BBN March 2017 by Black Business News Group

Publisher's Message

“BLACK WOMEN MATTER”

n this month’s issue of the Black Business News, we along with the Black Business Association, headquartered in Los Angeles, recognize the success and valuable contributions of Black women in America and around the world in every facet of life during the month of March, where we celebrate “National Women's History Month,” whose theme this year “Trailblazing Women in Labor & Business.” Women are the life bearers, capable of birthing, shaping, nurturing and influencing the lives of those around them; from their immediate families, to extended families; and well into many areas in industry, politics, Pubisher/Chief Executive Officer technology, medicine/healthcare, science, armed forces and so much more. We still find truth in the old adage, “behind every great man (and woman), is a woman.” Because of this, we know that “Black Mothers (and All Mothers) Matter.” Not only do Black mothers matter, but Black grandmothers, aunts, godmothers, daughters, nieces and sisters all matter. Mankind’s history is full of the contributions mothers have made by raising sons and daughters who became great leaders, researchers, inventors, scientist, medical professionals, movers and shakers in corporate board rooms, activists for civil rights, judges, presidents of nations and more. Black women in their own right inspire us, teach the teachable, and demonstrate strength of character and resilience in the most trying of times. In particular Black women should feel immensely proud of their achievements, especially in a nation where socially for decades; they were considered lowest on society’s totem Mary McLoed Bethune pole. Even though we set aside one day, every day is a day that would not be complete if it weren’t for women. There have been so many notable women, and with more on the horizon, but a “very” shortlist includes, Shirley Chisholm, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice, Madam CJ Walker, Harriet Tubman, Dorothy Dandridge, Ella Fitzgerald, Sojourner Truth, Maxine Waters, Hattie McDaniel, Rosa Parks, Mellody Hobson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Mary McLeod Bethune, Dorothy Height, Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, and so very many more – volumes more. In the business sector, there has been a lot of talk and concern about the impending building of the wall. No matter one’s political leanings, there will be a lot of contracting and sub-contracting opportunities for Black women-owned businesses,

Earl “Skip” Cooper, II

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 Narishima Osei

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dean Jones Linda Ware Ralph D. Sutton Timothy Lester, Jr. Veronica Hendrix Giavanna Foster P. Yvette Thomas Aman Williams LaSandra Stratton

GRAPHIC DESIGN Sarah Harris Tia Robinson

STORY EDITORS Wanda Flagg Jennifer Marie Hamilton

PHOTOGRAPHY Ian Foxx Sabir Narishima Osei

CONTENT ADMINISTRATOR La Sandra Stratton

LAYOUT/TYPESETTING Lion Communications Copyright © 2017 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. 

see Publisher's Message on page 66 3  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

About

ABOUT THE BLACK BUSINESS NEWS GROUP… The mission of The Black Business News 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 impart current local, national and international industry and social trends and news affecting small businesses across the United States of America (USA), providing guides to greater access to financial capital, management efficiencies, business education, mentorship opportunities and social media networks. The goals of the Black Business News Group include:

2017 Black Business Association Upcoming Events

•

promoting USA-based black-owned business enterprises to a world wide audience.

•

oﬀering business growth enhancing information on education, exhibitioning, international trading, technology, industry trends, and more.

•

cexploring major public and private sece tor contracting methods to educate s. black-owned and operated enterprises.

June 201 7

•

providing an aﬃrmative inﬂuence forr emerging entrepreneurs by sharing in-novative design and creative culturall content that exposes them to the history of black enterprises and urges them to participate in the USA’s future.

Salute to Black Music

•

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 usiness enterprises. blacks work, live and operate viable business

WWW.BLACKBUSINESSNEWS.NET

view back issues at: https://issuu.com

March 201 7

Salute to Black Women

Black Business News Group Publications Black Business News Black Business News International Black Business News Travel Africa

Contents

Black Business News…March 2017 3

Publisher's Message

Government 8

14 15 16 20

Proclamation - National Women's History Month Africa Business Summit No Money Bail Act 2017 Border Wall to Cost $22 Billion Kauﬀman Issues 2017 Entrepreneur Report

42 74 79 85

Your Most Productive Days Ever! Leverage Augmented Reality for Business Stream Video Attachments/Gmail EBROJI: The New Way to Text

Community/Public Interest 93 95

Better Way to Search for Scholarships Ballou High School Reaches Milestone

Obituary/Memorials 96

Homage to Chuck Berry

International

104 20 Million May Starve 105 New Digital Resource Network for Mauritius 106 Praise for President Barrow 107 Solar Energy in Burkina Faso 110 Pope Asks Rwandans for Forgiveness

Columns 88 115 143 145 146 147

Take A Look! Shopping Gallery Books to Consider… BBA Master Planner BBA Resource Vault BBA Membership Application

Entertainment 21 24

BBN Showbiz Buzz Oscars So White?

Focus: Women's History Month 27 28 32 44 48-49 52 56 76 92

Degradation of Black Women Women's Lives Matter Canada's Rosa Parks Librarian of Congress Making Travel History Making the World a Better Place Representative Maxine Waters Under Secretary Linda Thomas-Greenﬁeld Harriet Tubman Visitor's Center Opens

Editorials/Perspectives 34

Private Prisons Slam Door on Justice

Business 40

New Era of Business Tech Coming 5  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

8 1 11 3 1 9

13 4 5 %6 %6(7

! " #$%$& %'()'$$* + ,-.. , / 0

1 1 " / 2

Government

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH, 2017 ------BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION

e are proud of our Nation's achievements in promoting women's full participation in all aspects of American life and are resolute in our commitment to supporting women's continued advancement in America and around the world. America honors the celebrated women pioneers and leaders in our history, as well as those unsung women heroes of our daily lives. We honor those outstanding women, whose contributions to our Nation's life, culture, history, economy, and families have shaped us and helped us fulfill America's promise. We cherish the incredible accomplishments of early American women, who helped found our Nation and explore the great western frontier. Women have been steadfast throughout our battles to end slavery, as well as our battles abroad. And American women fought for the civil rights of women Harriett Tubman and others in the suffrage and civil rights movements. Millions of bold, fearless women have succeeded as entrepreneurs and in the workplace, all the while remaining the backbone of our families, our communities, and our country. During Women's History Month, we pause to pay tribute to the remarkable women who prevailed over enormous barriers, paving the way for women of today to not only participate in but to lead and shape every facet of American Joan Higginbotham, Astronaut life. Since our beginning, we have been blessed with courageous women like Henrietta Johnson, the first woman known to work as Rosa Parks an artist in the colonies; Margaret Corbin, who bravely 8  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Michelle Obama, First Lady, United States of America

fought in the American Revolution; and Abigail Adams, First Lady of the United States and trusted advisor to President John Adams. We also remember incredible women like Mary Walker, the first woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor; Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery in 1849 and went on to free hundreds of others through the Underground Railroad; Susan B. Anthony, the publisher and editor of The Revolution and her friend, Dr. Charlotte Lozier, one of the first women medical doctors in the United States, both of whom advocated for the dignity and equality of women, pregnant mothers, and their children; Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat accelerated the modern civil rights movement; Shirley Temple Black, the famous actress turned diplomat and first chief of protocol for the President of the United States; Anna Bissell, the first woman CEO in American history; Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean; Ella Fitzgerald, the Evelyn Boyd Granville First Lady of Song and the Queen of Jazz; and Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut. America will continue to fight for women's rights and equality across the country and around the world. Though poverty holds back many women, America cannot and will not allow this to persist. We will empower all women to pursue their American dreams, to live, work and thrive in safe communities that allow them to protect and provide for themselves and their families. America is also mindful of the fight that continues for so many women around the world, where women are often not protected and treated disgracefully as second-class citizens. America will fight for these women too, and it will fight to protect young girls who Angela Davis are robbed of their rights, trafficked around the world, and exploited. NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 2017 as Women's History Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.  9  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Government

This two-day program is led by the Bureau of Industry & Security's professional counseling staff and provides an in-depth examination of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The program will cover the information exporters need to know to comply with U.S. export control requirements on commercial goods. Presenters will conduct a number of "hands-on" exercises that will prepare you to apply the regulations to your own company's export activities. This workshop will explain: • The Scope of the Export Administration Regulations • How to determine the export licensing requirements for your product • When you may export without applying for a license • What an "Export Management Compliance Program (EMCP)" is, and how it can help meet your regulatory responsibilities • What the Enhanced Proliferation Control Initiative is, and how it affects you Date: May 3-4, 2017 Location: Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa, 3050 Bristol St., Costa Mesa, CA 92626 Tel: 1-714-540-7000 Registration: The registration fee is $450 per person. (Includes continental breakfasts, a luncheon both full days, and conference materials.) Registration Questions: 1-949-660-1688 REGISTER NOW at: http://cs.decsocal.org/BISEAR17_OC.html FIND MORE DETAILS at: http://cs.decsocal.org/BISEAR17_OC.html PROGRAM CONTENT Questions? Please contact BIS at 1-949-660-0144 or email. SPECIAL NOTE MCLE: The Western Regional Office of the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry & Security is a State Bar of California approved MCLE provider. This course is worth 12 hours of MCLE credit. (However, 0 credits will apply for legal ethics, law practice mgmt., prevention/ detection /treatment of substance abuse and emotional distress, and elimination of bias)

Government

Webinar: Marketing Your Business For Success Event Date and Time: 03/29/2017 - 2:00pm - 3:30pm

arketing is a key component to any successful business development strategy and can often times make or break the success and growth of a business. Join us on March 29, 2017 for a crash course in marketing and garner practical insights your business can leverage to better market your business for success and navigate an everchanging marketing landscape. Webinar takeaways include: • An overview of marketing best practices • Branding do's and don'ts • 2017 marketing trend forecasts - opportunities vs. challenges • Insights on when and how to incorporate a marketing strategy Registration Information: www.anymeeting.com/AccountManager/RegEv.aspx?PIID=EC59D786894930

12  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

CSIS is now accepting applications for the

2017 AILA International Fellowship Program Dates: September 18-22, 2017 Application Deadline: May 7, 2017 Tuition: $4,500 USD* CSIS is now accepting applications for the 2017 AILA International Fellowship (AIF). Each year, mid-career professionals from around the globe are selected to participate in an intensive, one-week fellowship program that equips aspiring leaders to be effective and ethical changemakers. Through interactive and experiential learning sessions led by CSIS's network of world-class scholars and practitioners, AIF Fellows gain a deeper understanding of the complex global dynamics and moral dilemmas they face as leaders.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Experiential leadership and team building Strategic negotiation Cross-cultural communication

Global policy and ethics simulation Public speaking and media training Geopolitics seminars

APPLY or REQUEST INFORMATION and VIEW INFO VIDEO HERE: https://www.csis.org/aif?utm_source=CSIS+All&utm_campaign=5796e5b7bc-EMAIL_

CAMPAIGN_2017_03_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f326fc46b6-5796e5b7bc-144498597 Also, contact CSIS Director of Training Initiatives, Barbara Petzen: bpetzen@csis.org. *Tuition does not include lodging or transportation. A limited amount of tuition assistance for outstanding candidates in the not-for-profit sector may be available.

13  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Government

African Business Summit in US 'has no African Delegates after they are all Denied Visas' by Chloe Farand

here were reportedly no African delegates at a summit about sustainable development in Africa after they were all denied visas to enter the US. The African Global Economic and Development Summit (www. agedsummit.com), which takes place every year at the University

of Southern California was particularly quiet this year after about 100 attendees were barred from entering the country to attend the event. The summit aims to encourage businesses to invest in Africa and particularly to support initiative to provide clean energy, tackle the impacts of climate change and

reduce poverty. The event is opened to entrepreneurs, corporations and political and civic leader in the US and delegations from all over Africa come to showcase projects in need of technical help or investment. Speaking to Voice of America, Mary Flowers, who chairs the summit said: "Usually we get 40%

14  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Government

Rep. Ted Lieu Introduces the "NO MONEY BAIL ACT OF 2017"

ongressman Ted W. Lieu (D, Los Angeles County) issued a statement upon introduction of the No Money Bail Act of 2017, a bail reform bill that seeks to eliminate the use of money bail. No one should be held in jail solely because of the inability to pay bail. More than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in America, of which 450,000 individuals have never been convicted of a crime and are often detained because they cannot afford to pay bail. Mr. Lieu’s No Money Bail Act ends the money bail system because America should not be a country where freedom is based on income. “America’s criminal justice system isn’t just broken; it violates our nation’s core values. We cannot be a nation that believes in freedom and equal justice under the law, yet at the same time, locks up thousands of people solely because they cannot afford bail. We cannot be a nation that believes in the principle of innocent until proven guilty, yet incarcerates over 450,000 Americans who have not been convicted of any crime. Throughout the United States, those with money can buy their freedom while poor defendants

that get rejected but the others come. This year it was 100%. Every delegation. And it was sad to see, because these people were so disheartened. "I have to say that most of us feel it's a discrimination issue with the African nations. We experience it over and over and over, and the people being rejected are legitimate business people with ties to the continent." Among the people, who were not allowed to attend the event were

languish behind bars awaiting trial. The fact that many Americans decide to plead guilty purely to get out of jail because they cannot afford bail is intolerable. Justice should not be bought and paid for in the United States. We are a much better nation than that.”  https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-tedlieu-introduces-no-money-bail-act-2017

speakers and government oﬃcials from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa. Ms Flowers said those who were denied visas were called for embassy interviews days before they were supposed to travel, despite having applied weeks or months in advance. It is unclear why visas were denied to them. The US State Department has been approached for comment. But visas are repeatedly refused

by US embassies. Data by the US State Department compiled by the New York Times for the year 2015/16, shows Somalia, Ghana, Liberia, GuineaBissau and Mauritania all had a visa denial rate of more than 60 per cent.  w w w. m s n . c o m / e n - u s / n e w s / u s / african-business-summit-in-us-has-noafrican-delegates-after-they-are-alldenied-visas/ar-BByomht?li=AA4ZnC &ocid=spartanntp

15  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Government

DHS Report: Trump "Wall" to Cost $22 Billion, Take 3.5 Years to Build By: Tyler Durden

ffering the first official glimpse of the parameters of Trump's "wall" along the US-Mexican border, an internal Department of Homeland Security report seen by Reuters reveals that the structure would be a series of fences and walls that would cost as much as $21.6 billion, and take some three and a half years to construct. The proposed cost is much higher than the $12-billion figure cited by Trump during his campaign and also higher than the $15 billion cited by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This latest leaked report is expected to be presented to DHS Secretary John Kelly in the coming days, although the administration will not necessarily take the actions it recommends. Allegedly the new border wall will be completed in three phases, with the first phase covering only 26 miles around the easily accessible areas surrounding San Diego, CA and El Paso, Texas. Among other things, starting with the easiest and most accessible sections of the wall will allow President Trump to declare an early victory on a key campaign promise. Phase two of the project would cover another 151 miles around other large border cities while phase three would effectively seal off the border. The plan lays out what it would take to seal the border in three phases of construction of fences and walls covering just over 1,250 miles (2,000 km) by the end of 2020.

With 654 miles (1,046 km) of the border already fortified, the new construction would extend almost the length of the entire border. The report said the first phase would be the smallest, targeting sections covering 26 miles (42 km) near San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; and in Texas's Rio Grande Valley. The second phase of construction proposed in the report would cover 151 miles (242 km) of border in and around the Rio Grande Valley; Laredo, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; El Paso, Texas and Big Bend, Texas. The third phase would cover an unspecified 1,080 miles (1,728 km), essentially sealing off the entire U.S.-Mexico border. Of course, getting funding for the wall is likely one of the easier challenges the President will face from Democrats who will be all too eager to throw up every roadblock possible to thwart it's construction. A source familiar with the plans told Reuters that DHS will almost certainly face environment challenges and may have to go to court to seek eminent domain in order to acquire some of the private land needed to cover the final and most ambitious phase of construction. The report assumes DHS would get funding from Congress by April or May, giving the department sufficient time to secure contractors and begin construction by September. Several U.S. congressional delegations are visiting the border this month to assess funding needs, according to several people familiar

with the travel plans. The report shows the U.S. government has begun seeking waivers to address environmental laws on building in some areas. It also shows the government has begun working with existing contractors and planning steel purchases for the project. In addition to seeking eminent domain and environmental waivers, the U.S. government would also have to meet the requirements of the International Boundary and Water Commission, a U.S.-Mexico pact over shared waters. The report estimated that agreement alone could bring the cost from $11 million per mile to $15 million per mile in one area. DHS and White House representatives refused to comment on the alleged report saying they do "not comment on or confirm the potential existence of predecisional, deliberative documents" and that it would be "premature" to comment on a report that has not officially been presented to the president. And while Reuters notes fairly extensive details about cost estimates and staging of construction, there is no mention of how/if/when U.S. taxpayers will be reimbursed the $22 billion price tag by Mexico. We're awaiting official confirmation from Vicente Fox on when he expects Mexico to cut a check. www.zerohedge.com/news/201702-09/dhs-internal-report-trumpwall-cost-22-billion-take-35-yearsbuild

16  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

$25,000 prize to winner of Internet of Things Home Inspector Challenge By: Lesley Fair

t’s a challenge that could result in a prize of as much as $25,000 for a creative tech tinkerer. The out-of-the-box innovators from “Ghostbusters” were famous for inventing a backpack-mounted positron collider to neutralize malicious ectoplasmic entities. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants to help protect consumers from something equally dangerous: security weaknesses in the software of home devices connected to the Internet of Things. So we’re sponsoring the Internet of Things Home Inspector Challenge, a contest to create a tool to address vulnerabilities caused by outof-date software in IoT devices

(www.ftc.gov/news-events/pressreleases/2017/01/ftc-announcesinternet-things-challenge-combatsecurity).

With the advent of the smart home, more of us are relying on internetconnected – and interconnected – devices to operate our appliances, manage home security, monitor our health, etc. The beneﬁts are undeniable, but those devices also pose potential security risks. Compounding the problem is that the nature of those risks changes, necessitating security updates and patches. As a result, ﬁrst-generation protections may be useless against second-generation threats. But how do consumers know if

their internet-connected devices they use at home have the most up-to-date security software? That’s where you and the IoT Home Inspector Challenge come in. We’re asking innovators to come up with a tech solution to the security vulnerabilities caused when IoT household products are running out-of-date software. Perhaps it’s a physical device people could add to their home networks that would install security updates for other devices on that network. Or it could be an app, cloud-based service, or dashboard. Or maybe it’s something entirely diﬀerent that you’ve been noodling through for some time now. Come up with the idea selected by an expert panel of ﬁve judges and you could win the big prize. (Submissions that earn an honorable mention could win up to $3,000.)

Here are some important details: Submissions will be accepted between March 1, 2017, and 12 noon EDT on May 22, 2017. In the initial stage, judges will assess each entrant’s abstract or video. Based on that, they will select up to 20 entrants to move to the ﬁnal round. That’s when the judges will review those entrants’ complete submissions. (Please read the rules, criteria, and registration

information carefully. We’ve posted some preliminary FAQs, but check the IoT Home Inspector Challenge homepage (www.ftc.gov/iot-homeinspector-challenge) for details as the March 1st opening date draws near.) Winners will be announced on July 27, 2017, or thereabouts. Even if you don’t enter the Challenge, there are other dos and dont’s that industry members should heed. Read the FTC’s Careful Connections: Building Security in the Internet of Things (www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/businesscenter/guidance/careful-connectionsbuilding-security-internet-things) and

Start with Security: A Guide for Business (www.ftc.gov/tipsadvice/business-center/guidance/ start-security-guide-business) for

compliance basics. Also, the Challenge in no way changes the fundamental principle that IoT companies must honor their privacy and security promises and refrain from unfair practices.  www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/ business-blog/2017/01/25000-prizewinner-internet-things-home-inspectorchallenge

17  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Use Your Senses to Spot a Gas Leak To help keep your community safe and secure, use your senses of sight, hearing or smell to alert you to any of the following signs of a natural gas leak. LOOK

WHAT TO DO IF YOU SUSPECT A GAS LEAK

• A damaged connection to a gas appliance

• Remain calm

• Exposed pipeline after an earthquake, ﬁre, ﬂood or other disaster

• Don’t light a match, candle or cigarette • Don’t turn electrical appliances or lights on or off or use any device that could cause a spark • Natural gas leaking from a plastic pipe can create static electricity which can ignite the gas • Immediately evacuate the area, and from a safe location, call 800-427-2200, 24 hours a day, seven days a week; or call 911

• Dirt or water being blown in the air • Dead or dying vegetation (in an otherwise moist area) over or near gas pipeline areas • A ﬁre or explosion near a pipeline

LISTEN • An unusual sound, such as a hissing, whistling or roaring sound near a gas line or appliance

SMELL • The distinctive odor* of natural gas *Some people may not be able to smell the odor because they have a diminished sense of smell, olfactory fatigue (normal, temporary inability to distinguish an odor after prolonged exposure to it) or because the odor is being masked or hidden by other odors that are present, such as cooking, damp, musty or chemical odors. In addition, certain conditions in pipe and soil can cause odor fade – the loss of odorant so that it is not detectable by smell.

Does Your Business Need Funding? Our SBA Loan Experts CAn Help. Get the right loan for your growing business. A nationwide lender, we can help you with ﬁnancing for business acquisition or expansion, working capital, equipment, inventory, or commercial real estate. As a Preferred Lender, we offer SBA 7(a) and 504, CalCAP, USDA B&I and BIA guaranteed loans with terms to ﬁt your requirements.

Let’s Talk.

Contact us today. Diane Heyden, Senior Vice President | 949.864.8516 | dheyden@ppbi.com 17901 Von Karman Avenue, Suite 1200, Irvine, CA 92614 | 949.864.8000

www.ppbi.com

Business

Kauffman Foundation: Issues 2017 Entrepreneur Report

stateofentrepreneurship

new report issued by the Kauffman Foundation in conjunction with its annual State of Entrepreneurship Address identifies the following three megatrends that are fundamentally reshaping entrepreneurship in America:

New Demographics of Entrepreneurship As the United States becomes more racially diverse, entrepreneurs – 80.2% white and 64.5% male – do not reflect the changing population. Limiting opportunities for women and people of color to pursue entrepreneurship restrains

economic growth by reducing the number of businesses and jobs they would create. New Map of Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is an increasingly urban phenomenon, and it is taking place in mid-sized metros and outside traditional hubs like Boston and Silicon Valley. As a percentage, startup activity in rural areas now is even lower than the percent of the country’s rural population. New Nature of Entrepreneurship In the past, as companies grew their revenue, jobs would scale at almost the same pace. That’s no

longer true. Technology makes it possible for startups to grow revenue without as much hiring, and high-growth companies by revenue are not creating as many jobs as they did in the past.  Read the Full Report: www.kauffman.org/~/media/ kauffman_org/resources/2017/ state_of_entrepreneurship_ address_report_2017.pdf?_cl dee=bGlvbi5jb21tQGhvdG1ha WwuY29t&recipientid=contactc5fd32cf10cfe311992e3cd92beec6c8964a324c0dd14983b16228adee445 5c2&esid=ec2800cf-4ff9-e611-80c100155d028307

20  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

BBN Show Biz Buzz By Linda Ware

Muhammad Ali Civil-Rights Movement Limited Series in Development

howtime is developing “The Ali Summit,” a civil-rights limited series about Muhammad Ali objecting to the Vietnam War draft, Variety has learned. “The Ali Summit” captures a seminal moment in the civil-rights movement: the gathering of 12 of the

nation’s top black intellectuals and athletes to first vet and then ultimately support Ali’s conscientious objection to the Vietnam War draft, 50 years ago in 1967. The series will explore the intersection of civil rights and sports that continues to resonate today, and tracks the FBI’s crusade against Ali, Jim Brown and other black leaders in the lead-up to Ali’s arrest for draft evasion at the peak of his boxing career. Brown will serve as an executive producer on the project. The movement depicted in “The Ali Summit” has been documented as a revolutionary moment in history with William C. Rhoden of “The New York Times” writing in 2014, “The moment itself would be remembered as the first — and last — time that so many African-American athletes at that level came together to support a controversial cause.” The development of the TV project comes less than a year after Ali’s death in June 2016. The legendary boxer died at the age of 74, after suffering a respiratory ailment, following a 32-year battle with Parkinson’s

Muhammad Ali

21  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

see page 22

BBN Show Biz Buzz from BBN Show Biz Buzz on page 21

disease.  http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/showtimedeveloping-muhammad-ali-civil-rights-movementlimited-series/ar-AAn3tRM?li=AA2qN5v&ocid=sparta ndhp

HBCU Prez Challeges BET's "The Quad"

ampton University President, Dr. William H. Harvey, has criticized the BET series "The Quad" for it's distorted and destructive portrayal of HBCU's. In his letter Dr. Harvey begins with a complement then continues with a series of concerns. You may find

Dr. William H. Harvey the full letter by visiting (www.bing.com/images/search?view =detailV2&ccid=JpF7uaKN&id=3B11CEAFCDB5336949390A4A2 BE43CA5E0B3D45F&q=harvey+letter+against+the+quad&simid= 608030837771207244&selectedIndex=6&qpvt=harvey+letter+aga inst+the+quad&ajaxhist=0).

"First, I would like to thank Jasmine Guy for the one academic scene in The Quad series about the mythical and fictitious Georgia A&M University in which students are seated in a classroom. I also enjoyed the beginning of the discussion about Africans enslaving Africans. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy any other scenes in the show because of their negative depictions of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)." "A proud graduate of Talladega College, Virginia State University and Harvard University, I have

visited practically every HBCU campus in the country. I served two HBCUs in leadership positions prior to being named the president of Hampton University, a position I have held for the past 39 years. On none of these campuses have I witnessed the actions portrayed in the first episode of The Quad. As one example only, I know of no president who would allow a band director to talk and act in the disrespectful, defiant and insubordinate manner that the GAMU's director demonstrated.The show was a sad, derisive and denigrating story, an incredibly disparaging depiction of the HBCUs I know and love." Meanwhile the film by Stanley Nelson: "Tell Them We Are Rising" (www.hbcurising.com) paints an HBCU picture of pride and accomplishment. Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities spans 170 years of American history. The two-hour film and multi-platform project by awardwinning documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson, explores the pivotal role HBCUs have played in the ascent of African-Americans and their families – from slavery to the present day. The film also examines the impact HBCUs have had on American history, culture, and national identity. 

Donald Glover in new the Star Wars

22  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

ucasfilm announced today that Donald Glover, an acclaimed actor, awardwinning writer, and Grammynominated artist, will be playing the part of Lando Calrissian in the still-

Donald Glover

the Year'

resh from her best supporting actress Oscar win for her role in "Fences," Viola Davis is set to receive the Harvard Foundation 2017 Artist of the Year Award. Davis will accept her arts medal at a ceremony Saturday at Harvard's Cultural Rhythms Festival. In addition to the Oscar, Davis received the Critics' Choice, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and British Academy of Films and Television Arts awards for her portrayal of Rose Maxson in the film adaptation of "Fences," an August Wilson play. Davis co-starred in the play's 2010 Broadway revival with Denzel Washington. Her performance in the play earned her a Tony award. Davis currently stars in the television show, "How to Get Away with Murder."

untitled Han Solo Star Wars film, helmed by directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Glover will join Alden Ehrenreich — previously cast as Han Solo — in bringing two iconic Star Wars characters back to the big screen, but at a time in their lives previously unexplored. This new film depicts Lando in his formative years as a scoundrel on the rise in the galaxy’s underworld — years before the events involving Han, Leia, and Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back and his rise to Rebel hero in Return of the Jedi. The untitled Han Solo movie is Viola Davis poses in the press room at the Oscars. © The Associated Press set for release in 2018.  www.starwars.com/news/donaldglover-cast-as-young-lando-calrissianin-upcoming-han-solo-star-wars-standalone-film

Another Award for Viola Davis: Harvard 'Artist of

Previous winners include Quincy Jones, Andy Garcia, Matt Damon, Salma Hayek and Shakira.  www.msn.com/en-us/movies/ news/another-award-for-violadavis-harvard-artist-of-the-year/arAAnLQGr?ocid=spartandhp

The Kalief Browder Story

hat I have been watching is TIME: The Kalief Browder Story airing Wednesdays on SpikeTV (and BET). That, my friends, is a real horror story. Because it’s real. Because it’s scary. Because we already know how this story ends. We’re watching footage of and listening

to the words and what amounts to the descent of this man’s life into suicide. Kalief Browder is a victim of the intersection of everything that is wrong with the juvenile justice system, not only in New York City, but in America. For those who don’t know, TIME is a six-part documentary executive produced in party by Jay-Z about the story of Kalief Browder, a young man who spent three years on Riker’s Island (New York City’s jail) awaiting a hearing and trial largely because his family couldn’t come up with the bond in time to spring him, and the horrors he faced inside at the hands of prison guards, fellow inmates, and the psychological effects it had on him. Unfortunately, but not at all unpredictably, it resulted in him taking his own life at age 22. If you’re unaware of his story, you really should read up on it. Or better yet, watch this documentary.  By Panama Jackson ED. BBN http://verysmartbrothas.com/time-kaliefbrowder-story

23  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

BBN Show Biz Buzz

Are The Oscars Still #SOWHITE? By Annsonita Robinson

hen April Reign, former entertainment attorney and managing editor of BroadwayBlack. com, created the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite in early 2015, it seemed Hollywood had all but forgotten about the diverse human fabric that truly made “America great.” Box-office draws Will Smith and Idris Elba were snubbed for a nomination in 2016 for what many thought was some of their finest work. Watching the Oscars award shows the last few years left one wondering if Black directors, screenwriters or cinematographers even existed. Black American filmmakers became determined to prove they existed and were producing work worthy of recognition. Jada Pinkett Smith took to YouTube to voice her displeasure with not only the homogenized offering of the 2016 Oscars, but also the snubbing of her husband, Will Smith, for his leading role in Concussion, a true story based upon a case that changed the way the National Football League managed concussions. The 2017 Oscar announcements are in stark contrast to any year before. Six of the 20 nominated performers are Black. Three of those are in the Best Performing Actress category: Viola Davis (Fences), Naomie Harris (Moonlight), and Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures). Denzel Washington is nominated for Best Actor (Fences). Mahershala Ali is nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Moonlight) and Ruth Negga’s role as Mildred Loving in the film Loving garnered her a nod for Best Supporting Actress. The Academy was fortunate to have an African American woman, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, as president when it was forced to take a hard look at its diversity problems. After a heartfelt apology during the 2016 broadcast for its lack of diversity, Isaacs explained that the board had fast-tracked plans to make its membership more diverse. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Isaacs said, “It’s the right thing to do. We’ve been a more than predominately White institution for a long time. We thought, we’ve got to change this and reflect the community better.” To its credit, under Boone Isaacs’ leadership, the

Academy’s board had been making incremental changes for nearly three years. But, the situation reached critical mass and the board was faced with a boycott of the Feb. 28, 2016, broadcast. Boone Isaacs and the board met and agreed that setting goals to double the number of women and minorities,

with memberships of women being increased to 48% and diverse groups to more than 14%, was appropriate. In 2016, the Academy passed a series of measures designed to include an appropriate segment of the filmmaking industry’s demographics. Included in these measures, new members must remain active for 10 years and the membership will be renewed if they are active in motion pictures during that decade. Those who do not qualify for active status will be moved to emeritus status, enjoying all the privileges of membership except voting. Lifetime voting rights are granted after three 10-year terms or if they have been nominated for or won an Academy Award. Taking normal attrition into consideration, Boone Isaacs also stated, “Our goal is to make our voting body reflective of filmmaking professionals who are active today.”

24  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

#OscarsSoWhite’s April Reign was pleased with the changes the Academy made regarding membership — and that it did so swiftly and unanimously, “… but we still need to pressure Hollywood studio heads to make more inclusive and diverse films, because the academy can only nominate quality work that has been made.” After receiving her letter last year from the Academy detailing the changes, Selma director Ava DuVernay tweeted, “Shame is a helluva motivator.” The board’s changes affected Black film technician nominations as well. Bradford Young’s nomination for best cinematographer for his work on Arrival makes

him only the second African American to have that honor. Young will also be the cinematographer on the upcoming Han Solo. Kimberly Steward is only the second Black woman to get the Best Producer nod for her work on Manchester by the Sea. Steward financed her $8M Amazon film solely through her company, K Period. “We’re breaking new ground,” Steward recently told Vanity Fair after the nomination announcement. Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight earned him nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, which he shares with playwright Tarrell Alvin McCraney. Fences playwright August Wilson is nominated for Best Screenplay posthumously. The Academy has seemingly heard the call of the masses and acknowledged that there is real interest from all demographics for stories about people of color that don’t focus on oppression, slavery, and inescapable poverty. Hidden Figures’ U.S. box-office gross to date is north of $140M. The biggest surprises are the nominees in the documentary category: four of five films are by Black filmmakers. Roger Ross Smith (Life, Animated), Exra Edelman (O.J.: Made in America), Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) and Ava DuVernay’s 13th. Williams won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 2010. From James Baldwin to this country’s mass incarceration of Black men, these documentaries all have one component in common and that is excellent stories. Some may ask why that’s important. Like any other method of delivery, cinematic stories reflect who we are as a people, as a race, and as Americans working in a society that has yet to come to grips with our coexistence. These are stories that inspire.

Reel talk with #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign Last year, you stated that you were encouraged by the swift actions of the Academy’s board. What were your first thoughts when this year’s nominees were announced? Having 687 new members of the Academy, which was its largest and most diverse class ever, was encouraging. But, we must not forget that the voting body remains 89% White and 73% male and the average age

25  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

see page 26

BBN Show Biz Buzz from BBN Show Biz Buzz on page 25

is in the early 60s. While this was a good start and I am encouraged, I’m just not sure we can say that based on the demographics that the increase in nominations is due to the changes the Academy made in regard to voting members. I think this year’s nominations were the

Kimberly Steward

in investor interest in films created by people of color? Yes, Brad Pitt’s Plan B Productions was involved with the production of Moonlight. There definitely been an Bradford Young & Ava DuVernay has increase in interest from result of quality performances and majority groups as well as studios. exemplary work behind the camera Macro Ventures, a black-owned being recognized by their peers. company, brought us Fences. We Four of five Oscar-nominated are seeing an influx in cash and documentaries were made support for films that represent by Black filmmakers. How a traditionally underrepresented significant is this? Will this have community. any affect on diverse drama films The #OscarsSoWhite hashtag by African American filmmakers went viral almost instantly. in the future? It was inspirational because No, simply because these are it demonstrated not only the two different genres. This is the first power of Black Twitter but also time we have had so many stories the power of a 140-character in the documentary category that communication method. reflect the Black experience. And, What advice would you give that just goes to show that there are current movements combating a myriad of stories that not only can injustices? be told, but should be told. But this Anyone, a movement or an is reflective of the larger filmmaking individual, that has passion about a community: there are stories that particular issue has to be committed should have a fair chance to be told. to making a change to that issue. Kimberly Steward solely Twitter is just one media platform financed Manchester by the Sea of many. It does lend itself well to through her company, K Period. respecting issues regarding social Have you seen an increase justice or #BlackLivesMatter or

whatever the case may be. So, ensuring that the message is easily understood and consistent are two goods ways to help your message get across to the masses. The year is 2018. What do you foresee in regard to the American movie industry and films by and for African Americans? All of the films that were nominated this year were in production or pre-production before the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag was created. What we are seeing now is that studios are realizing that it is no longer risky to bank on underrepresented communities. Hidden Figures has now grossed over $130M and is the highest grossing Oscar-nominated film ever in the Best Film category. It was also No. 1 at the box office for two weeks in a row when it was first released. What that tells studios is that people of color, and Black women specifically, can open a film strongly and that more of these films and those of other marginalized communities should be made. To be clear, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was never just about Black people or race. It was also about gender, sexual orientation, and physically disabled communities — everyone who has traditionally been underrepresented. We still have a long way to go. For example, to date, the Academy has only had four women nominated as Best Director. There is still a lot that has to be done. Movies that reflect the audience and theatergoers are desired and needed and should be supported from production to distribution.  http://rollingout.com/2017/02/23/ are-the-oscars-stillsowhite/

26  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

BBN Show Biz Buzz Editorial: Focus Women's History Month

Ciara, Future and the Degradation of Black Women By Tyler Payton

ere is a little backstory for those who may not know about the Future/Ciara/ Russell drama. Future and Ciara used to be a thing. They were more than a thing; they were engaged to be married, and they had a child together. They eventually broke up, and Ciara is now married to Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, and is pregnant with his twins. In any celebrity relationship, people will have their opinions, and when celebs break up, people will choose sides. But this situation seems a bit diﬀerent to me. Since Future and Ciara split, thousands of people have been slandering Ciara like they know her personally. The internet, especially Twitter, is full of people who wish Ciara ill will. I recently saw a tweet rejoicing at the fact that Ciara, pregnant with twins, was in a car accident. These kind of posts usually include the idea that Ciara broke Future’s heart, or that it is okay to speak this way of her because of the fact that she left Future. People will try to justify this by saying “calm down, it’s a joke.” While I know it’s part of

Ciara with her son, Future Jr. internet culture to roast people and joke around, some things really do point to a deeper issue, and I believe this is one of those things. Let’s begin with the fact that no one besides Future, Ciara, and possibly their loved ones know exactly what happened and why they split up. There were bits and pieces of transcripts posted online from their court appearances, and these transcripts did not paint Future as the saint that people act like he is. Why, then, is everyone jumping to his defense, even so long after the whole thing happened? Why is everyone so willing to degrade Ciara, and even go to the point of rejoicing over the idea of harm to her and her babies? The answer is simple. People have such a disregard for black women, that is doesn’t matter whether or not we are happy. Whether or not we are disrespected. Whether or not we are harmed. Malcolm X himself said “The most disrespected woman in America, is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman.” He said that in 1962, and it is still true in 2017. This can be

seen in media portrayals of black women, in the way black women are treated in daily life, in the lack of focus on black women in social justice movements. It can especially be seen in the statistics surrounding black women. Black women make up only 8% of the population, but in 2005 accounted for 22% of the intimate partner homicide victims and 29% of all female victims of intimate partner homicide. Many black women also experience sexual violence. Approximately 40% of black women report coercive contact of a sexual nature by age 18. Black women are told we must be “strong,” aka ignore our feelings and our trauma, and remain silent and supportive of our men. This is why people are so okay with this treatment of Ciara. They think they can disrespect her because she is a black woman, and they hate her for wanting to do better. It’s not about whether or not she “broke Future’s heart.” Beyoncé made not only a whole deeply personal album, but also an accompanying ﬁlm, to talk about how her man broke her heart. Where is the outrage at JayZ? Why was everyone so quick to

27  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

see page 39

Focus - Women's History Month

Women's Lives Matter By py thomas Not only do Black mothers matter, but Black grandmothers, aunts, godmothers, daughters, nieces and sisters all matter.

o matter what anyone ever says, we all had mothers. And in most instances, most mothers are the ﬁrst women that we know and come to love, respect and honor. Albeit, there are those exceptions, but the rule of law still shows that women overall are part of the fabric that shapes and nurtures all of us. Is a woman less of a woman because of her political aﬃliations; or because of her religious beliefs; or career choices; or perhaps life choices? Is there not enough space on the planet and in mankind’s hearts to accept the beauty and blessings of the diversity of women? There should be, and for many reasons. Women have and continue to make valuable contributions to our society and world…from the nurseries that they take care of babies, to the kitchens of women who prepare meals for their families, to the board rooms of corporate America where their leadership is exemplary, or in the laboratories where they either lead or on teams spearheading research in science, medicine and technology; to the schools and learning institutions where they decide curriculums, inspire, teach and mentor students; to the private bedrooms where their prayers for their families and country are being made. Along this precarious life journey,

"Black Grandma" Art of Keith Mallet www.pinterest.com/carmeldrop59/art-of-keith-mallet a woman’s life can go down many paths – some by her own choosing, and others by situations where she

has little or no control over. Women come in all shapes, sizes and colors. They start out as babies in the womb

28  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

of another woman, being born as baby girls, growing into little girls, soon becoming teenagers, young adult women; and transitioning into mature adult women; and if blessed to do so, finishing their journey as wise older women. A woman’s contribution is why their lives matter so much. If they work to either take care of their children (and many single handedly), or help their husbands and willing to co-labor outside of the home, they should be encouraged and appreciated. Fifty years later, the women’s labor for participation is up by 53%. Several initiatives have been taken to promote equality for working women, beginning in 1938 through 2010, with the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The labor force participation of mothers has grown by 30%; and women’s educational attainment has increased significantly. For example, in 1962 only 47.5% completed high school or more, and in 2012 the number jumped to 88.0%. Women who completed four years of college or more were 6.7% in 1962; and in 2012 that number increased to 30.6%.1 According to the U.S. Department of Labor women represent:2 • 57% of the labor force • 26% of people employed in computer and mathematical occupations are women • 70% of women with children participate in the labor force • There were about 10.2 million Black women in the civilian labor force in 2015, representing 1 in 7 women in the labor force - of those, 9.3 million were employed. • Historically, Black women have had high labor force participation

rates compared to other women. In 2015, they were still more likely to be employed or actively looking for work. For women at the top levels of American business, it can sometimes feel like every step forward is followed by two steps back. The 2016 Fortune 500 list, released on Monday, includes just 21 companies with women at the helm—compared to 24 last year and in 2014. Or, to look at it another way, women now hold a paltry 4.2% of CEO positions in America's 500 biggest companies. Women of color make up just 16.5% of people who work for S&P 500 companies, some of the country’s largest and most ﬁnancially powerful, according to new research from Catalyst. But they become even rarer the further up the ladder you go. They represent less than 10% of managers, a measly 3.9% of executives, and just 0.4% of CEOs. In fact, there is not a single Latina CEO among the S&P 500.3

• • •

• • • •

•

The Contributions Black mothers, and Black single mothers against societal and economic odds have contributed greatly…from Nat Turner, Black women in particular are a rare and precious commodity. In the U.S. most African American households are single parent households, with the mother typically being the single parent. Their strength is evidenced by the myriad of successful people they have raised. For example: • Sports legend Jackie Robinson was born in 1919 the youngest of ﬁve children and his father abandon the family the following year. • Actor and Comedian Kevin Hart was raised by a single mother.

•

His father was a cocaine addict and in and out of jail throughout most of his childhood. Actor Mekhi Phifer never met his father. Sports legend Shaquille O'Neal grew up without his birth father. Entertainer and business entrepreneur, Sean Combs was three when he lost his father. He was murdered. Entertainer and business entrepreneur b was abandoned by his father. Actor Martin Lawrence rarely saw his father after his parents divorced when he was eight. Actor and Comedian, Eddie Murphy lost his father when he was killed when he was eight. Entertainer Tupac Shakur grew up not knowing his birth father while his stepfather went to prison when he was two. Entertainer Etta James' mother was 14-years old when she was born and she never knew her father. Legendary trumpeter Louis Armstrong was raised by his grandmother and in an orphanage when she was unable to care for him. Musician Blues Entertainer Bo Diddley was adopted and raised by his mother's cousin, Gussie McDaniel, whose surname he adopted. Actress and singer Billie Holiday's father abandoned the family early on and refused to acknowledge his daughter until after her ﬁrst success. Singer Luther Vandross was only eight years old when his father, Luther Vandross, Sr. died of diabetes. Author, teacher and activist Maya Angelou was three when she

29  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

see page 30

Women's Lives Matter from page 29

and her brother were sent to live with their paternal grandmother. • Former U.S. President, Barack Obama only remembers being around his father one time for a month during his entire life. He was ten years old. However, he says that his father's absence contributed greatly to him really wanting to be a good dad (Obama’s mother was White). • Actress and singer Lena Horne's father was a numbers kingpin in the gambling trade and left the family when she was three. Her mother was an actress with a black theatre troupe and traveled extensively, so Lena was raised mainly by her grandparents. • Actor and comedian Eddie Griﬃn was born in Kansas City, Missouri and was raised by his single mother, Doris Thomas, a phone company operator. • Singer Ella Fitzgerald was born to unmarried parents and before Ella was a year old her father left the family. Her mother passed away when she was 14 and she went to live in Harlem with her aunt. • Singer and actress Jill Scott grew up an only child in a North Philadelphia neighborhood, raised by her mother, Joyce Scott, and her grandmother. • L.L. Cool J was four when he witnessed his father shoot both his mom and his grandfather. After his mom recovered, she started dating a young physical therapist who sadly abused LL for years. We should further note and celebrate the contributions of those who pioneered, innovated, and created in spite of the discrimination they faced. Their work serves as a reminder of both the diﬃculties

women of color have had to face to get those opportunities — and the amazing things they can do when they get 'em. For example, Jane Cooke Wright, MD, developed a non-surgical way to fight tumors. Mamie Phipps Clark, Ph.D., studied internalized messages of racism among Black children. Patricia Bath, MD, created an entirely new discipline of ophthalmology focused on public health.4 Other notable persons of fame who attribute their mothers, grandmothers and/or aunts for inspiring and encouraging her success: • “The doctors told me I would never walk again. My mother told me I would. I believed my mother.” – Wilma Rudolph – famous Olympic Medalist • “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.” – Thomas Alva Edison, Inventor • “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.” – Abraham Lincoln, former U.S. President • “My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.” – Maya Angelou • “Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.” – Stevie Wonder One of my favorite mothers was Sojourner Truth who gave birth to her children while being held as a slave in New York. Even though Truth gained her freedom in 1826, she was forced to leave her older children behind. At the time, New York was in the process of gradually

abolishing slavery, but people born after July 4, 1799, were required to complete a period of service before being freed). However, Truth was stunned when she learned that her five-year-old son, Peter, had been sent to an Alabama plantation. His sale was not only a moral outrage, but it was also illegal: New York's laws forbade the selling of a slave out of state. Despite the risks of speaking out, Truth insisted, "I'll have my child again." She filed a complaint with the Ulster County grand jury, then raised money for an attorney. The man who'd sold Peter had likely thought he'd get away with it — many slave owners in New York disregarded the law because they wanted to get as much profit from the people they owned while they could. But Truth's actions forced the seller to bring her son back to New York. In the spring of 1828, Peter was returned to his mother. He had scars from being whipped, beaten and kicked during his time in Alabama, but Truth had saved him from a lifetime of such mistreatment. Women are half of the equation for procreation, and a valuable and needed commodity to their male counterparts. Does not a woman have the ability to make or break a man? Does not a woman have the ability to nurture and love children in a way that most men can’t? Will not a mother stand until the bitter end for the children of her womb, no matter the cost or persecution? Women are designed to be life givers, and when a woman is committed to that, does she not leave a permanent and positive impact on those she has touched and interfaced with? Women lives matter, because they are typically the ones raising the great leaders, inventors, leaders that our nation and world have benefitted from. When a woman becomes a

30  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

mother, a business l e a d e r , t e a c h e r, m e d i c a l p r a c t i t i o n e r, w i f e , grandmother, godmothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, and nieces – in each instant they are positioned to impact those around them in a positive m a n n e r . C h o o s e wisely, our troubled world and society beneﬁts greatly by women, especially those who opt to make their lives count – families and generations of families to come beneﬁt from their labor of love they show to others. To those women who have chosen to make their lives count for good, you are to be congratulated. For those, who have chosen otherwise, we can only pray for mercy for them, with the hopes they will redirect their lives for good. My mother was a Black mother who chose to be a woman that invested much in my welfare and overall care. She poured much

love and resources into me. Any good that I have been able to do, has been a result of God and my mother’s investment into my life.  https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/stats_data. htm 2 https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/stats_data.

htm https://thinkprogress.org/women-ofcolor-are-a-third-of-all-working-womenbut-they-arent-in-corporate-america41bbcafdbba#.62qbdxncl 4 http://www.reﬁnery29. com/2017/02/141616/famous-blackwomen-in-stem

31  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Focus - Women's History Month

The Story of Viola Desmond, "Canada's Rosa Parks"

Canada’s Finance Minister Bill Morneau stands with Wanda Robson after her sister Viola Desmond was chosen to be featured on a new $10 bank note during a ceremony at the Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada, on Dec. 8, 2016.

n Canada, the ﬁrst civilian woman will be on the country’s $10 bill next year. Her name is Viola Desmond (www.

cbsnews.com/news/viola-desmondcanadas-rosa-parks-memorialized-on10-bill). Never heard of her? Up until

a few years ago, neither did many Canadians, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller.

But her story is giving context to assumptions on Canada’s history that the nation – free of slavery, free of legal segregation – was not so free of racism. Desmond gave voice to that. Ninety-year-old Wanda Robson is proud of Desmond, her big sister – proud that by 32, she’d built a thriving hair care and beauty supply

business, modeling herself after America’s ﬁrst female self-made millionaire, Madam C. J. Walker. “She said, ‘That’s what I want to do. That’s who I want to be,’” Robson said. “This lady was way before her time.” She’s even prouder of a decision Desmond made in this theater back in 1946, an event now re-enacted for Canadian television.

32  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

one arm, and that dragged her out. It wasn’t difficult, she was only 95 pounds,” Robson said. Desmond spent the night in jail, was fined 26 Canadian dollars, and was charged with failing to pay a one-cent difference in tax. It was the only legal way to charge her because while practiced, segregation was not written into Canadian law. Desmond appealed and her case was heard by Nova Scotia’s Supreme Court. But it was dismissed on a technicality. Desmond’s stand would

On a business trip, waiting for her car to be repaired, Desmond bought a ticket to watch a movie from a seat of her choosing. “She says, ‘I relaxed. And next thing I know, the ushers tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You can’t sit here.” And she says, ‘Why not?’ She says, ‘You have the wrong ticket. Your ticket is an upstairs ticket.’ Viola said, ‘Well, I’ll just go back and change it for a downstairs ticket,’” Robson said. But they wouldn’t let her. “They dragged her, one took

soon fade into obscurity for many, except for Professor Graham Reynolds. “I think that that moment of spontaneous courage was just the kind of thing that inspires people,” Reynolds said. Reynolds knew all about Desmond’s case. He taught race relations at Cape Breton University. What he didn’t know back in 2000, was that her 73-yearold sister was taking his class. As he’s telling a story about Desmond, Robson said, “That’s my sister.”

“I was totally taken of course. I realized that she was a treasure,” Reynolds said. Thus began a partnership to bring Desmond’s story to light, one that traced her roots from Halifax throughout the entire area and ultimately in 10 short years gave Canada a new national hero. Together, Reynolds and Robson worked to clear Desmond’s name. In 2010 the lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia issued her a posthumous free pardon. In the process, Desmond’s status as a civil rights pioneer was re-discovered. Her name has appeared on a passenger ferry, and her face on a Canadian postage stamp. Then in 2016, 70 years after her solitary act of defiance, Desmond was chosen from a list of hundreds to be the first woman outside of royalty on Canadian currency. “Why do you think they chose her?” Miller asked Robson. “I think they chose her because the timing was right. Because of the fact that she stood up. She stood her ground for what she believed was right,” Robson responded. Desmond passed away in 1965, while living in relative obscurity in New York City. Often referred to as “Canada’s Rosa Parks,” it’s important to note that her stand came a full nine years before Parks launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the U.S. As for the United States, a portrait of Harriet Tubman is expected to grace the face of the $20 bill. In the next decade, she will become the first woman featured on paper currency in the U.S. The abolitionist helped free slaves through the Underground Railroad.  http://www.cbsnews.com/news/violadesmond-canadas-rosa-parks-storysister-wanda-robson/

33  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Editorial

Private Prisons Slam Door on Justice

ext week, March 7, will mark the 52nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the historic march and shocking police riot in Selma, Alabama, that helped build public support for passage of the Voting Rights Act. Now, a half-century later, an avowed critic of that law — former Alabama Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, who was born in Selma — has been confirmed as attorney general of the United States. In one of his first acts in office — reversing Obama’s order to phase out the federal government’s use of private prisons — he has begun to weaken civil rights protections. The decision on private prisons reflects Trump’s desire to repeal all things Obama. It expresses the ideological bias of reactionaries like Sessions toward privatizing public functions. It also reveals the pervasive corruption already apparent in the Trump administration. The two largest for-profit prison companies in the United States — GEO Group and CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America) — and their associates have, according to Reason Magazine, contributed “more than $10 million to candidates since 1989 and have spent nearly $25 million on lobbying efforts.” When Trump stoked public fears of violent crime in our cities, called our prison system a “disaster,” and

endorsed “privatizations and private prisons,” the industry ponied up hundreds of thousands of dollars to support his candidacy. Since Trump won the election, share prices of GEO Group and CoreCivic have soared more than 100%. In our corrupted politics, Sessions’ act helps consolidate their return on investment. Reviving private prisons, however, represents far more than mere anti-Obama venom, ideological preference or even political corruption. It tramples basic civil and human rights. And African Americans and Latinos, who

34  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

disproportionately populate our prisons, will suffer the most. Incarcerating people in for-profit prisons is morally indefensible. Locking people up and turning them over to companies whose primary concerns are profits and return to investors is a recipe for abuse. And the record of private prisons demonstrates repeatedly that abuse is pervasive.In Sessions’ home state of Alabama, for example, whites constitute two-thirds of the total population but only 42% of the prison population. African Americans represent only one-fourth of the total population, but over half (54%) of the incarcerated. This is the cause of repeated upheaval and scandal. Private prisons suffer more violence. Underpaid guards too often punish prisoners without accountability. Private prisons, Obama’s Justice Department found, aren’t as safe for prisoners or for guards as public prisons. They lack the services that might revive hope rather than crush it, such as educational programs and job training. Despite their companies’ claims, private prisons don’t save government much

money either. Worse, the thirst for profit overrides the needs of the incarcerated. Private prisons are notorious for skimping on food, facilities and health care. They gouge prisoners even for using the telephone to stay in contact with loved ones. Worse, the private companies generally demand that the government guarantee that their cells will be full, even if actual crime rates are falling or if harsh sentencing is rolled back. Nearly two-thirds of private prison contracts mandate that state and local governments sustain an occupancy rate — usually 90% — or taxpayers pay for the empty beds. At the federal level, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) budget is mandated by the Congress to maintain detention beds for at least 34,000 immigrants daily. Sessions’ order impacts some 14,000 federal prisoners, a number that has been trending down in recent years. Most of the 2 million prisoners in America are sentenced and held at the state and local level. To them, Sessions is sending a strong signal. The federal government will be ramping up detentions, particularly of immigrants. It signals to states and localities — many of which have been souring on private prisons —that the federal government is all in for privatization.

Trump has promised a new day for what he calls America’s “inner cities.” But what we’ve seen so far is a return to the failed policies of the past — law and order rhetoric combined with calls for tougher police tactics, harsher sentences, and now a corrupt and indefensible embrace of privatized prisons. With Sessions in the DOJ, Trump’s divisive racial rhetoric is about to turn into policy.  www.rainbowpush.org 35  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Discover Central ntral & Eastern Europe with U.S.Comme U.S.Commercial Service

The U.S. Commerce Department is pleased to offer an opportunity to promote U.S. pet products in the Czech Republic at the FOR PETS Prague trade fair. A presentation on current trends in the U.S. pet market, featuring selected U.S. products, will take place on Friday, April 7, 2017. The fair, targeting Czech pet products importers and distributors, will be held at the Prague Letnany fairgrounds. U.S. company participants in the presentation will receive: x

An introduction to your U.S. company and its products/services.

Your company will be featured on U.S. Commercial Service web pages and in social media.

A list of Czech pet products importers/distributors.

$100 discount for potential follow on matchmaking services with CS Prague.

Registration Deadline March 15th, 2017 Fee $100 For more information contact Veronika Novakova Commercial Specialist Veronika.Novakova@trade.gov Tel: 00420 257 022 437

The 7th FOR PETS show will cover a wide range of pet products ranging from pet foods to pet cosmetics and services. It will be held concurrently with FOR FAMILY fairs. The combined fairs attract over 30,000 visitors each year.

36  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Business - Tech Tools

Online & Mobile Banking Security take a few steps to keep your information even more secure. USER ID AND PASSWORD GUIDELINES • Passwords should be at least eight characters long, include a combination of numbers, mixed case letters and special characters. Periodically change passwords for sensitive accounts such as financial services and email, and use a different password for each sensitive account. Don't use a guessable password, such as names and birthdays. • Never share user id and password information. • If using a mobile device, lock it using a PIN, password, swipe pattern or fingerprint. GENERAL GUIDELINES • Be extra cautious when using public Wi-Fi connections, specifically avoid accessing your financial accounts and shopping online when using public Wi-Fi. • Do not open suspicious emails or emails from unknown sources. • Install anti-virus and spyware detection software and update them regularly with latest versions. • If using a mobile device, ensure it's updated with the latest system software provided by the mobile carrier or device manufacturer. PHYSICAL DEVICE SECURITY • Don't leave your device unattended in public places. • Avoid storing sensitive information such as account passwords or financial account information on your device. • If your device is lost or stolen, immediately change the passwords for high-risk accounts such as financial services and email. • Refrain from modifying or replacing ("rooting") the mobile device operating system. It can compromise security. MONITOR AND PREVENT FRAUD • Sign up through your banking/financial service provider for free real-time debit card alerts sent directly to your phone to help you quickly detect and stop fraudulent use of your debit card. www.hydeparkbank.net

New Service Simplifies and Secures Meeting Planner Payments Worldwide

eeting Escrow, launched in 2015 secures and simplifies payments and deposits for Meeting Professionals around the globe. Meeting Escrow is a customized deposit escrow solution tailored to the specific needs of meetings, incentives, conventions, congresses, expositions trade shows and events. Deposits are safely held in choice of US dollars, Euros, Canadian dollars and 17 other currencies, depending on where your meetings are being held. Holding deposits in escrow in the correct currency shields your organization from currency fluctuations and reduces risk. Meeting Escrow gives clients the confidence to pay all or most of their advance deposit requirements up front with full confidence that funds are held securely and only released to the supplier-partner based on the deposit schedule. Supplier-partners have the assurance that deposits have been collected in advance and no longer have to chase after payments; clients no longer have to worry about the loss of their organization’s money in advance of the program. Meeting Escrow is backed by $5Million E&O (Errors & Ommisions) liability coverage through Lloyds / Special Risk, $5Million Commercial General Liability through Royal Sun Alliance, $1Million cyber liability through Lloyds/CFC Underwriting and a $1Million bond through The Guarantee Company of North America. For more information please visit: www. MeetingEscrow.com. http://mcintl.com/newsletter/feb-17/fresh-ideas.html

37  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Business

Don’t miss the 30th annual Asia/Paciﬁc Business Outlook (APBO) Conference! March 27 & 28 The LA Hotel Downtown

If you are looking for export and investment opportunities in the dynamic Asia/Pacific region, this is the one conference you can't afford to miss. The Asia/Pacific Business Outlook has been hosted by USC Marshall School of Business since 1988 years with the full support of the U.S. Commercial Service. Rapidly changing environments create opportunities for growth, but also pose challenges that companies must be prepared to overcome. At APBO, you can get practical and timely knowledge about what’s happening now in the Asian/Pacific economies—and how you can be equipped to take advantage of the opportunities and challenges. Reserve One-on-One Meetings with Senior Trade Officers from U.S. Embassies & Consulates For each of the one-on-one meetings, the Senior Commercial Officers will come prepared with preliminary business assessments specific to your company in the markets of interest to you. They will discuss various topics during your meetings such as: * Strategies to hone in on best market opportunities * Sales potential and challenges in each of your markets * Understanding how to capitalize on the latest trade agreements * How the U.S. Commercial Service can identify new business partners and increase your sales Due to high demand, the limited number of One-on-One appointments always become fully booked. Sign up now to ensure priority for your meetings.

Register Today (and save $150 Early Bird deadline, FEBRUARY 15) http://apboconference.com/2017-register/?=CTA Bobby Hines – International Trade Specialist DownTown Los Angeles Export Assistance Center Bobby.hines@trade.gov

38  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

BBN Show Biz Buzz from BBN Show Biz Buzz on page 27

forgive? Granted, they are still together, and that may play a role.

Russell Wilson

REGISTER HERE: www.cvent.com/events/2017-black-enterpriseentrepreneurs-summit-hosted-by-nationwide/event-summaryeabb4769eb34488abcc70c47ad0af0dd.aspx?RefID=Houston

But it doesn’t play the whole role. The “jokes”, the misrepresentation, the lack of representation, the silencing of our voices, the disregard for our bodies—all these things culminate to perpetuate a culture that is very hostile towards and dangerous for black women. We need to be aware of the messages that we put forward. I am a black woman, and I understand ﬁrsthand how these views of black women impact me personally, as well as black women at large. If you are a black man making these kinds of jokes and perpetuating these i d e a s about— and subsequently this violence to- Future wards— black women, then you need to check yourself. As black men, you should be wanting the best for and protecting you black sisters. And as people in general, we should all be looking out for each other. Jokes matter. Words matter. Choose them wisely.  www.huﬃngtonpost.com/ entry/ciara-future-and-thedegradation-of-black-women_ us_58c58028e4b0a797c1d39e12

Business - E-Commerce

AI Ushers in a New Era of Business and Tech By Samuel Greengard

rtificial intelligence (AI) has always seemed a bit futuristic. The ability of machines to tap massive amounts of data and use algorithms to "think" and 'adapt" on the fly has been an alluring, if not somewhat elusive, concept. However, over the past few years, advances in digital technology have begun to redefine the AI landscape and usher in real-world capabilities. "We are seeing the technology take off in a big way," says Satya Ramaswamy, vice president and global head of digital enterprise for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The impact of AI is already rippling through several key areas: predictive analytics, speech processing, image processing, chatbots, virtual assistants, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), robotics, cyber-

Robots at work security and more. In fact, artiﬁcial intelligence and its associated technologies—machine learning, cognitive computing and deep learning business applications—are steadily transforming the business and IT landscape, along with enterprise requirements. Lee Beardmore, chief technology

officer at Capgemini, says that organizations must ultimately "understand how to create models that are relevant to the business domain." The march to AI requires new thinking, new skills and a focus on change management. While there are enormous opportunities to operate a business faster, better and smarter, it's also possible to invest enormous amounts of time and money in initiatives that don't deliver the desired ROI. What's more, there are cyber-security and privacy issues to address. "To some extent, it comes down to the limits of our imaginations as to how we can apply AI engines to our problem domains," Beardmore says. After a series of fits and starts, artificial intelligence business applications have steadily moved into the mainstream of business and society. Speech processing systems such as Siri, Cortana, Alexa and Google Now have introduced remarkable capabilities and features. Image processing is transforming everything from advertising to automobiles, from web searches to banking apps on smartphones. And analytics has advanced to the point at which machines can make decisions about everything from credit worthiness to potential fraud or hacking. Within the AI space, organizations

must experiment, but they also must look for opportunities to put AI to work. "There's a need to be innovative and look for actual problems to solve using the technology," TCS ' Ramaswamy says, adding that the focus should ultimately be on "value."

Using AI to Gain Greater Insights Into Data One organization that has harnessed the power of AI is the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City, the world's oldest and largest private cancer center, which oﬀers state-of-the art facilities and treatments. The center has turned to IBM Watson technology to gain greater insights into data. Doctors and researchers at the facility must keep up with medical literature, a task that could require hundreds of hours per week. "Watson's capability to analyze huge volumes of data and reduce it to critical decision points is absolutely essential to improve our ability to deliver eﬀective therapies and disseminate them to the world," says Craig Thompson, president

40  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

and CEO of MSKCC. The upshot? The cognitive computing system—which digests both structured and unstructured data and text from treatment guides, published research and a variety of other sources—delivers evidencebased suggestions to support oncologists' decisions. It combines patient data with massive volumes of medical literature, including journal articles, physicians' notes, NCCN (National Comprehensive Center Network) guidelines and best practices. And it continues to evolve as new oncology techniques, treatments and evidence are developed. In the end, the system presents "wisdom" that essentially serves as a "wise counselor" to help guide decisions for doctors and other experts, notes Larry Norton, medical director and deputy physician-inchief for breast cancer programs. The system ultimately delivers a more personalized approach to medicine and treatment methods, including the ability to work more effectively with specific populations or groups. It also considers various other factors, including how other conditions and health issues impact treatment. The computer's ability to understand language means that the right information is available faster—all while the universe of information expands. Make no mistake, AI has arrived and the benefits of deep learning are growing. IBM, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others are increasingly tapping it for a variety of tasks—from personalizing content to delivering better search results. Intelligent machines are on the rise, and computers can increasingly tap data, including through the internet of things (IoT), and make changes and adjustments. Simply put: Computers are learning how to think and solve problems. As data grows, compute

power increases, and open-source algorithms and APIs proliferate, a new era is about to unfold. And AI will impact every industry.

Identify AI Opportunities With the Greatest Value To leverageAI and reap the beneﬁts of deep learning, organizations must develop a strategy and a comprehensive plan, Capgemini's Beardmore says. Business and IT leaders must work across divisions, units and departments to identify opportunities that represent the greatest value. It's important to explore AI tools and systems while developing a governance framework and even a partner ecosystem. It's not necessary to build and invent all solutions in house. "There are a lot of interesting products, solutions and vendors in the marketplace," Beardmore points out. He suggests taking a ﬂexible approach. "There should be recognition that in the not-too-distant-future, there may be a need to change directions," he says. "The technology and the market are changing rapidly." Although many AI-driven systems—including chatbots, virtual assistants and AR/VR— are still in the nascent to early stages, TCS' Ramaswamy says that it's a good idea to look for ways to enhance the customer, partner or employee experience using these systems. "There is an opportunity

to apply AI and deep learning to fundamentally reimagine the way that things are being done today," he says. The challenge, he adds, is "learning to do things in a fundamentally reimagined way, and rethinking the line between line of business and IT. This may require new business models, new products and new relationships—along with a different IT infrastructure than in the past." It may also require subject matter experts in specific domains, along with data scientists and business analysts. Yet, in the end, it's important to recognize that AI in business and industry is not necessarily a ticket to improved performance and profits. It may require human input and manual tweaking, including feeding data sets into systems. "There's still a fair amount of hype surrounding the technology and only limited understanding of what it can actually deliver," Capgemini's Beardmore says. "From a business and IT perspective, a lot of work needs to be done in terms of governance, data controls and IT security and privacy issues. Organizations must adopt a framework-based approach and approach AI tasks with a good deal of fluidity."  http://www.baselinemag.com/innovation/ ai-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-business-andtech-2.html

41  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Business

The One-Page Cheat Sheet To Your Most Productive 90 Days Ever By David Finkel

r. Challa wasn’t starving for opportunity, he was drowning in it. He was bright, confident, and empathetic. Not only did he have great bedside manners, but he was also a savvy entrepreneur who’d grown his medical practice to nine locations in five cities. But Challa’s ballooning options were starting to exceed his abilities to chase them all–not to mention his team’s. In theory, he could open up two more offices, acquire a small dermatology practice, add medical dispensaries to several of his locations, start a medical spa retail location–the list went on. As it grew longer, Challa’s productivity was beginning to slip, and his staff was struggling to keep up with his energy and constant stream of new ideas. The ideas were solid, but their sheer volume outpaced any possibility of implementing them all. Personal productivity and team productivity are unavoidably linked. And while companies often sit down to draw up quarterly action plans, individuals rarely do. But they should. In fact, 90 days is the perfect unit of time to make headway on your big-picture goals– and to give them the focus they need, so you and your team don’t get too overwhelmed.

Get Started Most of the projects that threaten to derail our productivity when we ﬁnally start on them have longer timelines than we imagine, making them diﬃcult to break down into daily or weekly actions. But done right, a 90-day sprint is enough to get meaningful units of work done

that collectively bring you closer to your long-term goals. And it’s still short enough that you can frequently course-correct anytime things threaten to veer oﬀ track. Here’s an example of the simple, one-page worksheet that can help you manage that balancing act over the next quarter–but you can draw a quick grid on a blank sheet of paper and it works just as well:

Step 1: Pick Three Things To Focus On Start by choosing a maximum of three “focus areas” for the coming quarter. Of course you’ll still have to take care of your day-to-day work, too, but these focus areas should rise above that–they’re where you think your time, talent, attention, and money are best spent on longerterm objectives during the coming quarter. Your day-to-day tasks will keep you afloat, while your focus areas will propel you ahead. For instance, you may decide that your focus areas are on increasing your lead flow, improving your sales conversion system, speeding up your collections cycle, or making a specific key hire.

Why cap it at three? Because too many top priorities means you have no top priorities. Ninety days comes fast, and if you spread yourself or your team too thin, you’ll ﬁnd that you do more things partially instead of fully, leaving a bunch of half-ﬁnished projects by the time the next quarter rolls around. You don’t want that. Not only is this a waste of resources, but it’s also frustrating for your team, who will appreciate having actually achieved something–not just started it–by the time your 90-day sprint is over.

Step 2: Decide How You’ll Judge Your Progress Now that you’ve picked your three focus areas for the quarter, it’s time to clarify your criteria of success for each one. This can be tricky. First, be ruthlessly realistic about what’s possible within just three months, and second, look for concrete signs of progress. It’s important to pin down criteria that are as objectively and quantitatively measurable as possible. Your plan needs to be detailed enough to guide your actions but not so detailed that you feel

42  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

take until your criteria is in place.

Step 3: Identify Which Steps To Take (And Who’s Going To Take Them)

overwhelmed or lose yourself in the minutiae. So take your time laying out the criteria of success for each focus area. You’re not only deﬁning what success will look after 90 days, but by giving yourself a yardstick to measure yourself against as you go, you’re also deciding which changes you’ll have to make to your ordinary workday. That may mean blocking out 30 minutes each day to work exclusively on one of your focus areas. Or it might mean delegating a daily task to a colleague this quarter, so you can spend more time on something else. But you won’t know which steps to

Now that you’ve identified your top three focus areas and your criteria for achieving them, now it’s time to lay out how to get you there. In order to keep your plan to one page, you’ll likely have to break each focus area down into five to seven action steps and milestones. Your plan needs to be detailed enough to guide your actions but not so detailed that you feel overwhelmed or lose yourself in the minutiae. This is the part where you decide which of these steps you can take and which ones you’ll need others to help you with. Divide and conquer. If one of your focus areas is more of a professionaldevelopment goal, the main work will fall to you; if another focus area describes a business goal, it’s perfectly fine to enlist your team. When it comes to the latter, assign a specific team for executing just one action step over the 90-day sprint. Remember: The whole point is to boost productivity, not just add more work to everyone’s plate. I handed this one-page plan to Dr. Challa two years ago, and he’s used it with his team each quarter. Since then, his practice has increased revenues by $4 million and is more focused and organized than ever before. You can’t do everything at once. But you can probably do the things that really matter more productively than you currently are–all within the next 90 days.  www.fastcompany.com/3068537/the-one-page-cheatsheet-to-your-most-productive-90-days-ever

43  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Focus - Woman's History Month

The Librarian of Congress and the Greatness of Humility By Sarah Larson

n Memorial Hall in the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress, eight quotes of Madison’s are carved into the wall and painted in gold leaf. Like so much of our forebears’ wisdom, his words feel unusually relevant now. “THE ESSENCE OF GOVERNMENT IS POWER, AND POWER, LODGED AS IT MUST BE IN HUMAN HANDS, WILL EVER BE LIABLE TO ABUSE,” one says. Another is very prolibrary, and makes you want to join with your fellowAmericans and delve into the stacks: “LEARNED INSTITUTIONS OUGHT TO BE FAVORITE OBJECTS WITH EVERY FREE PEOPLE. THEY THROW THAT LIGHT OVER THE PUBLIC MIND WHICH IS THE BEST SECURITY AGAINST CRAFTY & DANGEROUS ENCROACHMENTS ON THE PUBLIC LIBERTY.” The new Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, is highly motivated to make this library, and all libraries, a favorite object of the people. Hayden is the first person of color, and the first woman, to lead the Library of Congress; she is also the first actual librarian to lead it since 1974. Her predecessor, Dr. James Billington, a distinguished Russia scholar appointed by Ronald Reagan, was beloved for his intellect but criticized for mismanagement; he neglected, for many years, to appoint a chief information officer, which was required by law, and he also didn’t use e-mail. Hayden, a former head of the American Library Association, revitalized and modernized Baltimore’s twenty-twobranch Enoch Pratt Free Library system. President Obama nominated her, in 2010, to be a member of the National Museum and Library Services Board, and, last year, to become Librarian of Congress. Hayden met a bit of opposition on her way to confirmation—the usual resistance to Obama’s later appointments, for one, and a tempest in a teapot about the use of Internet filters at public-library computers. More significant, some Republicans didn’t like Hayden’s firm resistance to the privacy encroachments of the Patriot Act when she was head of the A.L.A. Her opposition to what she saw as potentially McCarthyite government intrusion into citizens’ privacy earned her a Ms. Woman of the Year distinction in 2003.

(“When the FBI came snooping, Carla Diane Hayden proved librarians are more freedom fighters than shushers,” Ms. wrote.) The week after the Presidential Inauguration, hoping for some perspective on things, I met with Hayden in her expansive office in the Madison Building, completed in 1980. It’s contemporary-federal and grand, with floor-to-ceiling windows. Hayden is compact, with a short hair style that expresses contained fun, and an expression of amused, no-nonsense warmth. She dresses in the kind of elegant public-servantwear— jackets in rich hues—that we’ve seen on Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Angela Merkel. She has a large, imposing desk, but we sat by the windows at a more companionable table, on which there was an ornamental bowl commemorating the Jefferson Building. It was full of butterscotch candies. When I looked at Hayden from where I sat, the Capitol loomed behind her head. “Well, we are the Library of Congress,” she said. The Library of Congress has three massive main buildings, a staff of some thirty-two hundred, and a collection of more than a hundred and sixty million items. It runs the Congressional Research Service, which Hayden has called “the Special Forces of

44  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

analysts,” and the U.S. Copyright Office, and special archives like the American Folklife Center. It hosts dozens of free public events a year, including concerts. It contains everything from Ralph Ellison’s personal library to Rosa Parks’s peanut-butter-pancakes recipe to Bob Hope’s joke collection and George Gershwin’s piano. (Here’s Hayden leaning on it, talking with Smokey Robinson, who just received the library’s Gershwin Prize (www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/ feature_wdesc.php?rec=7664). The library was started, in Congress itself, in 1800; re-started with Thomas Jefferson’s own books after the British burned the Capitol, in 1812; and has expanded ever since. When Hayden was formally asked to serve by the Obama Administration, she told me, “It was that word, ‘serve,’ that helped me. With the Baltimore experience, you really were almost touching the people who were benefitting from the work of the library. And I had to think about, How can I make this library that relevant, and that immediate?” Hayden was the deputy commissioner and chief librarian of the Chicago Public Library, in the early nineties. In 1993, she became the director of the Pratt, in Baltimore, where she still lives. When she first moved to Baltimore, she recalled, many people came up and told her what she came to call “Pratt stories.” “Everybody—senators, medical doctors, people at the grocery store—all told me, ‘Pratt helped me’ . . . fill in the blank,” she said. “A distinguished African-American medical researcher said, ‘That was the only place that the races could mingle in the city, and where they were accepted.’ ” In 2015, during the protests after Freddie Gray’s death in police custody, Hayden decided to keep the Baltimore libraries open, including the branch in the center of the unrest; all week, it functioned as a refuge, and a resource for information, comfort, even food. After a couple of days, Hayden’s mother came to help out. “That community, like so many communities across the country, depends on the library,” Hayden said. “And not just urban libraries, rural libraries. Tribal libraries, on reservations. See, that’s what people don’t realize. That’s where people get their high-speed Internet access, all that.” Later, Hayden got to know Scott Bonner, the Ferguson librarian who kept his branch open during the protests there after the death of Michael Brown. “We were talking about it yesterday, actually,” she said. They’d been at the A.L.A. midwinter conference, in Atlanta. “And how it wasn’t even a choice—you didn’t really think about should you or shouldn’t you. It’s just like, ‘Yeah—that’s what we do.’ ” Like many librarians, Hayden is a big believer in the rights of all people to educate themselves, and in the

importance of open access to information online. (This inclusive spirit has become more urgent nationally in recent weeks: see “Libraries Are for Everyone,” (https:// hafuboti.com/2017/02/02/libraries-are-for-everyone) a multilingual meme and poster campaign, created by a Nebraska librarian, Rebecca McCorkindale, to counter the forces of fake news and fearmongering.) In September, Hayden gave a swearing-in speech in which she described how black Americans “were once punished with lashes and worse for learning to read.” She said that, “as a descendent of people who were denied the right to read, to now have the opportunity to serve and lead the institution that is our national symbol of knowledge is a historic moment.” She also talked about the Rosa Parks archive, now at the Library of Congress and available online. In a letter it contains, Parks wrote, “I had been pushed around all my life and felt at this moment that I couldn’t take it anymore.” That letter, Hayden said, is now available “in the classrooms of Racine, Wisconsin, in a small library on a reservation in New Mexico, and even in the library of a young girl in Baltimore, looking around as her city is in turmoil.” Hayden’s childhood was shaped by two very different libraries. She was born in Tallahassee. Her father, a music professor, started the string department at Florida A. & M., a historically black university; her mother taught music and later became a social worker. She grew up in “several places,” including Illinois and New York. “I was fortunate to spend summers in Springfield, Illinois, with my grandparents,” she said. (“We would go on trips to New Salem, where Abe Lincoln spent most of his childhood,” she said. “You see the log cabins, and then Lincoln’s home right there in Springfield.” Her relatives and Lincoln are buried in the same cemetery.) Her grandfather, a retired postal worker, was the messenger for the statecapitol complex in Springfield, and young Hayden would accompany him on his rounds: governor’s office, archives, state library. “I think about it a lot now,” she said. “That one of my earliest introductions to a library was actually a state library, and going into a building that was a miniature—definitely miniature!—version of a Jefferson Building.” Her other formative library was in Jamaica, Queens, near P.S. 196. “The little branch storefront library right across the street, where you’d go after school,” she said. “My early experiences with libraries were all about being comfortable with being around books, being around stacks, feeling free to be around them.” Hayden, like Obama and Trump, was sworn into office on the Lincoln Bible. The Bible was on display in a

45  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

see page 46

Focus - Woman's History Month Librarian of Congress from page 45

public exhibit, called “Presidential Inauguration Treasures,” (https:// blogs.loc.gov/loc/2017/01/pic-ofthe-week-presidential-inaugurationThe Bible—placed treasures/).

not far from a letter written by a nervous pre-Presidential George Washington (he wrote that he felt like “a culprit who is going to the place of his execution”)—was small, like a very dignified massmarket paperback, and bound in red leather, with gold-trimmed pages. The curatorial placard said “Gift of Mary Lincoln.” A librarian said that at the Inauguration Trump had kept Lincoln’s Bible in a box—it was misting out—and had laid his own Bible on top of it. It was unexpectedly moving to see the old pageantry, the context of Lincoln’s era: the Inaugural Ball dance cards, the bizarre, elegant dinner menu (grouse, pickled oysters, calf’s foot and wine jelly). There was Roosevelt’s top hat, and Kennedy’s “Ask not,” and the Obama era evoked in a paragraph from his first Inaugural Address (“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers . . .”). There were artifacts illustrating that we want our leaders to inspire us but to express personal humility, paying respect to the citizens and the office, and artifacts illustrating how we then glorify those ideals, with music, with ceremony, with architecture. Hayden met the Obamas when they all lived in Chicago. When I asked about her relationship with them, she was reticent—no anecdotes, no self-aggrandizement. (She also gently demurred from talking about Trump.) But if you watch footage of the Inauguration, you can see the affection there. Hayden, in a black coat and black

gloves, is seated just to the right of the Capitol door. Michelle Obama, looking melancholy, smiles and waves in her direction. A minute later, someone yells, “MAGA!” Horns sound, and Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and President Obama emerge. Obama sees Hayden, waves, beams, approaches her, and leans in for a hug. “Sir!” she says, heartily, patting him on the back. In her office, Hayden picked up the Jefferson candy bowl and offered me some butterscotch. “This is my secret sauce,” she said. I asked if there was anything in the library’s collections that people might love to explore but not know about. “Oh, yes! Oh, my goodness, yes!” she said. “Like the comicbook collection.” It’s the largest in the world. She described the depth of knowledge among the librarians: “You’ll say, ‘I’d like to see the original “Luke Cage,” ’ because of the TV show. And then they tell you, Luke Cage first appeared in this comic . . .’ And they just keep going.” I later visited Georgia Higley, the head of the newspaper section of the serial division, who showed me an array of comics milestones (“AllNego Comics” from 1947; Batman; Luke Cage), many so valuable they’re available only to scholars. http://www.cilip.org.uk/sites/default/ files/images/carla_hayden_14th_ librarian_of_congress._photo_by_ shawn_miller_resized.jpg “Wonder Woman,” Winter Issue No. 7, from 1943, was called “Wonder Woman FOR PRESIDENT.” There she was, with her boots and golden lasso, banging on a lectern covered in stars-and-stripes bunting. Below that, it said, “1000 YEARS in the future!” I thought of the drafts of Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address that a curator in the Inaugurations exhibit had shown me. Lincoln had originally ended his speech with a

challenge to the South: “Shall it be peace or sword?” William Henry Seward had suggested an edit that pushed Lincoln toward a more conciliatory tone, and the phrase “guardian angel of the nation.” Lincoln turned that into the sublime “better angels of our nature,” an appeal to our common humanity. Our greatest President was also, possibly, our greatest reviser—a cutter and paster who questioned his imperfect ideas, accepted input, made them better, and kept all of his drafts, so that history could learn not just from his speeches but from the workings of his mind. The contents of the library, like Hayden herself, often directed my attention to the systems by which progress is made and recorded. Hayden told me that she wants the Library of Congress “to get to the point where there’ll still be a specialness, but I don’t want it to be an exclusiveness. It should feel very special because it is very special. But it should be very familiar.” The week before, Hayden had created a joyful buzz on the Internet, with images that captured that exact balance. Daliyah Marie Arana, a four-year-old girl from Gainesville, Georgia, who had read more than a thousand books, had been named Librarian for a Day. Hayden, smiling, guided Arana around the Jefferson Building, as Hayden’s grandfather had once guided her around the Illinois State Library. Hayden brought Arana to the ceremonial librarian’s office, where kings, queens, and heads of state have viewed the library’s treasures. Arana sat at the librarian’s desk, in her pink dress, pink bow, and pink glasses. She looked dressed up, delighted, and a little bit as if she owned the place.  Edited by BBN Staﬀ www.newyorker.com/culture/sarahlarson/the-librarian-of-congress-andthe-greatness-of-humility

46  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

47  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Focus - Woman's History Month

Bessie Coleman and Asnath Mahapa Made Travel History Bessie Coleman They said she couldn’t do it, but... Bessie Coleman persisted. Born to sharecropper parents in 1893, in Atlanta, Texas, she was raised by a mother who urged Coleman and her 12 siblings to strive for more. And strive, she did, walking several miles to attend school in

a one-room shack, and saving up money working in cotton fields to attend college at the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University, now known as Langston Industrial College. The money dried up after just a year in school. She tried again a few years later, enrolling in beauty school in Chicago in 1915—but her lifelong admiration for the Wright brothers,

compounded by the exciting stories of World World I pilots, would push her to quit. She wanted to fly. Yet despite her determination, both racial and gender bias kept her from enrolling in aviation school in the United States. She remained undeterred: Armed with the sage advice—and funding—of Chicago Defender owner Robert Abbott, who underwrote the cost of her trip with the money he made selling stories about her to his primarily black readership, she set her eyes on France. Coleman took French lessons at the Berlitz school in the Chicago loop, and decamped for Paris in 1920 at the age of 21, where she spent seven months learning to fly. She was awarded a pilot’s license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale—the first African American woman, and woman of Native American descent to do so—on June 15, 1921, and returned to the United States where her race and sex still blocked her from finding gainful employment. Instead, she made her living performing such outrageous aerial stunts as barrel rolls and loopde-loops—“barnstorming,” as it was called—in air shows, earning her the moniker “Queen Bess.” Coleman died on April 20, 1926 at the age of 34 while on a practice run for an upcoming performance—

but not before making her mark on history.

Asnath Mahapa They said she couldn’t do it, but... Asnath Mahapa always knew she wanted to fly. But growing up in post-apartheid South Africa, a country that was legally segregated until 1994 (and with a father who vehemently disapproved), it often seemed impossible. Mahapa dabbled in other pursuits, taking an electrical engineering course at the University of Cape Town, but it just didn’t stick. So she signed up for flight school at the Progress Flight Academy training programs in night-rated training, as well as qualifications for both private and commercial pilot licenses. Despite the challenges, Mahapa has no regrets: “Ask any pilot, they’ll tell you, our view from our office is the best in the world, so why would you get bored doing a job like that?”  http://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/ amelia-earhart-women-who-madetravel-history

48  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Focus - Woman's History Month

Black Women Pilots make Historic Flight for Delta By Ben Mutzabaugh

ilots Dawn Cook and Stephanie Johnson made history for Delta Air Lines last weekend. With Capt. Stephanie Johnson and First Office Dawn Cook at the helm of an Airbus A320 flying from Detroit to Las Vegas on Sunday (Feb. 26), the duo became the first African American women to make up the cockpit crew on one of Delta’s “mainline” flights. After they arrived in Las Vegas as the pilots of Flight 555, Cook posted a photo of the two on Facebook to commemorate the occasion. Delta confirmed the landmark flight on its website this week. As for Johnson, she already had secured a Delta milestone by becoming the airline’s first AfricanAmerican female captain. She says she was drawn to flying at an early age.

“There were no pilots in my life growing up, and I think I’m the first person in my family to graduate from college,” Johnson said via a Q&A on Delta’s website in February. “But for as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with airplanes and would think, ‘What a great thing it would be to know how to fly.’ “ A high school physics teacher encouraged Johnson to follow up on that interest, and she eventually learned to fly while studying at Kent State University in Ohio. “After building flight time as an instructor, I was hired by a commuter carrier, where I was able to earn enough good flight experience to apply for a job at Northwest Airlines, and I was hired as their first African-American female pilot in 1997,” she said. When asked how she felt about breaking barriers – first at Northwest

and then at Delta – Johnson responded: “I feel a great sense of responsibility to be a positive role model. There are so few women in this profession and too many women who still don’t think of it as a career option. When I was hired by Northwest Airlines, there were 12 African-American women airline pilots in the country at the major airlines, and I knew all of their names.” “Today is very different, and though there are still people to inform, I am so thankful that the word is out,” she added. “This is a great career – it’s worth the hard work.”  http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/goodnews/black-women-pilots-make-historicflight-for-delta/ar-AAnLClM?li=AAk6ORB& ocid=spartandhp

49  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

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, April 11, 2017 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.

50  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Focus - Woman's History Month

Women who are Making the World a Better Place

Zainab Bangura In 2012, Zainab Bangura, from Sierra Leone, was appointed special representative of the United Nations secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict. Stressing the point that sexual violence needs to stop, Bangura’s office helped bring about a U.N. declaration in which 140 member states committed to ending molestation and rape during conflict.

52  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Catherine Samba-Panza Known as “Mother Courage,” Central African Republic’s (CAR) interim president from 2014 to 2016, Catherine Samba-Panza, was selected to lead the country in January 2014 to bring under control ethnic clashes that forced more than 1 million people from their homes. Being the ﬁrst female president of CAR and a women’s right activist, Panza worked toward steering her country away from violence

Liya Kebede Ethiopian-born model Liya Kebede is a famous name in the fashion industry. But it’s her work as a maternal health advocate that has positively aﬀected the lives of thousands around the world. Kebede has served as WHO's ambassador for maternal, newborn and child health since 2005. That year, she also founded the Liya Kebede Foundation, which works to reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality in Ethiopia and other parts of the world.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/13-women-who-are-making-the-world-a-betterplace/ss-AAnEzny?ocid=spartandhp#image=1 53  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Focus - Woman's History Month

Your Ultimate Auntie,

Rep. Maxine Waters,

Takes ‘Knuck if You Buck’ Stance on Trump By Stephen A. Crockett Jr.

axine Waters should be tired. At 78 years old, she shouldn’t be the congresswoman leading the fight against Donald Trump, but don’t tell her that. She’s fought bigger and tougher, and to her, this is the fight in front of her and she isn’t the running type. Serving since 1991 as the U.S. representative for California’s 43rd Congressional District, and previously for the 35th and 29th districts, Waters isn’t new to this; she’s true to this. Like the time in 1997 when Waters spent her own bread to fly down to Nicaragua after reports that CIA operatives had been responsible for helping to flood California with crack. She wanted answers, so she followed the money. She works tirelessly with youngsters in gangs, trying to show them a better life, and if you still need to check her hood-fax, go no further than this: She knows the real Rick Ross—not the Florida rapper who once worked as a correctional officer, but the infamous California drug trafficker-turned-author whose name the rapper lifted. So when the immaculate and pristine black first family left office unstained, Waters wasn’t tearyeyed. She was ready. “My feet are firmly planted on the

ground and dealing with the reality of things and what’s happening and what’s going on,” she tells The Root. “It has not been difficult; I just know that we are now going to have a new president. I don’t care for him, I don’t trust him, and I know what I’ve got to do.” And what she has to do is this: Fight. Waters doesn’t know any other way; in fact, if your first introduction to Waters was this appearance on MSNBC Live With Tamron Hall, then you are late to the party. Waters has been here holding down this fort since the early ’90s. She was there in 1992 to call out white California police officers who beat Rodney King. She was there to hand out supplies after the Los Angeles riots when those officers were set free. And when camera crews asked Waters about the destruction, she didn’t bail on her constituents; in fact, she called the visceral response to injustice a rebellion and not a riot. In 1998, Waters wrote a letter to Cuban President Fidel Castro asking that he not extradite Assata Shakur. For years, Waters has been calling out the government, all in support of the people she was elected to represent. In truth, Waters’ brand of politics shouldn’t

Women who are Making the World a Better Place be new or exciting; it should be the way. But other Democrats refuse to call out what they see. So Waters isn’t waiting for others to catch up; she is using her voice to speak truth to power. “I don’t have any intentions of pretending that we can get along with him,” Waters says of Trump. “He has defined himself. We know who he is, we know what he cares about, and I don’t know why any of us would try and make ourselves believe that he is anything other than what he has shown us to be.” And her brutal honesty is making her the emerging voice of a leaderless Democratic Party and maybe, more importantly, black America’s favorite aunt. You know, the aunt who will tell you lovingly that you are gaining weight, or that your new girlfriend is a tramp, all while casually wiping the lipstick from the corner of her mouth. The aunt you love a little more because even if the truth hurts, you know you need to hear it. The aunt who isn’t going to pull any punches because she doesn’t know any other way. She’s that aunt for all of us, and when it comes to how Trump came into power, Aunt Maxine has words for that, too. “There is more as to why people voted for Trump; there was a lot of talk about [how] people were upset

56  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

#RESIST @MaxineWaters

about the economy; they lived in small rural communities and they were upset that the jobs had left. I think what Trump did was connected with people who never believed in [President Barack] Obama in the first place,” she says. “These were people who held out some notion that we’re not deserving, that we’d gotten too much, that we’d gone too far. And they were unhappy about themselves and their lives, and he tapped into that,” Waters says. “So

he got away with something that I never thought anyone running for president could get away with. “I can’t get the picture out of my head of him mocking and mimicking a disabled man,” she continues. “I mean, have you ever seen a grown, mature human being mock a disabled person? There are people who don’t know any better, but this is a man that is running for the president of the United States who did this. I can’t get it out of my head.”

And, alas, here we are with the president who once declared that he was so famous he could grab women he didn’t know by their “pussy,” standing against black America’s favorite black aunt. And let’s be clear about this: Maxine Waters is willing to fight all of this on her own because she’s built that way. She realizes that the fight isn’t just against Trump; it’s against everyone he’s put in place, a group she calls “the billionaire class,” and what she wants is for those in her party who claim to detest the president’s ways to be the leaders they were elected to be. “We’re going to have to resist; we’re going to have to march and protest and rally and never let up,” she says. “We are going to have to demand that those elected officials who say that they are opposed to him show up and say it, and make sure that they understand that we are not playing, and know that we’re about the business of stopping Trump.”.  http://www.theroot.com/your-ultimateauntie-rep-maxine-waters-takesknuck-if-1791590115

57  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

! " # !$ % ! ! ! " & ' & ' ( & ) ) $ % !$ % ! ) "" $! ! ! ) ! % && !# ! $* +

Business

More Professional Business Communications

Welcome to More.

hey say you should never judge a book by its cover. When it comes to business, however, that's exactly what your clients and customers do: They judge you by your "cover" -- the websites, emails, newsletters, mailers, tweets, and various other communications that you broadcast on a daily basis. "According to data by Tony Haile of Chartbeat, you have only 15 seconds to capture a consumer's attention, so remember to keep your message short, simple, and accurate," says Entrepreneur.com contributor Jacqueline Whitmore. According to Whitmore, one of the easiest ways to squander your 15 seconds is to greet the customer with a glaring error in spelling or grammar. "What is your first impression when you view a company's website and discover it is filled with typographical, spelling, or grammatical errors?" Whitmore asks. "You are likely to dismiss that site and move on to the next, which can be disastrous for the company's long-term survival." To maintain a professional reputation with your business communications, Whitmore suggests first slowing down. "We live in a fast-paced world where we try to do too much in a short amount of time. Never send anything without proofreading it first," she says, adding that you should always seek a second pair of eyes, too. "Before sending an important document, ask a trusted friend or colleague to review it and give you feedback. This may take a little extra time, but will be worth it in the end." 

Open the door to a hotel you don’t just visit. You own it. Choice Hotels® is committed to achieving more diversity in hospitality with exclusive incentive programs designed to reduce up front costs and provide more support to minority hotel developers. And our commitment doesn’t stop there. Choice Hotels promotes and pursues diversity at all levels, ranging from our workforce to our hotel guests, from our suppliers to entrepreneurs looking to create wealth. Like you. Open the door to hotel ownership opportunities with Choice Hotels. Because you’re not in business for less. You’re in it for more. www.choicehotelsdevelopment.com/#&panel1-2

w w w. s u c c e s s f u l m e e t i n g s . c o m / Strategy/SM-How-To/How-to-AppearMore-Professional-in-Business-Com munications/?cid=eltrHowto&eid=lion. comm@hotmail.com 64  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

WE'RE CLOSING! *Half Price Blow Out Sale Liquidating inventory!

Beginning Monday, February 20th until: in stock furniture will be 1/2 oﬀ marked price including DESKS, CHAIRS, FILE CABINETS, BOOKCASES, CREDENZAS and other oﬃce items.

Publisher's Message from page 3

as well as other diverse-owned business enterprises. We encourage you to take advantage of these contracting opportunities. We are unable to strengthen our

Dorothy Dandridge position without the much needed ﬁnancial resources. It is our hope that African American business owners are not overly distracted from the political rhetoric that every presidential administration has, and seize the opportunities to generate revenue, grow their businesses and position them to create employment opportunities for others. On the education front, according to the Washington Post, they recently reported that we have

witnessed President Trump sign an executive order for HCBU in February 2017 that moves a federal initiative supporting historically black colleges and universities directly into the White House, a move depicted as an eﬀort to give the schools more clout within the government. Trump’s action directs the White House Initiative on HBCUs to operate from the White House instead of the Education Department. The initiative, begun under President Jimmy Carter, assists colleges in accessing federally sponsored programs, including government r e s e a r c h projects and student aid. Some view the move as a signal that the more than 100 historically black schools are a priority for the administration, but others said that without monetary support, it is purely symbolic. It has been reported that HBCU leaders gathered in Washington sought to focus on funding. They asked administration oﬃcials for a $25 billion federal investment for scholarships, technology and

facilities. They also pressed for full-time students who qualify for Pell grants to receive them three semesters a year instead of two, according to several presidents in attendance. Morgan’s Wilson said he wants the White House to build up historically black research universities that are often shut out of federal contracts. “The federal government has purposefully invested billions of dollars in making [historically white research universities] stronger at the neglect of institutions that have been in the space even longer,” Wilson said. “Why I participated in the meeting was to present a case for why it is critically important for the federal government to correct the wrong.” Walter M. Kimbrough, president of Dillard University in New Orleans, said he’ll reserve judgment until he sees the president’s budget. He said he worries whether possible cuts in domestic spending would jeopardize funding for programs that help HBCU students. As it stands, historically black colleges receive roughly $320 million a year in federal funding to strengthen their operations, according to Education Department data. The government also provides Howard University in the District about $222 million in annual appropriations. “Historically our country discriminated and oppressed African Americans, and HBCUs throughout history were not funded in any equitable way,” said Marybeth Gasman, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Minority-Serving Institutions. “The federal government gives funding to make up for past discrimination and

66  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles US Olympians

provide resources to institutions that are deeply tuition-driven and also educate many low-income students.” Historically Black schools educated nearly 300,000 students in 2014, the latest ﬁgure available from the National Center for Education S t a t i s t i c s . E d u c a t i o n Department data shows that threequarters of all doctorates awarded to African Americans, three-quarters of all black oﬃcers in the U.S. military and 80%

of black federal judges earned an undergraduate degree at historically black schools. Again, women have proven over history the important impact they have on society and the world – whether from the Board rooms, or the nurseries where they nurture and raise children. Personally, recent times have undermined the importance of mothers. Whatever role a woman is in, if she is a person of integrity and character, her footprint will be well-imbedded for generations to come – and not soon to be forgotten. I thank GOD for women, especially for my own mother – for without mothers none of us would be here. In most cases, they are our ﬁrst contact with a world that would be a lot more diﬃcult without their love, nurturing and guidance. 

Fannie Lou Hamer 67  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

70  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Business - Tech

Why Business Should Leverage Augmented Reality By Rob Clyde (Ed. BBN)

n ISACA’s annual IT Risk/ Reward Barometer—a twopronged survey that examines both consumer and IT/business p e r s p e c t i v e s — ( w w w. i s a c a . o r g /

info/isaca-it-risk-reward-barometerlooks-at-augmented-reality-iot/index. html?cid=pr_1207060&appeal=pr) the

majority of consumers see clear benefits of Augmented Reality AR-enhanced devices in everyday life and work. However, only 21% of global business and technology professionals are convinced that the benefits of AR outweigh the risks, signaling a disconnect that must be addressed. AR technology superimposes a computer-generated overlay on a user’s view of the real world. Factor in an already challenging

security landscape for internet of things (IoT) devices, and the reluctance of some IT executives to embrace the early stages of AR is understandable. Security and privacy risks are real—a point of consensus among IT professionals and consumers.

Nonetheless, we expect enterprises to adopt a more welcoming posture toward AR in 2017, as growing consumer demand prompts a swift response from the marketplace. AR may be a relatively new technology for many, but one in four enterprises has a way to detect pictures, posts and videos tagged or geotagged to their business locations and advertisements. That means there are best practices to build on as enterprises look to incorporate components of AR. There are plenty of intriguing options to explore because the potential applications of AR in the workplace are numerous. This holds true for marketing teams, given the potential to leverage AR for signage and social media outreach. However, there are also a variety of opportunities in industries such as health care, the automotive industry and the military, to name a few. Training guides and retail geolocation are among the use cases that are already helping AR gain traction.

Realizing AR Benefits and Overcoming Barriers Enterprises can realize the benefits of AR and overcome potential barriers through some of the following steps: • Extend social media monitoring to AR platforms. Leverage

and extend current social media policies and monitoring to augmented reality platforms. Social media is a key source of information for many augmented viewing apps. • Consider how AR can improve your business. Training, diagnostics and marketing are three areas with particularly strong potential. • Review your governance framework and update your policies. Incorporate use of AR as part of the business into organizational policies and procedures—including bring your own device (BYOD) and privacy policies. Sixty-three percent of organizations do not have a policy to address AR in the workplace. • Build security into every part of the process. Security is a crucial component of AR initiatives because it helps ensure confidence in the data. Before business and technology professionals can effectively incorporate AR into their organizations, they must become more comfortable with AR themselves. The IT Risk/Reward Barometer shows that only 3% of professionals have used AR applications for business within the past year, and only 16% have done so in their personal lives. This needs to change—and it will. Organizations ought to take action now to devise appropriate policies, while determining how to capitalize on augmented reality before the competitive landscape passes them by. With due diligence and a forward-looking approach, the business community can make this promising technology a winwin proposition for enterprises and consumers alike.  www.baselinemag.com/innovation/whybusiness-should-leverage-augmented-reality. html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BL_ NL_BB_20170315_STR4L1&dni=400897823&r ni=25652266

74  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

$25,000 Could Be Yours â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Enter Now!

Whether you've been running your small business for six months or 16 years, submit your business' story by March 29 for a chance to win! Use the The 2017 FedEx Small Business link below to get details and recruit voters - http:// Grant Contest smallbusinessgrant.fedex.com/?cmp=EMC1003834-3-8-SBGC. is open!

Focus - Women's History Month

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary, the Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. State Department -

Africa Seen as Key to Addressing Global Challenges By Rachel Ansley

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of African Affairs US State Department

n increase of investment and innovation in Africa has made the continent a rising power on the global stage and an essential partner for the United States in facing today’s myriad

global challenges, Linda ThomasGreenfield, Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, said at the Atlantic Council on March 9. “The truth is we can’t meet today’s

global challenges without Africa,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “When one thinks about ending poverty, fighting extremism, and boosting economic growth, Africa is central to these efforts.”

76  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Women who are Making the World a Better Place Despite the many challenges the continent has faced, Africa “is the next frontier for global opportunities,” she said. Thomas-Greenfield delivered a valedictory address, the day before the conclusion of her term in office, focused on Africa’s place on the world stage and how the international community, and Africans themselves, can help the continent overcome existing challenges and capitalize on current opportunities. Her remarks were followed by a moderated discussion with J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. “Looking ahead, where Africa ends up on the world stage in the next century will depend on how well the continent tackles its own challenges this century,” according to Thomas-Greenfield. However, “it will also depend on how the United States and the international community partner with Africa to help achieve its promise.” She outlined five major trials currently facing African countries, and how they might be addressed. Africa’s rapid youth bulge presents a potential source of instability, which must be recognized and catered to. Currently, half of all Africans are under the age of nineteen, and harnessing the potential of this immense human

capital “starts with creating opportunity for Africa’s youth,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “Africa’s youth are its singlegreatest resource, and they are a force for good,” she said. “If we can ensure Africa’s youth are engaged and contributing to their countries, Africa’s economy will grow, its people will prosper, and stability

will be the order of the day.” This will require increased investment in education and job creation. These issues are closely linked to the challenge of boosting Africa’s economic growth. ThomasGreenfield called for increased foreign investment in the continent, from not only the United States,

A few Nigerian Young People

77  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

see page 78

Focu - Women;s HIstory Month Thomas-Greenfield from page 77

but other countries such as China as well, claiming “we need to correct the misperceptions of risks and educate companies about opportunities.” However, Thomas-Greenfield said, “while we’ve seen progress in some places, too often we see African leaders clinging to power.” For example, Yahya Jammeh, former president of the Gambia, initially refused to step down when he was not re-elected in December 2016. “When leaders refuse to prepare for transition, sooner or later instability, if not outright civil war, is the result,” said ThomasGreenfield. However, she said that “this is an area where regional organizations can play a significant role, and they are doing so.” In the Gambia, when Jammeh attempted to hold on to power, the Economic Community of West African States stood up for democracy and forced him to stand down. Thomas-Greenfield described how democracy and governance go hand in hand with the necessary eradication of corruption. “Corruption actively works against

justice and it promotes exclusion and poverty by denying the most vulnerable in Africa basic needs and security,” she said, adding: “It stifles development.” She called on international officials to “call out” corruption. “We all have to stand up against corruption. We have to hold people accountable. We all have to call a spade a spade.” The instability caused by lack of democracy and rampant corruption leads to the security challenges facing the continent, primarily posed by Boko Haram, an extremist terrorist group in Nigeria. Thomas-Greenfield described how Boko Haram rose out of internal issues in Nigeria. While the US State Department and the African Union (AU) are collaborating to counter Boko Haram in Africa, “the long-term solution to ending violence will depend on addressing the root causes of conflict,” said Thomas-Greenfield, illustrating the interrelated nature of the challenges facing Africa. “This is the work that the United States must engage in, and we have to succeed,” she said, “not just for Africa’s immediate security, but for Africa’s future and our own security.” The United States plays a key role in addressing the repercussions of terrorism in Africa by providing humanitarian assistance. However, it is not enough for international partners to provide aid. “We have to look at what their threats are and the extent to which their threats can be dealt with internally,” said ThomasGreenfield. She called on African leaders, as well as outside actors, to focus their efforts on improving infrastructure and capacitybuilding on the continent, saying this is the most

effective way to solve the challenges facing Africa. “If we don’t build the infrastructure, we will continue to deal with crisis issues,” she said. “I think we are already on the right track in providing the kinds of infrastructure that will lead to Africa making a difference in the lives of Africans in the future,” ThomasGreenfield said of US efforts in the region. However, “we have to work with the regional organizations and other partners, because this is not something we can do alone. This is a team sport and everyone has to participate.” She also outlined US influence in terms of soft-power programs, such as exchange programs between US universities and African partners, as well as the Peace Corps. “These are soft programs, but these are the programs that truly make a

difference to the people of Africa,” she said. However, she said, these efforts to improve infrastructure and increase capacity-building need international support and foreign investment. Not only that, said Thomas-Greenfield, “there has to be a home-grown, Africa-based private sector.” The combination of the two can help provide capital to young African entrepreneurs, leading to job creation and a wealth of opportunities. According to Thomas-Greenfield, this cannot take place unless

78  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Business - Tech

Gmail Can Now Stream Video Attachments on the Desktop By Jacob Kastrenakes

oogle’s making a small but helpful change to desktop Gmail today that’ll be useful for anyone who sends or receives video attachments: from now on, you’ll be able to stream them on the page, rather than having to download the file first. Video attachments can still be downloaded, but clicking on a file will now pull up a YouTube-style video player that’ll let you play

African leaders take care of their people. Investment in education, increased participation of women in society, and a focus on human rights will allow countries throughout the continent to begin to capitalize on their vast human capital and natural resources, thereby seizing the

opportunities available to them, and making Africa a much strong player and partner on the world stage. “Working with these governments on dealing with human rights… and taking care of their own people,” is paramount, according to ThomasGreenfield.

the clip back, adjust quality and sound levels, and even stream it to a Chromecast device. (Though, in my quick test of this feature, I received an error message when trying to play a video — clearly there are some kinks to work out.) Google says the feature is rolling out to everyone but may take up to 15 days before some users see it. The feature could be particularly helpful when sending small videos captured on your phone, as it’ll save recipients a step or two before watching them. But the feature is still limited by the fact that Gmail attachments can’t exceed 50MB (and only 25MB when sending), which means you’re on your own if you want to send something longer or in a particularly high resolution.  www.msn.com/en-us/news/ technology/gmail-can-now-streamvideo-attachments-on-the-desktop/ ar-BByeHVY?li=AA4Zoy&ocid=sp artanntp

However, she said, “ultimately Africa’s success depends on a strong US-Africa relationship and continued engagement.” While there is an immense amount of opportunity on the continent, challenges remain, and according to Thomas-Greenfield, the new administration of US President Donald J. Trump must pick up the legacy of old efforts and initiate new solutions. She expressed her optimism regarding the future of US engagement in Africa, saying, while “we are too early in this administration to know what the trend lines will look like, from everything I’ve seen… we are going to remain a committed partner to Africa.”  http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ new-atlanticist/africa-seen-as-key-toaddressing-global-challenges

79  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

From: Cornell William Brooks, President and CEO, NAACP

ne of the most troubling prospects for 2017 is the nomination of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions for Attorney General. Senator Sessions stands against everything that you and I fight for: He's spoken out against the Voting Rights Act, and has described the work that the NAACP and ACLU do to protect civil rights as "un-American." We must do all we can to prevent him from rolling back the rights and protections our parents and grandparents worked so hard to gain, and we've worked so hard to preserve. Please make a donation today — even $4 can make a real difference — to help us fight back in 2017. The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. And our president-elect has appointed Jeff Sessions, a man who's actively threatened to strip us of our rights throughout his career. Can we trust someone with our rights — and our lives — with a track record like this? • Sessions was denied appointment as a federal judge because of racist comments he made to a colleague. • He opposed and criticized the removal of the Confederate flag from public spaces. • He once joked that he approved of the Ku Klux Klan until he learned its members smoked marijuana. Too many of our brothers and sisters have sacrificed for the rights we have today. We're ready to battle for our rights in 2017 — and we need your support. P l e a s e contribute what you can right now and help us resist: http://action.naacp.org/StopSessions

81  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

8 1 11 3 1 9

13 4 5 %6 %6(7

! " #$%$& %'()'$$* + ,-.. , / 0

1 1 " / 2

www.nubianskin.com/us

Sell Your Products & Services on

Black Business Association is joining forces with AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and a number of other businesses and community organizations to help promote safe driving through

It Can Wait.

http://itcanwait.com

Business - Communication

EBROJI: The New Way to Text By Erin Martin, Staﬀ Writer

broji is “bringing language to life”, with their new GIF text keyboard and making those texts that we second guess, easier to send. Co-founder Jesse Williams felt that text lacks tone and texture, and GIFs inject a contagious joy into any thread. Diﬀerent from other keyboard apps, Ebroji uses gifs to replace emojis and texts. The app is using visual communication as their means to spice up texting conversations.

So in addition to, or to replace your texts, you can switch over to the Ebroji keyboard and add some personality to your messages.

Ebroji has hundreds of gifs stored and already available to send. You don’t have to make any of your own uploads, or wait for them to download before sending. After downloading the app from the Apple store or Google Play, you add the new Ebroji keyboard to your smartphone and

allow full access to it. If you have an iPhone, all you have to do is tap the globe icon, and choose which keyboard you’ll want to use.. Using the keyboard there are over 30 categories to choose from: Awkward, Winter, Curved, Crying, and Dancing are just a few. Ebroji also offers a search engine within the keyboard to add more gifs. If you can’t find one out of their hundreds of choices, you will have the option to upload or make your own gif and then choose which category it’ll fall under. Sometimes, emojis can be confusing, and a few of them are definitely played out and overused. Ebroji offers the opportunity to add spontaneity to boring text messages without resorting to that typical smiley or kissing face. While I was using the app, I was so excited to see that it’s basically a gallery of all of the gifs I’ve always wanted to store on my phone, but never had enough memory for. With a lot of our favorite celebrities making those faces that describe our mood perfectly, this app will be a go-to when you’re trying to say something that’s just not coming together in your texts. Unlike the other keyboard apps, or even the iPhone keyboard, Ebroji doesn’t monitor or record anything. This app is definitely unique, and being new to the tech world, we should expect a buzz about it in the near future. If you haven’t already downloaded the app, try it out and let us know what you think!  http://www.vsuspectator. com/2016/02/10/ebroji/

85  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

FOR

St. Patrick's Day OR ANY SPECIAL OCCASION

Business common expressions. Another iOS app, called Ummo (http://www. ummoapp.com), does something similar, giving you a "report card" after listening to you talk to let you know how many needless ﬁller words you used. These apps are particularly good to use while you practice your presentation—and even during actual presentations.

Technology:

Take A Look! by LaSandra Stratton

heck out what these ﬁrms and organizations have to oﬀer for your personal interests, personal wealth building, and business expansion opportunities.

Professional SelfImprovement

Mobil Apps May Help

he most successful professionals get help through mentorship, or coaching or training but it's also great to be able to work on acquiring skills and habits in your spare time, every day, using a free or inexpensive mobile app. This genre of apps that coach and guide and scold and praise you into being a better version of yourself is

actually powerful and useful. Here are some of the best apps I've seen that will help you acquire the abilities and attributes for continued success throughout your career. Boomerang: Get Your Email Game On Point Boomerang (http://boomerangapp. com), a company that makes email plug-ins for Google Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, oﬀers a feature

called Respondable. It's an email assistant that uses machine learning to help you craft great emails. It tracks in real time the subject length, word count, question count, reading level, positivity, politeness and subjectivity. (The last three metrics use machine learning and are available only with the paid Pro and Premium versions.) By using Respondable, you can polish your email skills on the fly, every time you send a message. Speak More Professionally Our own linguistic tics—such as using "filler" words such as "like" or "um"—are hard to notice and even harder to break the habit of doing. Thanks to new smartphone apps that listen to your speech and help you notice filler words, you don't have to dragoon another person into the task of fixing the way you speak. An iOS app called LikeSo (https:// sayitlikeso.com) listens to you talk and tells you how often you use words such as "like," "basically," "literally," "so," "totally" and other

Apps Help Build Habits for Success The attributes for success—which run the gamut from overall health and energy levels to getting up early to communicating eﬀectively—are built slowly over time in the form of habits. One great way we can build needed habits is with a social habitbuilding app for iOS and Android called Coach.me (www.coach.me). It's based on a brilliant premise: to remove all the excuses our minds conjure up for not building habits of personal and professional success. The ﬁrst layer includes smartphone app reminders. You can choose from a list or create a habit you'd like to build, such as work out, read business books or create an agenda for every meeting. Then, you can tell the app how often you'd like to be reminded. The second layer is social. You can

join "challenges"—speciﬁc habits that other users are building—and the social interaction enables a kind of motivating peer pressure. It also provides support and help from the community. The third layer is professional coaching, which comes in the form of for-pay "habit coaching" and

88  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

"leadership coaching."  http://www.baselinemag.com/careers/theapp-way-to-professional-self-improvement. html?utm_medium=email&utm_ campaign=BL_NL_BB_20170223_STR2L2 &dni=397399166&rni=25652266

TurboScan: Document & Receipt Scanner

urboScan turns your iPhone and/or Android phone into a full-featured and powerful scanner for documents, receipts, books, photos, whiteboards, and other text. Using just your iPhone, iPad or Android you can quickly scan your multipage documents in high quality PDFs, edit, store and send them anywhere. TurboScan uses advanced fast

eliminate shadows and set a perfect contrast for text - black on white. TurboScan boasts a powerful yet easy to use interface. Get instant one-tap brightness, rotation and color controls all on one screen! TurboScan also offers SureScan, our proprietary scanning mode for sharper scans (especially useful in low-light conditions.) SureScan automatically takes three pictures of the same document, giving you guaranteed perfect result every time. TurboScan's handy "Email to myself" feature lets you send documents to a predefined address, or even upload them to online storage sites like Evernote, with a single tap. All processing happens on your iPhone or Android, and the confidentiality of your data is never compromised (no Internet connection needed.) Available for $4.99.  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ turboscan-quickly-scan-multipage/ id342548956?mt=8 https://play.google.com/store/apps/ details?id=com.piksoft.turboscan

Interactio

nteractio (https://interactio. io) is a mobile system that fully replaces interpretation hardware for live events. An interpreter is interpreting from a booth, a computer is connected to the sound system and attendees listen to the translation in their phones or tablets via an app. No more device delivery, no more responsibility for the lost or broken devices. No more hardware. Attendees simply open an app, connect to the wi-ﬁ and click on "Play". There is no need to rent or buy an expensive conference equipment anymore. With Interactio organisations save thousands! Contact Interactio for a quote.  Submitted by LaSandra Stratton, Chief Content Administrator of the Black Business News.

algorithms to accurately auto-detect document edges, straighten the documents (correct perspective),

89  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Community/Public Interest - Women's History Month

Harriet Tubman Visitors Center Opens By Trisha Ping

to learn more about Harriet Tubman and how her acts of determination, courage and selflessness impacted our nation,’ according to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. The 10,000-square-foot center chronicles Tubman’s years in slavery, her escape and her

Portraits of Harriet Tubman hang in the Harriet Tubman Museum and Education Center in Cambridge.  Harriet Tubman photographed with a group of slaves she helped escape. Images by Getty Images

he life and legacy of abolitionist and Union spy Harriet Tubman is the focus of a new visitors center that just opened in Church Creek, Maryland, not far from the birthplace she escaped from in 1849. The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center ‘serves as an invitation to all people

subsequent work to guide others to freedom, which meant risking her own life. It is the first National Park to honor an African American woman. Designed by architect Chris Elcock, the building provides some subliminal cues for visitors. The view north is clear, but the view south is ‘tighter,’ according to Elcock. “The essential idea is you’re moving forward to escape the circumstances of slavery,” he explains. The many forking trails on the grounds attempt to echo the difficult decisions Tubman made as she guided others to freedom. Opening ceremonies on 10 March drew a crowd of hundreds, including a Tubman re-enactor and men dressed in the Civil War uniforms of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, an African American unit that Tubman herself served with during the war. This isn’t the first Tubman-related news of 2017: in February, a new photograph of Tubman was discovered in an album once owned by a fellow abolitionist. It is expected to sell for more than $20,000 when it goes up for auction on 30 March. And of course, Tubman will appear on the US $20 bill sometime after 2020, when the currency is redesigned.  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/news/2017/03/15/marylandvisitors-center-harriet-tubman/

92  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Community/Public Interest

Scholly: A Better Way to Search for Scholarships

hris Gray saw college as a necessity priced like a luxury good, so he began the tedious process of searching and applying for as many scholarships as possible. Searching for scholarships became like looking for a needle in a haystack. “There was information online, but it was scattered all over, and often outdated. I did a lot of Googling,” he recalls. “I thought there had to be a better way.”

For over seven months he searched for scholarships, sharing time on the few computers at the free library and often having to write essays from his phone, as his family didn't have internet at home. But determination had its day; the long hours paid off. Chris won over $1.3 million in scholarships, including scholarships from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the CocaCola Scholars Foundation, and was able to study finance and entrepreneurship at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He was even able to cover his living expenses for all four years. He learned how to find, apply for, and win scholarships...and became an

expert on the broken state of the current scholarship ecosystem. The challenges and rewards of his experience gave him the idea for a mobile app that can make things a lot easier for students everywhere. He teamed up with fellow Drexel student Nick Pirollo and fellow CocaCola Scholar Bryson Alef. They became co-founders of what is known as Scholly today and what will forever be known as encouraging ‘Opportunity for All’. Scholly received the nation's attention and adoration when it was featured on Shark Tank, landing a deal with Daymond John and Lori Greiner while sparking the biggest fight in Shark Tank history. Shortly thereafter, Scholly grew to be the #1 overall app in both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store for over 3 weeks. The company was named in Inc. Magazine’s Top College Start Ups, won Under Armour's Cupid's Cup competition, and won Steve Case's Rise of the Rest Competition. Chris Gray was named Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year for 2015 for Philadelphia and is one of Forbes' 30 under 30 for 2016. Scholly has also been featured in just about every major media outlet, including Good Morning America, Forbes, BET, USA Today, Fortune Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, CNN, Fox News and many more, as well as being featured in Cadillac's new ad campaign, Dare Greatly and being invited to speak at conferences across the nation. Most important to the Scholly team are the hundreds of thousands of students and families who have been able to use the platform to find f f d over $70 million in scholarship money to go the colleges of their dreams. With the addition of executives with decades of collective experience in education technologies, operations, marketing, and branding, Scholly is solidifying its platform and strengthening its business, in order to better achieve its vision to help all students achieve their potential.  https://myscholly.com

93  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Community/Public Interest

Entire Senior Class at D.C.’s Ballou High School Applies to College By Alejandra Matos

very one of the 190 seniors at Ballou High applied to college this year, a first for the long-struggling public school in a poor neighborhood of Southeast Washington. Randy Sams, 18, applied to at least 14 colleges and said he has been accepted at 12, including Penn State and Virginia State universities. He’s waiting to hear from his top choice, Temple, a public university in Philadelphia. The deciding factor will be financial aid offers. Sams will be the first in his family to attend college. Ayanna Rouse, 18, also applied to 14 colleges. She committed to the public Radford University in Virginia. She’ll be the first in her family to attend a four-year university. Ballou ranks among the city’s lowest-performing high schools on core measures. Its graduation rate last school year, 57%, was secondlowest among regular schools in the D.C. Public Schools system, behind Anacostia High’s rate of 42%. (That comparison doesn’t include alternative schools.) Last school year, 3% of Ballou students tested met reading standards on citywide standardized exams. Almost none met math standards. Despite these challenges, administrators said it was the Class of 2017 that decided all seniors would apply to college. The students themselves set the ambitious goal last spring. Administrators say they never doubted the students would meet it. “There are some schools and communities where college is an automatic next step. There is no

celebration,” said Yetunde Reeves, Ballou’s principal. “Our kids don’t get that same message. We are trying to create an environment where going to college is what Ballou does as well.” Ballou, with about 930 students, is in one of the poorest wards in the city, and every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. Educators say that getting some students to go to class is a struggle. Attrition is high: Many who enter as freshmen drop out along the way to graduation. Some, including Sams, hesitated to enroll at Ballou because of its reputation as a troubled school. Ballou was made famous by Ron Suskind’s 1998 book “A Hope in the Unseen,” which chronicled the journey of a student overcoming challenges as he traveled from Ballou to the Ivy League. But Reeves said that she and her staff are working to change the image of Ballou by raising expectations. Many students have parents who did not go to college. Ballou attributes part of its success this year to Jamanda Porter, a college and career coordinator, who has been at the school for almost two years. She works with every senior, even those who think they want to join the military or start working right away, to apply to at least one college. “We are meeting our students where they are, but we are pushing them to higher expectations,” Porter said. For years, schools and nonprofit organizations across the District have devoted resources to getting students not only to graduate from

high school but also apply to college. The DC College Access Program, for example, raises millions of dollars for scholarships, and it funds a college counselor in schools and holds college-orientation seminars for families. Bibo said schools with college readiness programs sometimes don’t coordinate efforts between groups to help every student. Porter’s job is to coordinate the efforts of programs such as DCCAP with the school’s academic counselor and others focused on graduation and college readiness. Porter also meets with students individually to come up with a postgraduation plan. Porter and others at Ballou said some of the students who applied to college are struggling to graduate on time, but the staff is committed to helping them finish and come up with a plan for once the students get their diploma. Assistant Principal Shamele Straughter said that even if they do not end up enrolling in college, applying sends a message to the students about their education options. “Now they have choice. That is the beauty of this entire thing — you get to pick,” Straughter said. “I am excited about seeing what the acceptance rate is going to be.” As of last week, Sams, who plans to major in computer engineering, had an 86 percent acceptance rate. He said he never doubted that he would go to college. Sams is the youngest of four children in his family. While his mother is excited about all of his college offers, Sams said she also is waiting to see what will happen. “I always wanted to be a standout from the rest and not be a statistic,” Sams said. “I also wanted to prove to my family that this is what we could do.”  www.msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/ entire-senior-class-at-dc%E2%80%99sballou-high-school-applies-to-college/ar-BB yUhbl?li=AAk6ORB&ocid=spartandhp

95  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Community/Public Interest - Obituary

huck Berry, who with his indelible guitar licks, brash self-confidence and memorable songs about cars, girls and wild dance parties did as much as anyone to define rock ’n’ roll’s potential and attitude in its early years, died on Saturday at his home near Wentzville, Mo. He was 90. The St. Charles County Police Department confirmed his death on

45 miles west of St. Louis, and that lifesaving measures were unsuccessful. While Elvis Presley was rock’s first pop star and teenage heartthrob, Mr. Berry was its master theorist and conceptual genius, the songwriter who understood what the kids wanted before they knew themselves. With songs like “Johnny B. Goode” and “Roll

entertainment. His guitar lines wired the lean twang of country and the bite of the blues into phrases with both a streamlined trajectory and a long memory. And tucked into the lighthearted, telegraphic narratives that he sang with such clear enunciation was a sly defiance, upending convention to claim the pleasures of the moment. In “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “You Can’t Catch Me” and other songs, Mr. Berry invented rock as a music of teenage wishes fulfilled and good times (even with cops in pursuit). In “Promised Land,” “Too Much Monkey Business” and “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” he celebrated and satirized America’s

its Facebook page. The department said that it responded to a medical emergency at the home, about

Over Beethoven,” he gave his listeners more than they knew they were getting from jukebox

opportunities and class tensions. His rock ’n’ roll was a music of joyful lusts, laughed-off tensions and

Chuck Berry, Rock ’n’ Roll Pioneer, Dies at 90 By Jon Pareles

96  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

gleefully shattered icons. Mr. Berry was already well past his teens when he wrote mid1950s manifestoes like “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Rock and Roll Music” and “School Day.” Born Charles Edward Anderson Berry on Oct. 18, 1926, in St. Louis, he grew up in a segregated, middleclass neighborhood there, soaking up gospel, blues, and rhythm and blues, along with some country music. He spent three years in reform school after a spree of car thefts and armed robbery. He received a degree in hairdressing and cosmetology and worked for a time as a beautician; he married Themetta Suggs in 1948 and started a family. She survives him, as do four children: Ingrid Berry, Melody Eskridge, Aloha Isa Leigh Berry and Charles Berry Jr. By the early 1950s, he was playing guitar and singing blues, pop standards and an occasional country tune with local combos. Shortly after joining Sir John’s Trio, led by the pianist Johnnie Johnson, he reshaped the group’s music and took it over. From the Texas guitarist T-Bone Walker, Mr. Berry picked up a technique of bending two strings at once that he would rough up and turn into a rock ’n’ roll talisman, the Chuck Berry lick, which would in turn be emulated by the Rolling Stones and countless others. He also recognized the popularity of country music and added some hillbilly twang to his guitar lines. Mr. Berry’s hybrid music, along with his charisma and showmanship, drew white as well as black listeners to the Cosmopolitan Club in St. Louis. In 1955, Mr. Berry ventured to Chicago and asked one of his idols, the bluesman Muddy Waters, about making records. Waters directed him to the label he recorded for,

Chess Records, where one of the owners, Leonard Chess, heard potential in Mr. Berry’s song “Ida Red.” A variant of an old country song by the same name, “Ida Red” had a 2/4 backbeat with a hillbilly oompah, while Mr. Berry’s lyrics sketched a car chase, the narrator “motorvatin’” after an elusive girl. Mr. Chess renamed the song “Maybellene,” and in a long session on May 21, 1955, Mr. Chess and the bassist Willie Dixon got the band to punch up the rhythm. The music was bright and clear, a

hard-swinging amalgam of country and blues. More than 60 years later, it still sounds reckless and audacious. Mr. Berry articulated every word, with precise diction and no noticeable accent, leading some listeners and concert promoters, used to a different kind of rhythmand-blues singer, to initially think that he was white. Teenagers didn’t care; they heard a rocker who was ready to take on the world. The song was sent to the disc jockey Alan Freed. Mr. Freed and

97  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

see page 98

Chuck Berry

from page 97

another man, Russ Fratto, were added to the credits as songwriters and got a share of the publishing royalties. Played regularly on Mr. Freed’s show and others, “Maybellene” reached No. 5 on the Billboard pop chart and was a No. 1 R&B hit. In Mr. Berry’s groundbreaking early songs, his guitar twangs his famous two-stringed lick. It also punches like a horn section and sasses back at his own voice. The drummer eagerly socks the backbeat, and the pianist — usually either Mr. Johnson or Lafayette Leake — hurls fistfuls of tinkling anarchy all around him. From 1955 to 1958, Mr. Berry knocked out classic after classic. Although he was in his late 20s and early 30s, he came up with high school chronicles and plugs for the newfangled music called rock ’n’ roll. No matter how calculated songs like “School Day” or “Rock and Roll Music” may have been, they reached the Top 10, caught the early rock ’n’ roll spirit and detailed its mythology. “Johnny B. Goode,” a Top 10 hit in 1958, told the archetypal story of a rocker who could “play the guitar just like ringin’ a bell.” Mr. Berry toured with rock revues and performed in three movies with Mr. Freed: “Rock, Rock, Rock,” “Mr. Rock and Roll” and “Go, Johnny, Go.” On film and in concert, he dazzled audiences with his duck walk, a guitar-thrusting strut that involved kicking one leg forward and hopping on the other. Through the 1950s, Mr. Berry had pop hits with his songs about rock ’n’ roll and R&B hits with less teenage-oriented material. He spun surreal tall tales that Bob Dylan and John Lennon would learn from, like “Thirty Days” and

“Jo Jo Gunne.” In “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” from 1956, he offered a barely veiled racial pride. His pithiness and humor rarely failed him. In 1957, Mr. Berry bought 30 acres in Wentzville, where he built a short-lived amusement park, Berry Park, and a restaurant, the Southern Air. In 1958, he opened Club Bandstand in the theater district of St. Louis. In the early 1960s, Mr. Berry’s songs inspired both California rock and the British Invasion. The Beach Boys reworked his “Sweet Little Sixteen” into “Surfin’ U.S.A.” (Mr. Berry sued them and won a songwriting credit.) The Rolling Stones released a string of Berry songs, including their first single, “Come On,” and the Beatles remade “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock and Roll Music.” But by the time his music started reaching a new audience, Mr. Berry was in jail. He had been arrested in 1959 and charged with transporting a teenage girl — who briefly worked as a hatcheck girl at Club Bandstand — across state lines for immoral purposes. He was tried twice and found guilty both times; the first verdict was overturned because of racist remarks by the judge. When he emerged from 20 months in prison in 1964, his wife had left him (they later reconciled) and his songwriting spark had diminished. He had not totally lost his touch, though, as demonstrated by the handful of hits he had in 1964 and 1965, notably “Nadine,” “No Particular Place to Go,” “You Never Can Tell” and “Promised Land.” He appeared in the celebrated all-star 1964 concert film “The TAMI Show,” along with James Brown, the Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye, the Beach Boys and the Supremes. While he toured steadily through

the 1960s, headlining or sharing bills with bands that grew up on his songs, his recording career stalled after he moved from Chess to Mercury Records in 1966. He remade some of his old hits and tried to reach the new hippie audience, recording “Live at the Fillmore Auditorium” with the Steve Miller Band, billed as the Steve Miller Blues Band at the time. When he returned to Chess in 1970, he recorded new songs, like “Tulane” and “Have Mercy Judge,” that flashed his old wit but

failed to reach the Top 40. In 1972, Mr. Berry had the biggest hit of his career with “My Ding-a-Ling,” a double-entendre novelty song that was included on the album “The London Chuck Berry Sessions” (even though he recorded the song not in London but at a concert in Coventry, England). The New Orleans songwriter Dave Bartholomew wrote and recorded it in 1952; Mr. Berry recorded a similar song, “My Tambourine,” in 1968, and is credited on recordings as the sole songwriter of the 1972 “My Ding-a-Ling.” It was a million-seller and Mr.

98  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Berry’s first and only No. 1 pop single. It was also his last hit. His 1973 follow-up album, “Bio,” was poorly received; “Rockit,” released by Atlantic in 1979, did not sell. But he stayed active: He appeared as himself in a 1979 movie about 1950s rock, “American Hot Wax,” and he continued to tour constantly. In July 1979, he performed for President Jimmy Carter at the White House. Three days later, he was sentenced to 120 days in federal prison and four years’ probation for income tax evasion. He had further legal troubles in 1990 when the police raided his home and found 62 grams of marijuana and videotapes He had further legal troubles

in 1990 when the police raided his home and found 62 grams of marijuana and videotapes from a camera in the women’s room of his restaurant. In a plea bargain, he agreed to a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession, with a suspended jail sentence and two years’ probation. By the 1980s, Mr. Berry was recognized as a rock pioneer. He never won a Grammy Award in his prime, but the Recording Academy gave him a lifetime achievement award in 1984. He was in the first group of musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. Around his 60th birthday that year, he allowed the director Taylor

Hackford to film him at his home in Wentzville for the documentary “Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll,” which also included performances by Mr. Berry with a band led by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and special guests. “Chuck Berry: The Autobiography” was published in 1988. Mr. Berry continued performing well into his 80s. He usually played with local pickup bands, as he had done for most of his career, but sometimes he played with fellow rock stars. When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Cleveland in 1995, Mr. Berry performed at an inaugural concert, backed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. In 2012, he headlined a Cleveland concert in his honor with a genre-spanning bill that included Darryl McDaniels of Run-D.M.C. and Merle Haggard. Although he told reporters before the show, “My singing days have passed,” he performed “Johnny B. Goode” and “Reelin' and Rockin’” and joined the other musicians for the closing number, “Rock and Roll Music.” From 1996 to 2014, Mr. Berry performed once a month at Blueberry Hill, a restaurant in St. Louis where he appeared regularly until Oct. 24. He made a surprising announcement on his 90th birthday, Oct. 18, 2016: He was planning to release his first studio album in almost 40 years. The album, called simply “Chuck” and scheduled for release in June, was to consist primarily of new compositions. And Mr. Berry’s music has remained on tour extraterrestrially. “Johnny B. Goode” is on golden records within the Voyager I and II spacecraft, launched in 1977 and awaiting discovery. www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/arts/chuckberry-dead.html

99  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Community/Public Interest - Obituary

Chuck Berry’s Memoir Grabs You Like a Song By Dwight Garner

huck Berry, who died on Saturday, March 18, 2017 at 90, was rock’s first great songwriter. Here’s what’s less known: He also wrote its first great memoir. “Chuck Berry: The Autobiography” was published in 1987. Its first sentence is a declaration of independence and intent: “This book is entirely written, phrase by phrase, by yours truly, Chuck Berry.” Not for him the bland evasions in those music memoirs ghostwritten, with added strings and synthesized filler, by hack journalists. He wrote much of the book in prison, where he was serving time for tax evasion. The early parts read as if he had scratched them in pencil, ecstatically, onto his cell wall.

One of the things that made Mr. Berry’s songs jump out of the radio was his mischievous feel for words and his knack for alighting on details so fresh that they squeak. “They finished off an apartment with a two-room Roebuck sale,” he sang about the newlyweds in “You Never Can Tell.” “The Coolerator was crammed with TV dinners and ginger ale.” This same instinctive feel for language flows into the autobiography. You’re not far into it before he describes a friend who is “as ugly as death eating a dirty doughnut.” A few pages before that, a girl is so pretty that the author “would have daily taken out her garbage just to be near her can.” His sentences pop, as if he had a

Coolerator crammed with them. He writes about the world like a man noticing everything for the first time. Mr. Berry’s lyrics did not often confront race directly. He wanted his songs to have mass appeal, and that meant getting white listeners as well as black ones to put p dimes in the jukebox. But B in his autobiography, race is nearly always front r and center, and there a are powerful and awful a scenes. s When he was a young man, word got around m that Mr. Berry had slept t with a white woman. w Cops hauled him in, he C writes, and a sergeant w “positioned himself beside “ me m with a baseball bat cocked on his shoulder c as a though my head was to t be the baseball. I was told that if I lied just once, t the t sergeant would try for

a home run.” He gets out of this scrape by playing the fool, aware how close he’d come to death — a death no one would have investigated. Mr. Berry’s book details the indignities of touring in the South as a black musician during the 1950s and ’60s. There are the restaurants that would not seat him, the hotels

100  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

where he could not book a room. He is ruefully funny about the lengths to which strip club bouncers would go, in New Orleans, to keep a black man out while maintaining a veneer of politeness. He also writes about how, in St. Louis, where he was born, a mixedrace couple spotted by police would be hauled in for mandatory venereal disease shots. Chuck Berry being Chuck Berry, he comes up with his own portmanteau for the South’s racial attitudes during this era. That word is “hospitaboo,” a combination of “hospitality” and “taboo.” It means, he writes, “how do you do but don’tyou-dare.” Mr. Berry had an outsize libido, and it got him into trouble. He had more than his share of what he calls “mal-publicity.” He was arrested in 1959 for transporting a teenager across state lines for

immoral purposes. (He says he did not know she was underage.) He had fetishes. In 1990, after this book was published, he was found to have videotapes of women using the toilet in his restaurant. I’m not here to defend this behavior. I’m here to say that in “Chuck Berry: The Autobiography,” he writes about sex with a wideawake candor that’s unusual and refreshing. An erotic banquet spread itself before him, and he partook. He then went back for seconds. He doesn’t pretend otherwise. But he doesn’t stint on the complicated and complicating details. Mr. Berry’s recall is amazing. Reading about his best-remembered kisses, cuddles, crushes and hotel room exploits is like reading the gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin on his favorite meals. Women adored Mr. Berry as much as he them.

“I was slow with shyness when it was in the vein of trying to suck face,” Mr. Berry writes about his teenage years, in a line that feels as if it could have been plucked from one of his songs. He got less shy. He married when young, and he bears down, in his book, on the meanings of intimacy. You sense that he is working out his grateful feelings in front of your eyes. “Night after night we were discovering different new desires and ways of satisfying each other,” he writes. “Fantasies that I had long dreamed of were realized, along with pleasures unfamiliar to her but enjoyed harmoniously. Fetishes, latent in my anticipation, were whispered softly in the warmth of close embraces and fulfilled in the fevered moments of devotion for each other.” Sex for Mr. Berry was the only thing that rivaled being onstage. “The greatest highs I’ve ever had in my life have come from a mob of as many as 62,000 voices,” he writes, “and also from the moan of one.” The first third of Mr. Berry’s memoir is better than its second third. The final third crumbles, as did his career, into recriminations over bad business deals and legal woes. But this powerful and original book has sticking power. It doesn’t contain a false note. “I don’t advocate sorrow,” Mr. Berry writes. “I pursue happiness in all avenues of life, and so I shall avoid funerals, even my own.” Mr. Berry’s book, reread now, is a kind of jazz funeral, a woozy second-line parade through the streets. It’s an earful.  www.nytimes.com/2017/03/20/books/ chuck-berrys-memoir-grabs-you-likea-song.html?_r=0 VIDEO: www.msn.com/en-us/music/ video/music-world-remembers-chuckberry/vi-BByqVFT?ocid=spartandhp

101  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

International

Four Famines mean 20 million may Starve in the Next Six Months By Tom Miles A woman carries a baby as she talks with other women talk at a food distribution in Minkaman © REUTERS/

go around.” Humanitarian aid is at record high levels but demand is growing even faster, creating a huge gap. "In northeast Nigeria we’re feeding more than 1 million people and just a few months ago we didn’t even have an office there," Husain said. There is a glimmer of hope that Somalia's drought will not be as severe as feared, but in the capital Mogadishu food prices have already risen by a quarter since January and forecasts for the rainy season from March to May are not

Andreea Campeanu

ore than 20 million people greater than the population of Romania or Florida risk dying from starvation within six months in four separate famines, U.N. World Food Programme chief economist Arif Husain says. Wars in Yemen, northeastern Nigeria and South Sudan have devastated households and driven up prices, while a drought in east Africa has ruined the agricultural economy. "In my not quite 15 years with the World Food Programme, this is the first time that we are literally talking about famine in four different parts of the world at the same time," he told Reuters in an interview. "It’s almost overwhelming to comprehend that in the 21st century people are still experiencing

famines of such magnitude. We’re talking about 20 million people, and all this within the next six months, or now. Yemen is now, Nigeria is now, South Sudan is now," he said. "Somalia, when I look at the indicators in terms of extremely high food prices, falling livestock prices and agricultural wages, it’s going to come pretty fast." The global humanitarian system is already struggling with a historic surge in migration, huge operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and serious situations in Ukraine, Burundi, Libya and Zimbabwe. "Then you have places like DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), CAR (Central African Republic), Burundi, Mali, Niger, where people are chronically food insecure but ... there’s just not enough resources to

optimistic.

TOO LATE In 2011, Somalia suffered a famine that killed 260,000 people. The famine was declared in July, but most people had already died by May. "When we declare famine, it means many lives have already been lost," Husain said. "If we wait to find that out for sure, people are already dead." Moreover, the 2011 famine followed a good agricultural season. This year's drought follows two bad seasons that have already sapped people's resources. In Yemen and South Sudan, economic collapse means people simply cannot afford the food that is available. Prices in South Sudan have risen two to four times in a

104  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

International

Mauritius: MIE - Mo Klas to Build Up a Mauritian Network of Digital Learning Resources By In Fashion Africa

he Mauritius Institute of Education's (MIE) Massively Empowered Classroom or the Virtual Campus, known as Mo Klas, aiming to build up a Mauritian network of digital learning resource creators by tapping on the collective intelligence of the country, was launched on 8 February 2017. Mo Klas, developed by Microsoft Research in collaboration with the Learning Factory of the MIE, allows users - Educators studying at the MIE for a start - to upload and download resources that they have produced. The MIE will upload most of its intellectual capital (e-books, digital learning resources, presentations, videos and so on) on Mo Klas. They will be freely available to Educators who register on the website (registration is for checking authenticity of applicants). In her address at the launching, the Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientiﬁc Research, Mrs Leela Devi DookunLuchoomun, while lauding the initiative stated that it is in line with the vision of the education sector's reform. The platform, she said, will empower teachers by providing them with suitable resources and tools, and through that, enable learners enhance their potential by using the appropriate technology. Speaking about the reform, the Minister pointed out

that the process takes into consideration the fact that learners of today will face uncertainties in the future in the field of work. Market demands in the coming years will be different, and therefore, learners are being prepared for jobs that might not exist today, she said. Most importantly, is that children are being prepared for a society that will be substantially different from what exists today, Mrs Dookun-Luchoomun added. For his part, the Director of the MIE, Dr O. Nath Varma, stressed that the MEC is a project designed to bring online educational content and techniques in blended learning to the whole of Mauritius and even beyond. According to him, the MIE has been looking for a solution that would meet the expectations of the Government and the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research in the wake of the major reforms in the field of education. This project will help to ensure that access is no longer a barrier to education. While it is breaking the final frontier for access to knowledge, it also meets the objective to bring massive change in the way we approach education of our children in the 21st Century, he added. 

year, and traders from Uganda and Kenya consider the local currency valueless. Yemenis, whose family wealth may be stored in gold or silver or weapons, are being forced to sell off those assets. "I was in Yemen just a couple of weeks ago. There is food in the markets. But people have not been paid, especially the urban population, which is about a third of the total population," Husain said. "Once they’ve lost their economic assets, it’s almost impossible for them to recover, and that just perpetuates long-term poverty.” Yemen is officially still classed as an "emergency", but

famine could be declared within about three months, Husain said. In Nigeria's Borno state, where millions of people have fled Boko Haram militants, there is simply no commerce, no markets and no movement, leaving people dependent on emergency aid. "They survive outside in camps, 50 degree Centigrade temperatures, living in huts with metal sheets on top, with one water point, with communal kitchens, with one meal per day," Husain said "And there’s no end in sight.”. 

www.infashionafrica.com/nadir-tati-pearl-angola/

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/four-famines-mean-20-millionmay-starve-in-the-next-six-months/ar-AAn0fIH?ocid=spartandhp

105  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

International - Press Release

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Congratulates President Adama Barrow and the Beloved People of The Gambia

nce again, I congratulate His Excellency Adama Barrow on his victory and inauguration as the democratically elected president of The Republic of The Gambia. It was with great relief that with the help of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) there was a peaceful transfer of power for the first time in the history of the country. President Barrow inherits a bankrupt economy. I appeal to the United States government, the United Kingdom, the World Bank, IMF, and other western allies to follow the lead of the European Union in providing desperately needed financial assistance to the Gambian government. President Barrow’s government cannot focus on the vital and urgent need to fight poverty and the high unemployment rate, and at the same time get out from the crushing burden of its debt. To give the new government a fresh start to focus on developing the key and vital sectors of the economy such as employment, health and education, to name a few, I ask that Gambian’s debt be forgiven. It is the moral thing to do. I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate the beloved people of The Gambia on the occasion of the 52nd anniversary of their Independence. As you celebrate this great milestone, it is fitting to reflect on a few verses of the Gambian national anthem: “…We strive and work and pray, that all may live in unity, Freedom and peace each day. Let justice guide our actions towards the common good.” These words reflect the true values, culture, and spirit of The Gambia. Keep Hope Alive! Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. Founder & President .

Media Contacts: James Gomez, Jr. jgomez@rainbowpush.org www.rainbowpush.org 106  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

are being developed to world class standards." "We are pleased to support Biotherm with the execution of the feasibility studies for the two solar photovoltaic projects," said Mr. Dean White, Tetra Tech Senior Vice President. "Tetra Tech is excited to apply its expertise to the development of the projects, which will contribute to the economic growth of the country." This project presents a U.S. export potential of $27M in PV cells, modules, inverters, racks and engineering services. This project advances the goals of Power Africa, a U.S. Government-led initiative to increase electricity access across sub-Saharan Africa. 

USTDA Promotes Solar Energy Development in Burkina Faso

he U.S. Trade and Development Agency awarded a grant to Société de Production d'Energie Solaire de Kodéni SAS recently for a feasibility study for two 17 megawatt solar photovoltaic plants near the villages of Pá and Kodéni in Burkina Faso. The solar plants are being developed by BioTherm Energy, a South African renewable energy company. Burkina Faso has one of the least developed energy sectors in SubSaharan Africa. Less than 20% of people have access to electricity, and there is a heavy reliance on expensive imported fuels. However, Burkina Faso has abundant solar resources, and these two plants will be amongst the ﬁrst to demonstrate that potential, bringing lower cost energy to the people of Burkina Faso and driving economic growth.

"We are pleased to partner with Société de Production d'Energie Solaire de Kodéni SAS and BioTherm on this important project that will increase energy access for homes and businesses across Burkina Faso," said Lida Fitts, Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa. "There is great potential for solar energy in the country, and we look forward to supporting this sustainable solution." Société de Production d'Energie Solaire de Kodéni SAS selected Tetra Tech (Pasadena, CA), a consulting and engineering ﬁrm, to conduct the feasibility study. "BioTherm is very grateful for this assistance from USTDA to help develop our photovoltaic plants in Burkina Faso," said Jasandra Nyker, CEO of BioTherm Energy. "Leveraging Tetra Tech's skill sets will ensure that these power plants

About USTDA: The U.S. Trade and Development Agency helps companies create U.S. jobs through the export of U.S. goods and services for priority development projects in emerging economies. USTDA links U.S. businesses to export opportunities by funding project preparation and partnership building activities that develop sustainable infrastructure and foster economic growth in partner countries. www.ustda.gov/news/pressreleases/2017/ustda-promotessolar-energy-development-burkinafaso

107  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

African Stock Exchanges • Bolsa de Valores of Cape Verde - www.bvc.cv (in Portuguese) • Bond Exchange of South Africa - www.bondexchange. co.za • Botswana Stock Exchange www.bse.co.bw • Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres - UEMOA (Abidjan, Ivory Coast) - www.brvm.org • Casablanca Stock Exchange (Morocco) - www.casablancabourse.com/bourseweb/index. aspx • Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (Tanzania) - www. dse.co.tz • Douala Stock Exchange (Cameroon) - www.douala-stockexchange.com/index_us.php • The Egyptian Exchange - www.

• • • • •

• • •

egx.com.eg/English/homepage. aspx Ethiopia Commodity Exchange - www.ecx.com.et Ghana Stock Exchange - www. gse.com.gh Johannesburg Stock Exchange (South Africa) - www. jse.co.za/Home.aspx Khartoum Stock Exchange (Sudan, in Arabic) - www.kse. com.sd Libyan Stock Market - www. lsm.ly/_layouts/membership/ login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fEnglis h%2fPages%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

• Mozambique Stock Exchange (in Portuguese) - www. bolsadevalores.co.mz • Namibian Stock Exchange www.nsx.com.na • Nigerian Stock Exchange www.nse.com.ng/Pages/default. aspx • 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/ecommunique/exchange-magazine/ category/50-free-version.html

108  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

International

Download the

Zambia-USA Chamber of Commerce App from the

Apple App Store or

Google Play Store Search: "Zambia USA Chamber"

Find links to the chamber website and facebook page, and embassies; access business resources; receive breaking news; view relevant video presentations; communicate via Twitter, smartphone and e-mail.

www.zambiausachamber.org 109  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

International

Pope Begs Forgiveness for Church Role in Rwanda Genocide By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press

Pope Francis, welcomes Rwanda's President Paul Kagame during a private audience at the Vatican, March 20, 2017. (Tony Gentile/Pool photo via AP © The Associated Press)

ope Francis recently begged forgiveness for the "sins and failings of the church and its members" during Rwanda's 1994 genocide, and told Rwanda's president that he hoped his apology would help the country heal. In an extraordinary statement after Francis' meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, the Vatican acknowledged that the

church itself bore blame, as well as some Catholic priests and nuns who "succumbed to hatred and violence, betraying their own evangelical mission" by participating in the genocide. During the 100-day genocide, more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists. Many of the victims died at the hands of priests,

clergymen and nuns, according to some accounts by survivors, and the Rwandan government says many died in the churches where they had sought refuge. During the 25-minute meeting in the Apostolic Palace, Francis "implored anew God's forgiveness for the sins and failings of the church and its members," the Vatican said. He "expressed the desire that this

110  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

humble recognition of the failings of that period, which unfortunately disfigured the face of the church, may contribute to a 'purification of memory' and may promote, in hope and renewed trust, a future of peace." The Rwandan government has long pressured the church to apologize for its complicity in the genocide, but both the Vatican and the local church have been reluctant to do so. The church has long said those church officials who committed crimes acted individually. In 1996, St. John Paul II refused to take blame on the church's part for what transpired in Rwanda, saying in a letter to Rwandan bishops that: "The church in itself cannot be held responsible for the misdeeds of its members who have acted against evangelical law." Four years later, however, he did make a general apology for a host

of Catholic sins and crimes over its 2,000-year history. Amid continued pressure from the government, Rwanda's Catholic bishops last year apologized for "all the wrongs the church committed." The ministry of local government rejected the apology then as inadequate. During Rwanda's annual dialogue in December, Kagame said he didn't understand why the church was so reluctant to apologize for genocide when popes have apologized for much lesser crimes. "I don't understand why the pope would apologize for sexual oﬀenses, whether it is in the U.S., Ireland or Australia, but cannot apologize for the role of the church in the genocide that happened here," Kagame said at the time. On Monday, the Rwandan government called Francis' meeting with Kagame a "positive step

forward." "Today's meeting was characterized by a spirit of openness and mutual respect," said Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo. "It allows us to build a stronger base for restoring harmony between Rwandans and the Catholic Church." However, Mushikiwabo repeated charges that even before 1994, Catholic institutions helped divide Rwandans and "laid the intellectual foundation for genocide ideology." "Today, genocide denial and trivialization continue to ﬂourish in certain groups within the church and genocide suspects have been shielded from justice within Catholic institutions," the statement said.  www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ pope-begs-forgiveness-for-churchrole-in-rwanda-genocide/arBByr6ns?ocid=spartandhp

111  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

konya

gi.co.t

International

One Africa:

Tell the US Government that North Africa is Africa Too!

oin with and support the United Africa Organization’s campaign to petition the U.S. Department of State to include the whole African continent under its Bureau of African Aﬀairs.

Why? The State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, led by Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson, currently excludes Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara from its agenda. Instead, the aforementioned countries are grouped with the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, together with Iran, Iraq, Israel and others. This artificial distinction between North Africa and the rest of Africa

negatively impacts US foreign policy relations throughout the entire continent of Africa. We unequivocally reject the argument that North African countries are outside the scope of African affairs. North Africa is geographically and historically part of the African continent, and all fifty-three (53) independent African states, including North African countries, are represented in the African Union (AU). It would be far more productive for the State Department to engage with the entire continent of Africa, including North Africa, under its Bureau of African Affairs. We are one Africa, from the Cape to Cairo, indivisible and bound together! Therefore, no square inch of African

land should be excluded from African aﬀairs.

Sign The Petition!!! Go to www.change.org/petitions/ one-africa-tell-us-state-departmentthat-north-africa-is-part-of-africa and sign the online petition to support this important proposition. Next tell everyone you know to sign. 

www.uniteafricans.org

Let Us Help You Grow Your Business to New Heights. To take your business to the next level, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s essential that you choose the right financial partner. At East West Bank, we offer all the products and services you expect from a big bank with the high level of personal attention you expect from a local bank. Our bankers have over 40 years of experience helping minority businesses reach their financial goals. We look forward to working closely with you to customize a financial solution tailored to your unique situation. For more information about East West Bank and our solutions for businesses, please call: 1.626.768.6729 www.eastwestbank.com

Equal Housing Lender

Member FDIC

Shopping Gallery

Find Maisha, Mala, Malina & Mhina at:

//malaville-toys.myshopify.com www.instagram.com/malavilledolls www.facebook.com/MalavilleMB

Zumo Learning System with Tablet The Zumo Learning System provides an accessible learning environment for children of all abilities. Zumo helps children fall in love with STEM. • Includes a 7″ Tablet, Math Games and a Wireless Smart Toy, named Zumo • Unique technology maps physical movements to touch screen gestures • A suite of apps are included that are specially designed to enable tactile-based learning • Designed for K-3rd graders for learning in the home or classroom • Apps are customizable to the special needs of each child • Zumo oﬀers many diﬀerent play experiences through apps already available on iTunes www.zyrobotics.com info@zyrobotics.com 116  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

@EleVenbyVenus elevenbyvenus.com

Artwear Handpainted Handbags, Skirts, Tees, Accessories, Calendars, Wall Hangings & More! http://gbabysworld.blogspot.com Gbabyartwear@hotmail.com or Gbabyart345@gmail.com Find Gbaby Products at the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Collectiveâ&#x20AC;? http://www.atthecollective.com 280 Elizabeth Street, Atlanta, GA www.carolsdaughter.com

.com

We’re excited to introduce you to our brand-new collection of dazzled lingerie for women of all skin-tones, which is available to purchase now! Initially presented for London Fashion Week, the brands collaborated when founders Ade Hassan and Destiney Bleu (of D.Bleu.Dazzled) realized that both of their brands were being used on the TV show Empire and on Beyoncé’s formation tour due to the variety of skin-tones both brands offered! It was a this point they decided to collaborate, and the Nubian Skin x D.Bleu.Dazzled collection was born. The collection is comprised of a Strapless Convertible Bra, Short and Thong and each piece is custom made and carefully crystallized by hand. All pieces are available in Nubian Skin’s signature four skin-tones Berry, Cinnamon, Caramel and Café au Lait in sizes 30B – 40DD & S – XL. The perfect addition to any outfit when you want to shine! We hope you enjoy our new collection, because ‘Shine Never Goes Out of Style.’ www.nubianskin.com/global 119  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

The Economic Turn Around in the USA is in Our Hands •Buy Products Made or Assembled in the USA •Hire One New Employee •Eat an Extra Meal Out Each Week •Start/Grow a Business to Generate Wealth & Jobs

Buy Black  Save Black  Invest Black

Collection Bed, Bath & Beyond

http://bsmith.com/shop

http://marvin-sin.squarespace.com

This magniﬁcent handcrafted concert grand is a "Best of" in terms of sound, new technology, beauty, and construction. Massively well-built to withstand the rigors of intense concert performances without compromise, the SHADD Concert Grand is a coveted treasure for pianists and collectors. With a rich voluminous sound that performs true to all genres of music, this phenomenal instrument has a rare diversiﬁed ability to play from the softest whisper with pure clear sound to a major roar with a bass section exuding an abundance of power and resounding singing sensations.

www.shaddpianos.com

Baron's Painting & Decorating Service Baron Williams 30 Years of Experience in the Greater Los Angeles Area Specializing in Exterior and Interior Painting, Tiling, Linoleum F looring, &

Cultural Interiors West &

Cordially Invited Cultural Interiors West 5573 West Pico Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90019

Wall Paper

"I will paint any one story building or house for $2,500 satisfaction guaranteed."

1-323-490-3774

Experience our exciting array of products from Cards to Cupcakes, African Masks, Asian Teacups, Healthy Herbal Teas, Gourd Purses, Candles, to Furniture Hope to see you soon!!! In the meantime visit us on Facebook www.facebook.com/pages/CulturalInteriors-West/140688362658236

124  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

New Location Leimert Park Village 3347 W. 43rd Street Los Angeles, CA 90008 1-323-299-6383 www.zambezibazaar.com shop@ zambezibazaar.com

125  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

1-484-459-6625 zimbabwegallery@yahoo.com www.shonasculpture.com @ZimbabweGallery www.facebook.com/Zimbabwe Gallery P P 3500 Peachtree Road, Atlanta, GA 30326 G M 2841 Greenbriar Pkwy SW, Atlanta, GA 30331

Downtown Culver City: 9537 Culver Blvd. 310-202-5453 Open Sunday-Thursday 11am-10pm Friday-Saturday 11am-11pm www.honeyskettle.com

Buy Black! Bank Black! Educate Black! Invest Black!

Shop for all of the NoMu products at: https://shop.nomu.co.za and www.amazon.com

Bernahu Asfaw & Getahun Asfaw

1041 S. Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90019 323-938-8827 or 323-938-8806 • Fax: 323-932-6047 messob@gmail.com • www.messob.com

Open 7 days a week • 11am - 11pm

Krispy Kruchy Chicken is in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Los Angeles. Krispy Krunchy Chicken is a cajun-style chicken (bone-in and tenders), served fresh, never frozen and fried in zero trans fat oil. Their menu also includes signature dishes of Traditional Wings; Krispy Wings; Cajun Sweet & Sour Wings; Cajun Tenders; Red Beans and Rice; Jambalaya; Boudin Bites (Cajun rice balls); Krispy Shrimp and Honey Butter Biscuits. For additional information, please call Krispy Kruchy at 1-323-293-3332 or visit www. krispykrunchy.com. 130  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

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.

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!

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

www.wosa.us

http://aaavintners.org

http://shallwewine.com

!" # $" $% & '

!3 5/- /6/ / - & 77 8

()$% #! "

( * + , - .- / / 01)$2 !00$ "0

- 34

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

138  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

The Plan Workbook Lays out a simpliﬁed step by step guide for parents to use, beginning from before their children are born, to plan the steps they will take to prepare African American boys throughout their developmental years all the way to manhood.

140  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net ness ne ssne news ws.n .net et  11-32 1-323-291-7819 3233-29 2911-78 7819 19

Eso Won Books African American Books 4327 Degnan Boulevard Leimert Park, Los Angeles

Give G the Gift of Books and Music Come see our unsurpassed collection of books, music, videos, children’s books, and games!

1-323-294-0324

www.esowonbookstore.com  //esowon.booksense.com for Calendar of Events

1411  M 14 March h 22017 0177  Bl 01 Black kB Business i News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Books to Consider

Books to Consider...

Chuck Berry: The Autobiography by Chuck Berry

Do All Lives Matter: The Issues We Can No Longer Ignore & the Solutions We All Long For by John M. Perkins, Wayne Gordon

omething is wrong in our society. Deeply wrong. The belief that all lives matter is at the heart of our founding documents--but we must admit that this conviction has never truly reflected reality in America. Movements such as Black Lives Matter have arisen in response to recent displays of violence and mistreatment, and some of us defensively answer back, "All lives matter." But do they? Really? This book is an exploration of that question. It delves into history and events, into Christian teac teaching and personal current events stories, in order to start a conversation about the way forward. Its raw but hopeful words will help move us from apathy to empathy and from empathy to action. We cannot do everything. But we can each do something.  https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_2_34?url=searchalias%3Dstripbooks&ﬁeld-keywords=the+president%27s+kitc hen+cabinet+adrian+miller&spreﬁx=%22The+President%27s+ Kitchen+Cabinet.%22%2Caps%2C615&crid=LST https://www. amazon.com/Do-All-Lives-Matter-Solutions/dp/0801075335/ ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1489277298&sr=11&keywords=do+all+lives+matter 7PBA7BNAQ

Seepages: 96

his is the astonishingly candid autobiography of Chuck Berry, the man who created rock'n'roll. It includes a discography and filmography, and details of all of his recording sessions.  https://www.amazon.com/Chuck-Berry-Autobiography/ dp/0571207545

Madame President: The

143  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

see page 144

Books to Consider

Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

by Helene Cooper

he harrowing, but triumphant story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, leader of the Liberian women’s movement, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first democratically elected female president in African history. When Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won the 2005 Liberian presidential election, she demolished a barrier few thought possible, obliterating centuries of patriarchal rule to become the first female elected head of state in A f r i c a ’ s h i s t o r y. M a d a m e President is the inspiring, o f t e n heartbreaking story of Sirleaf’s moth of four boys evolution from an ordinary Liberian mother to international banking executive, from a victim of domestic violence to a political icon, from a post-war president to a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Helene Cooper deftly weaves Sirleaf’s personal story into the larger narrative of the coming of age of Liberian women. The highs and lows of Sirleaf’s life are filled Helene with indelible Cooper images; from

imprisonment in a jail cell for standing up to Liberia’s military government to addressing the United States Congress, from reeling under the onslaught of the Ebola pandemic to signing a deal with Hillary Clinton when she was still Secretary of State that enshrined American support for Liberia’s future. Sirleaf’s personality shines throughout this riveting biography. Ultimately, Madame President is the story of Liberia’s greatest daughter, and the universal lessons we can all learn from this “Oracle” of African women.  www.amazon.com/Madame-President-ExtraordinaryJourney-Johnson/dp/145169735X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qi d=1490760958&sr=8-1&keywords=madam+president

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson The essential universe, from our most celebrated and beloved astrophysicist.

hat is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson. But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day. While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.  https://www.amazon.com/Astrophysics-People-Hurry-deGrasse-Tyson/dp/0393609391

144  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

BBA Master P lanner March 201 7 BBA Salute to Black Women Business Conference

The conference highlights the achievements of African American women entrepreneurs, offers workshops and a retail pavilion. For particiation information call 1-312-291-9334 or send an inquiry to mail@bbala.org 

June 201 7

BBA Salute to Black Music Taking place at the LA Hotel Downtown, the awards dinner will highlight the achievements of African American entrepreneurs and the government agencies and corporate entities that provide positive supports for African American businesses. For particiation information visit www.bbala.org. 

145  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Resource Vault Media/Information Africa Interactive Multimedia Press/Content Agency in Africa -- www.africa-interactive.com Africa is a Country -- www.africasacountry.com Africa World Press Books -- www.africaworldpressbooks.com African Trade Magazine -- www.africantrademagazine. com African Vibes Magazine -- www.africanvibes.com The Africapitalist -- www.tonyelumelufoundation.org/ africapitalisminstitute/africapitalist-magazine The African World -- www.theafricanworld.tv Africast TV -- www.africast.tv Afritorial -- www.afritorial.com www.facebook.com/Afritorial AllAfrica (news) -- http://allafrica.com Black Wall Street Times -- http://bwstimes.com Black Business News Group -- www.blackbusinessnews.net Black Children's Books and Authors -- http://blackchildrensbooksandauthors.tumblr.com BlackPast.org -- www.blackpost.org Black Press USA -- www.blackpressusa.com Black Then -- https://blackthen.com BridesNoir -- www.bridesnoir.com The Chocolate Voice -- www.thechocolatevoice.com CuisineNoir -- www.cuisinenoirmag.com DiasporaVoice -- www.blogtalkradio.com/diasporavoice Publish Africa -- http://wow.gm/publishafrica Rock Me Africa -- //rockmeafrica.com YouTube Educational Channels -- http://teacherswithapps.com/197-educational-youtube-channels-know United Nations -- http://webtv.un.org World Library -- www.worldlibrary.org

CauseCast -- www.causecast.com www.causecastfornonproﬁts.com Pan African Film Festival -- www.paﬀ.org 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 Disrupt Africa -- http://disrupt-africa.com/ The Exchange Magazine -- www.nse.co.ke Silicon Harlem -- http://event.siliconharlem.net Ventures -- www.ventures-africa.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

Culture/Arts Cultural Events/Content -- www.okayafrica.com Hungry Black Man -- https://thehungryblackman.com

Commerce/Entrepreneurship African Success Stories -- www.risingafrica.org #IAMWANDA -- www.facebook.com/IamWANDAorg She Leads Africa -- http://sheleadsafrica.org

Communication/Blogs Veronica Webb -- www.webbontheﬂy.com

Organizations African Leadership Forum -- http://afrialeadership.org African Union -- www.au.int/en Black Business Association -- www.bbala.org

146  March 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819