April 21, 2014

Former SBA Leader: Blacks Must Use Leadership, Legacy for Economic Growth
By Jasmine Rennie

Marie Johns

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Former Deputy Administrator of the U. S. Small Businesses Administration (SBA) Marie Johns says people of color; especially African-Americans, must exercise leadership and attention to legacy in order to strengthen business ownership and personal economic prowess. 

“It’s about the legacy,” said Johns, now founder and president of L&L Consulting - a division of Leftwich & Ludaway, LLC. “Most African-Americans have not built a solid financial platform. This is what makes them unattractive to most banks…Sometimes things don’t change because we don’t require it.”

Johns shared her words of wisdom with a group of students at Howard University gathered to hear the results of a recent business plan completion. She covered a range of topics from unbanked households to the importance of the African American presence in the corporate world.

Consumerism, representation in corporations, and net worth - combined with business ownership and entrepreneurship - are all factors that African-Americans must tackle in order to attain success at the level of their White counterparts. It appears as though these topics have left a gap in overall success rates leaving African Americans struggling to catch up to other races.

“We have to do more to educate those around us about mindful consumerism,” said Johns.

According to a Nielsen Report, African-Americans have a current spending power of $1 trillion dollars and that number is set to increase by 2017. The Black community is noted for their excessive buying habits and are loved for their consumerism. They are seen as loyal and exhibit more aggressive consumption of certain items such as; media, hair care products and smartphones, according to the report.

Johns contends that giving the bulk of one’s salary to specific brands is not beneficial to the Black community: “If you know better you do better” she said.

In addition, she said, African-Americans are largely unbanked because of a number of reasons, an economic weakness that could be easily dealt with through education.

A 2011 FDIC survey concluded that there were approximately 10 million unbanked households within the United States. The African-American demographic represented 21.4 percent of the unbanked population, and served as the largest single group within the unbanked population. The unbanked population is described as a group of individuals who do not use banks or credit unions for their financial transactions. A number of consumers are unbanked for reasons that include: poor credit history, lack of knowledge about the United States banking system, and language barriers for immigrants.

On the other hand, a place for leadership in strength in the Black community could be in small business ownership, Johns said.

“Small businesses are the engine of the U.S. economy,” she said, noting that she believes firmly in entrepreneurship. “We can figure out how to commercialize our God given gifts so we can make money from them…We have a deep and rich history of Entrepreneurship [as] our ancestors created [it] in this country, so we have to exhibit leadership,” she said.

According to statistics on Repec.org (Research Papers in Economics), businesses owned by African-Americans tend to have lower sales, fewer employees, smaller payrolls, lower profits and higher closure rates. In addition, a new report conducted by Black Enterprise concludes that – despite the high level of spending by African-Americans - there are still 75 corporations out of America’s top 250 largest companies that lack Black representation among their board of directors.

The presence of Black people is so necessary. If we are not there, who is going to speak for us; How will our stories be told?” said Virginia Monet King, an associate of the Association of Public Health Laboratories. African-Americans must do more to “make sure we make our own decisions.”

The economic recession has also majorly impacted loans to Africans-Americans by the U. S. Small Business Administration. SBA is a crucial part of financing for entrepreneurs in starting, buying or expanding their businesses.

“Many Black business owners capitalize their businesses based on equity in their homes,” said Johns, According to an analysis by the Wall street journal, Black owned small businesses once received 8.2 percent of all loan money through SBA. That figure is now down to 2.3 percent while the Hispanic demographic remains steady at 4.7 percent.

Johns stressed that the key to overcoming is education and perseverance, with African- Americans maintaining in each arena. “We can’t let [anything] stop us. We must make a way out of no way.”

April 15, 2014

President Obama At Easter Prayer Breakfast: ‘We’re All Children of God’
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com)- As stories of racial and ethnic violence continue to rock America – even during Holy Week - President Barack Obama stressed the need for unity against racism and hatred, saying, “We’re All Children of God”.

“We have to keep coming together across faiths to combat the ignorance and intolerance, including anti-Semitism that can lead to hatred and to violence, because we’re all children of God. We’re all made in His image, all worthy of his love and dignity. And we see what happens around the world when this kind of religious-based or tinged violence can rear its ugly head.  It’s got no place in our society,” he said at an Easter prayer breakfast this week.

President Obama was specifically addressing the Kansas City incident in which documented White supremacist Frazier Glenn Miller (also used last name Cross) shot and killed three people at a community center and retirement home on Sunday. Shouting “Hail, Hitler!” Miller, who reportedly has a long history of involvement with the Ku Klux Klan, apparently thought the people were Jewish. Therefore, authorities say he will be charged with a hate crime.

The dead are high school freshman Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, an Eagle Scout and singer; his grandfather, William Lewis Corporon, a medical doctor; and Terri LaManno, shot while caring for her mother at a nearby nursing home.

The incident happened just as President Obama was preparing his remarks for the White House’s annual Easter Prayer Breakfast. Speaking before members of the administration, staffers, ministers and faith leaders, he gave “brief reflections as we start this Easter season.”

He parlayed the latest story of pain into a message of hope.

“My main message is just to say thank you to all of you, because you don’t remain on the sidelines.  I want to thank you for your ministries, for your good works, for the marching you do for justice and dignity and inclusion, for the ministries that all of you attend to and have helped organize throughout your communities each and every day to feed the hungry and house the homeless and educate children who so desperately need an education,” he said. “You have made a difference in so many different ways, not only here in the United States but overseas as well.  And that includes a cause close to my heart, My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative that we recently launched to make sure that more boys and young men of color can overcome the odds and achieve their dreams.”

Recent stories of racial division in America has predominately included attacks on unarmed young men of color, such as the Trayvon Martin, 17, shot and killed while walking from a neighborhood store; Jonathan Ferrell, 24, shot and killed while seeking help after a car accident and Jordan Davis, 17, shot and killed by a man who thought his music was too loud. However, President Obama stressed the need to equally deal with social issues that cause self-destructive behavior in Black neighborhoods.

He praised people in the audience who have mentored and worked with “young men in tough neighborhoods…We’re also joined by some of these young men who are working hard and trying to be good students and good sons and good citizens.  And I want to say to each of those young men here, we’re proud of you, and we expect a lot of you.  And we’re going to make sure that we’re there for you so that you then in turn will be there for the next generation of young men.”

Turning back to the Easter season and the meaning of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the President concluded his message, sounding almost like a preacher.

“So this Easter Week, of course we recognize that there’s a lot of pain and a lot of sin and a lot of tragedy in this world, but we’re also overwhelmed by the grace of an awesome God.  We’re reminded how He loves us, so deeply, that He gave his only begotten Son so that we might live through Him.  And in these Holy Days, we recall all that Jesus endured for us - the scorn of the crowds and the pain of the crucifixion, in our Christian religious tradition we celebrate the glory of the Resurrection - all so that we might be forgiven of our sins and granted everlasting life.”

The President concluded, “And more than 2,000 years later, it inspires us still.  We are drawn to His timeless teachings, challenged to be worthy of His sacrifice, to emulate as best we can His eternal example to love one another just as He loves us.  And of course, we’re always reminded each and every day that we fall short of that example.  And none of us are free from sin, but we look to His life and strive, knowing that “if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is perfected in us.”

April 14, 2014

Photo coming momentarily.

NBA President: Blacks Should Be ‘Almost Religious’ About Supporting Black Businesses
By Hazel Trice Edney

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - National Bankers Association (NBA) President/CEO Michael Grant says mutual support among Black businesses and consumers must become an “almost religious” culture in America if the Black community is to ever to attain significant economic strength.

“We are aware that our community was hardest hit by this recession. We’re aware that the historical and structural barriers against us remain. But, here is the real deal: We have enough wealth within our family to go toe to toe with anybody in America,” Grant told dozens during a legislative regulatory conference reception, sponsored by the NBA in Downtown DC. “If we are going to succeed as a people, we have got to learn – I mean with a burning passion – to commit to supporting each other in business.”

He continued, “We have got to be almost religious about this my friends. Nobody is going to save us but us.”

Grant seized the moment amidst a room full of bankers, regulators, media and small business owners, April 2. His remarks came on the heels of wide spread news reports that the number of grants and loans from the U. S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to Black-owned businesses has been abysmal, underscoring the need for internal community support as well as advocacy.

For those involved with Black business advocacy the SBA revelation is unacceptable.

“That is really a tragedy for an organization like ours that represents a quarter of a million Black-owned businesses. We have to address that,” said Ron Busby, president of the U. S. Black Chambers, Inc., who spoke briefly after Grant.

Busby noted the 2.3 percent of loans the SBA reportedly awards to Black-owned businesses. “We can talk about ‘My Brothers’ Keeper’. We can talk about ‘My Sisters’ Keeper’. But, at the end of the day, this is truly about Black businesses being in business making sure that they can employ these young adults as they get through the system if it works.”

Reactions around the room brought strong agreement with Grant as some speculated on the reasons that African-Americans fall short when it comes to supporting each other’s businesses.

“I think psychologically as a people we’ve had some circumstances that other groups have not had in this country,” said Industrial Bank President/CEO Doyle Mitchell, also NBA chairman. Mitchell was alluding to the bond between Blacks during Jim Crow segregation when their patronage of White-owned businesses was limited verses post segregation which opened up the markets to choices African-Americans never had.

“Asians have not had the kinds of circumstances and situations that we’ve gone through. Hispanics have not had that. And I think when we were forced to support each other we did it. But, for some reason when we weren’t forced and we got options; then we got away from it,” Mitchell said. “And I think we just have some psychological issues as a people.”

Mitchell speculated that perhaps African-Americans don’t so readily support each other because having been enslaved for centuries, Blacks were conditioned to think lowly of themselves and each other. “We don’t believe we can do things as good as other people do. That’s the only thing that I can come up with because every other race on the face of the planet supports each other, except us. And I think our very survival is going to depend on it.”

Constant reminding and advocacy may turn that mindset around, says Barbra Lang, former president of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, who now owns Lang Strategies, LLC, a business consulting company.

“Many times we don’t even have it as a part of our consciousness of how we go and do that,” said Lang who led the Chamber for more than a decade. She pointed out that she has quickly discovered that most of her new business contracts, have “come from White executives; not from African-Americans… I think we all have a responsibility to lift a hand and bring somebody with us. That means individually also as minority businesses.”

According to the SBA, there is an estimated 1.9 million Black-owned businesses in the U. S. During the early part of this century (2002-2007), Black business ownership tripled the national rate. Simultaneously, the U. S. Census estimated an annual sales increase of 55 percent to $137.5 billion.

In addition, the buying power of African-Americans is expected to reach $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to a "State of the African-American Consumer" report by Nielsen and the National Newspaper Publishers Association. Despite past efforts to pool Black dollars and launch movements to support Black owned businesses, how often African-Americans actually spend with Black businesses has not been documented.

Donna Gambrell, retired director of the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, said it will take great passion in order for such a movement to succeed.

“That was an important message that [Grant] gave tonight, that we have to figure out a way to come together to support one another. There’s strength in numbers,” she said. “We have to come together and support one another and pursue new strategies and keep our voices raised.”

Grant has begun a campaign to support the more than 37 mostly Black-owned banks of the NBA. Pushing for major deposits in those banks, he recently convinced the USBC and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundations to make significant deposits in Black-owned banks.

“There are no more messiahs coming alone. Every man and woman in this room has to recognize that we can make it big in America,” Grant concluded. “But, we have got to start looking at people who look like us and say I am going to support you. I love you. I’m going to stop being jealous of you. I’m going to stop criticizing you. I want you to be successful. If we do that, I promise you this silver rights movement will equal in success the civil rights movement.”