corporate America: micro-aggressions, micro i aggressions i systemic s racism, white privilege, etc. Harts validates that women aren't making up the discrimination they feel, even if it isn't always overt. From there, she gives straight talk on how to address these issues head on, and provides a roadmap to help women of color and their allies make real change to the system. With chapters on networkbuilding, office politics, money and negotiation, The Memo covers all the basics that any good business book should. Minda Mi nda nd da Ha H Harts art rts ts But through the author's lens, news.lenovo.com it offers support and longoverdue advice particularly for women of color. www.amazon.com/Memo-Women-Color-Secure-Table/ dp/1580058469/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+memo&qid=15665084 79&s=books&sr=1-1
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Books to Consider
A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind by Harriet A. Washington • Middle-class African American households with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000 live in neighborhoods that are more polluted than those of very poor white households with incomes below $10,000. • When swallowed, a lead-paint chip no larger than a fingernail can send a toddler into a coma -- onetenth of that amount will lower his IQ. • Nearly two of every five African American homes in Baltimore are plagued by lead-based paint. Almost all of the 37,500 Baltimore children who suffered lead poisoning between 2003 and 2015 were African American. rom injuries caused by lead poisoning to the devastating effects of atmospheric pollution, infectious disease, and industrial waste, Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers. This systemic onslaught of toxic exposure and institutional negligence causes irreparable physical harm to millions of people across the countrycutting lives tragically short and needlessly burdening our health care system. But these deadly environments create another insidious and often overlooked consequence: robbing communities of color, and A i as a whole, h l off intellectual i t America power. The 1994 publication of The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of a renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray, arguing that IQ is a biased and flawed metric, but that it is useful for tracking cognitive damage. She takes apart the spurious notion of intelligence as an inherited trait, using copious data
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that instead point to a different cause of the reported African American-white IQ gap: environmental racism - a confluence of racism and other institutional factors that relegate marginalized communities to living and working near sites of toxic waste, pollution, and insufficient sanitation services. She investigates heavy metals, neurotoxins, Harriet A. Washington deficient prenatal care, mindbodygreen.com bad nutrition, and even pathogens as chief agents influencing intelligence to explain why communities of color are disproportionately affected -- and what can be done to remedy this devastating problem. Featuring extensive scientific research and Washington's sharp, lively reporting, A Terrible Thing to Waste is sure to outrage, transform the conversation, and inspire debate. www.amazon.com/Terrible-Thing-Waste-EnvironmentalAmerican/dp/0316509434/ref=sr_1_1?crid=24DHJCOSG YSUO&keywords=a+terrible+thing+to+waste&qid=156650 9666&s=gateway&sprefix=a+terrible+th%2Caps%2C176& sr=8-1
A Haven and a Hell: The Ghetto in Black America
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by Lance Freeman
he black ghetto is thought of as a place of urban decay and social disarray. Like the historical ghetto of Venice, it is perceived as a space of confinement, one imposed on black America by whites. It is the home of a marginalized underclass and a sign of the depth of American segregation. Yet while black urban neighborhoods have suffered from institutional racism and economic neglect, they have also been places of refuge and community. In A Haven and a Hell, Lance
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Freeman examines how the ghetto shaped black America and black America shaped the ghetto. Freeman traces the evolving role of predominantly black neighborhoods in northern cities from the late nineteenth century through the present day. At times, the ghetto promised the freedom to build black social institutions and political power. At others, it suppressed and further stigmatized Lance Freeman African Americans. Freeman reveals the forces that caused the ghetto’s role as haven or hell to wax and wane, spanning the Great Migration, mid-century opportunities, the eruptions of the sixties, the challenges of the seventies and eighties, and present-day issues of mass incarceration, the subprime crisis, and gentrification. Offering timely planning and policy recommendations based in this history, A Haven and a Hell provides a powerful new understanding of urban black communities at a time when the future of many inner-city neighborhoods appears uncertain. www.amazon.com/Haven-Hell-Ghetto-Black-America/ dp/0231184603
An Orchestra of Minorities
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by Chigozie Obioma
et on the outskirts of Umuahia, Nigeria and narrated by a chi, or guardian spirit, An Orchestra of Minorities tells the story of Chinonso, a young poultry farmer whose soul is ignited when he sees a woman attempting to jump from a highway bridge. Horrified by her recklessness, Chinonso joins her on the roadside and hurls two of his prized chickens into the water below to express the severity of such a fall. The woman, Ndali,
is stopped her in her tracks. Bonded by this night on the bridge, Chinonso and Ndali fall in love. But Ndali is from a wealthy family and struggles to imagine a future near a chicken coop. When her family objects to the union because he is uneducated, Chinonso sells most of his possessions to attend a college in Cyprus. But when he arrives he discovers there is no place at the school for him, and that he has been utterly duped by the young Nigerian who has made the arrangements.. Penniless, homeless, and furious at a world which continues to relegate him to the sidelines, Chinonso gets further away from his dream, from Ndali and the farm he called home. Spanning continents, traversing the earth and cosmic spaces, and told by a narrator who has lived for hundreds of years, the novel is Chigozie Obioma a contemporary twist igbopeople.blogspot.com of Homer's Odyssey. Written in the mythic style of the Igbo literary tradition, Chigozie Obioma weaves a heart-wrenching epic about destiny and determination. www.amazon.com/Orchestra-Minorities-ChigozieObioma/dp/0316412392
The Water Dancer: A Novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Y
oung Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram
174 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819
Ta-Nehisi Coates woodylewis.com
almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic
movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures. This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen. www.amazon.com/Water-Dancer-Novel-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/ dp/0399590595/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Water+Dancer &qid=1568705759&s=books&sr=1-1
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BBA 2019 Master Planner
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Resource Vault Information
Africa is a Country -- www.africasacountry.com\ Africa World Press Books -www.africaworldpressbooks.com Because Of Them We Can -- www.becauseofthem wecan.com Black Children's Books and Authors -http://blackchildrensbooksandauthors.tumblr. com BlackPast.org -- www.blackpost.org Black Then -- https://blackthen.com Digital Assets Repository -http://dar.bibalex.org/webpages/dar.jsf Elders (The) -- https://theelders.org GhanaWeb -- www.ghanaweb.com iAfrica -- www.iafrica.com Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) -www.youtube.com/user/marquesbrownlee WikiHow -- www.wikihow.com World Library -- www.worldlibrary.org
Media
APO (Africa Wire®/MENA Wire®) -www.apo-opa.com Africa Business Communities -https://africabusinesscommunities.com Africa Interactive Multimedia Press/Content \ Agency in Africa -www.africa-interactive.com Africa News & Stories -- http://africatodaytv.com Africa Newsroom -- www.africa-newsroom.com Africa World Now Project -www.africaworldnowproject.org Africanews. -- www.africanews.com The Africapitalist -www.tonyelumelufoundation.org/africapitalisminstitute/africapitalist-magazine AfricaFocus -- www.africafocus.org The African World -- www.theafricanworld.tv African American Reports -www.africanamericanreports.com Afritorial -- www.afritorial.com www.facebook.com/Afritorial AllAfrica (news) -- http://allafrica.com Bibi-Writes -- https://bibiwrites.com Black Business Directory & Blog -www.blackbusiness.org BlackNews.com -- www.blacknews.com Black Press USA -- www.blackpressusa.com Blavity Inc. -- www.blavity.com The Chocolate Voice --
www.thechocolatevoice.com Cybrary -- www.cybrary.it Dogon Village -- www.dogonvillage. com Face2Face Africa -- https://face2faceafrica.com Informaza - www.infomaza.com Macauhub -- www.facebook.com/Macauhub ReachTV -- www.reachtv.com Red Media Africa -www.facebook.com/RedMedi aAfrica Rock Me Africa -- //rockmeafrica.com Roland Martin Unfiltered -#RolandMartinUnfiltered Second Opinion Publications Ltd (The) -- www. facebook.com/thesecondopinion TONL -- https://tonl.co/ United Nations -- http://webtv.un.org
Media/Podcasts, Streams
2 Dope Queens -- www.wnycstudios.org/shows/ dopequeens African Literary Podcast -- www.jamesmurua.com/ category/african-literary-podcas Africast TV -- www.africast.tv Cape Up with Jonathan Capehart -- https://itunes. apple.com/us/podcast/cape-up-with-jonathancapehart/id1143265842?mt=2 Demand Africa -- www.demandafrica.com DiasporaVoice -www.blogtalkradio.com/diasporavoice Focus On Africa -- https://theafricachannel.com/ shows/bbc-focus-on-africa James Murua's Literary Blog -- www.jamesmurua. com KweliTV -- www.facebook.com/kwelitv Paychecks and Balances -- https://paychecksand balances.com Point Noir -- www.instagram.com/pointnoirshow Popcorn Finance Podcast -- https://popcornfinance. com/podcast UN Video -- https://videos.un.org/en YouTube Educational Channels -- http://teacherswithapps.com/197-educational-youtube-channels-know
Media/Publications
African Trade Magazine -www.africantrademagazine.com African Vibes Magazine -- www.africanvibes.com Black Business News Group -www.issuu.com/blackbusinessnews Black Wall Street Times -- http://bwstimes.com BridesNoir -- www.bridesnoir.com CuisineNoir -- www.cuisinenoirmag.com MahoganyBooks -http://blog.mahoganybooks.com/ New Black Magazine (The) --
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www.thenewblackmagazine.com Publish Africa -- http://wow.gm/publishafrica
Culture/Arts Asako Afrikan Combat Capoeira -www.abibifahodie.com Africa Center (The) -- www.theafricacenter.org African Networks -http://afn.bibalex.org/MainPart/About_.aspx African Origins -- www.african-origins.org Almasi Arts -- www.almasiarts.org Because of Them We Can -www.becauseofthemwecan.com Black Cultural Events -www.blackculturalevents.com Cultural Events/Content -- www.okayafrica.com Fashion For All -- www.fashionforallnyc.org Freedom Park -- www.freedompark.co.za Hungry Black Man -https://thehungryblackman.com Infocus247 -- https://infocus247.com Information for Africa -http://bibalex.org/baifa/en/home/index Library of Alexandria -www.bibalex.org/en/default NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art -www.nkajournal.org Pan African Film Festival -- www.paff.org Paradigm Grey -- www.paradigmgrey.com Shadow & Act -- //shadowandact.com/about-us Travel Noire -- https://travelnoire.com W.E.B. DuBois in Accra -https://webduboiscentreaccra.ghana-net.com
Commerce/Entrepreneurship
#IAMWANDA -- www.facebook.com/IamWANDAorg African Success Stories -- www.risingafrica.org African Technology Foundation -www.thea25n.com BBurb -- https://bburb.com Black CEO Tribe -- www.blackceotribe.com Black Female Founders -www.blackfemalefounders.org Black People Eats -- www.blackpeopleeats.com Black Wall Street -- www.blackwallstreet.org Black Wealth 2020 -- www.blackwealth2020.com iBuyBlack.org -- www.ibuyblack.org Jumia -- https://group.jumia.com www.jumia.com.ng Nigeria (Africa) financial news -- //nairametrics.com She Leads Africa -- http://sheleadsafrica.org Shoppe Black -- https://shoppeblack.us
Organizations Africa's Brain Bank -- www.facebook.com/ AFRICASBRAINBANK /
African Leadership Forum -- http://afrialeadership. org African Union -- www.au.int/en Africans in Boston (AiB) -- //africansinboston.org Black Business Association -- www.bbala.org Black Emergency Managers Association International -www.blackemergmanagersassociation.org CauseCast -www.causecast.com www.causecastfornonprofits.com Color of Change -- www.colorofchange.org Colorintech -- www.colorintech.org Community Healing Network -www.communityhealingnet.org Love Our Girls -- http://logpledge.org/ StayWoke -- www.staywoke.org TimesUp -- www.timesupnow.com United African Organization -http://uniteafricans.org Zambia-USA Chamber of Commerce -www.zambiausachamber.org
Investment/Development Africa Reports -- www.africareports.com African Development Bank -- www.afdb.org African Export-Import Bank -//afreximbank.com/afrexim/en AfrigadgetTV -- www.afrigadget.com Breaux Capital -- www.breauxcapital.com Disrupt Africa -- http://disrupt-africa.com/ Exchange Magazine (The) -- www.nse.co.ke Harlem Capital -- http://harlem.capital Silicon Harlem -- http://event.siliconharlem.net Ventures -- www.ventures-africa.com
General Explore ideas -- https://ideas.ted.com Quora -- www.quora.com The Undefeated -- https://theundefeated.com
U.S. Government Commerce Department -- www.doc.gov International Trade Administration -http://trade.gov Minority Business Development Agency -www.mbda.gov Power Africa -- www.usaid.gov/powerafrica Small Business Administration -- www.sba.gov State Department -- www.dos.gov Trade Africa -- www.usaid.gov/tradeafrica White House -- www.whitehouse.gov
181 September 2019 Black Business News www.bbala.org 1-323-291-7819