May 2017 by Black Business News Group

Publisher's Message

ontrary to one of many misconceptions about the African American culture, we absolutely do have a strong desire for economic independence. Having endured the adverse impact from the enslavement of our African forbearers in the United States, the desire to be released from economic slavery is even more keen today. African Americans have historically been entrepreneurs and have understood the need to create our own opportunities, throughout generations of disenfranchisement and being denied goods and services by mainstream America. There remain, however, three major impediments that perpetuate African American dependence upon mainstream America, which, for many, is viewed as Pubisher/Chief Executive Officer an extension of slavery. The Golden Rule: “He who controls the gold, rules.” First, there exists a financial wealth gap, with African Americans having fewer assets and less capital to invest into development of their own businesses. Second is the credit gap, whereby Black business owners routinely face serious difficulty accessing credit, venture capital, and experience high rejection rates. Lastly, there is the trust gap which is the institutional discrimination Black entrepreneurs face, preventing them from forging partnerships, securing mentors and loans, and more. The lack of entrepreneurial growth and development in the African American communities impacts our ability to create employment opportunities and secure economic empowerment, directly impacting Black families and communities of color for generations. For example, Black-owned businesses act as social buffers in many instances, with business owners often serving as role models to young people and creating social networks that shield and dissuade youth from lives of crime. Blackowned businesses help mitigate some of the factors that contribute to youth violence in these communities by adding jobs, providing goods and services, and generally improving neighborhoods. When large groups of people have few opportunities to earn livelihoods, families, communities and the economy suffer. It is a widely held sentiment that Corporate America has benefited and padded their bottom lines at the expense of Black consumers. So, the question is: should they be penalized for the unjust and unfair lending practices that impede Black entrepreneurs? For example, you may want to consider that African Americans are most often charged higher interest rates, pay the most in late fees, and pay higher rates for substandard service and goods in their communities versus communities associated with the big corporations and the mainstream. There are many lessons we can learn from observing other ethnicities and cultures. For instance, Asians and Hispanics are well known to pool their collective resources to achieve housing, family, community, and business goals. In addition, many of their businesses are family-owned and managed. Remember, that one of the biggest differences is prior family business ownership which is less frequent among Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs than for Asian and White entrepreneurs. This is a critical time for African Americans and African-American business owners

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

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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 33 3  MaY 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

About

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: •

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.

•

exploring major public and private sector contracting methods to educate black-owned and operated enterprises.

•

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

•

advocating and promoting on behalf of black-owned businesses by promoting the need for expanding an economic foundation that supports an unfettered and self-sustained urban society with USA job creation and economic opportunity, where blacks work, live and operate viable business enterprises.

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2017 Black Business Association Upcoming Events

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Salute to Black Music Black Business News Group Publications Black Business News Black Business News International Black Business News Travel Africa

Contents

Black Business News… 3

Publisher's Message

Government 8

10 14 15 18

Democrats Conﬁdent they can Block Trump’s Agenda after Spending-Bill Win Trump Walks Back Threat to Defund Black Colleges Black Members of Congress Demand Probe of Nooses at AU High Court Ruling May Give Voter Rights Groups a Strong Tool Trump's Threat to the 2020 Census

38 43 44 46 47 48 51 56 60 70 76

Xavier University Researchers Develop New Treatment to Combat Cancer Google Fights ‘Fake News’ as Americans Prove Unwilling to Fact-Check The Fine Print In The 'State of Black America' Report AI Ushers in a New Era of Business and Tech The Important Role of Entrepreneur Development Organizations and Their Activities Your Advertising Stinks. Chatbots can Help Entrepreneurial Winning Women BET is Leaving Washington. Will it Lose its ‘Secret Sauce’? Future Business Model As Johnson Publishing Declines, Chicago Loses a Link to its Past Getting Targeted on Instagram

Community/Public Interest 84 85 86 88 20 20 21

EB-5 Program Extended until September 30, 2017 FEMA Seeks Comments on NIMS Resource Management Supplemental Guidance and Tools USCIS Reminds Beneﬁciaries of Temporary Protected Status for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone of May 21 Termination

Entertainment 24 28

BBN Show Biz Buzz BET Announces New Series for the Coming Year

Editorials/Perspectives 13 40

Fire in the Sky Death by Tax Cuts

Obituary/Memorials 93 94

32 35 37

Ransomware: How to Protect Yourself Black Woman Entrepreneur Launches Low Cost Organic Grocery Store Add Music/Sound to Enliven Your Marketing China and Europe's 'Moon Village' Could Boost Lunar Mining, Space Tourism ESPN’s Content Evolution Strategy

Christopher ‘Big Black’ Boykin, ‘Rob & Big’ Star, Dies at 45 NFL Star has Died

International 100 102

104

Business 30 31

Michelle Obama Mural Beyoncé Announces Formation Scholars Program Black Harvard Students Holding a Graduation of Their Own Children’s Book Inspires Girls to Pursue STEM Lawsuit: Law Oﬃcers Unfair to Blacks in Mississippi County

African Stock Exchanges USTDA Connects U.S. Energy Industry to Opportunities in Nigeria and Kenya Investors Urged to Support Forest and Landscape Restoration

Columns 80 108 138 142 143

Take A Look! Shopping Gallery Books to Consider... BBA Master Planner Resource Vault

5  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Government

Congressman James Clyburn

by Kelsey Snell,

Congresswoman Karen Bass

emocrats believe they have set the stage to block President Trump’s legislative priorities for years to come by winning major concessions in a spending bill to keep the government open. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) secured nearly $5 billion in new domestic spending by exploiting disagreements between President Trump and GOP lawmakers over spending priorities. Democrats’ lopsided victory on the five-month deal, which is likely to be approved this week, means it will be very difficult — if not impossible — for the GOP to exert its will in future budget negotiations, including when it comes to Trump’s 2018 budget blueprint. That’s because Republicans are hopelessly divided over how much to spend on government programs, with a small but vocal minority unwilling to support such measures at all. That has forced Republicans to work with Democrats to avoid politically damaging government shutdowns. And that means Democrats are in

Democrats Con dent they can Block Trump’s Agenda aer Spending-Bill Win John Wagner

the driver’s seat when it comes to budget battles, even with Trump in the White House. “I think we had a strategy and it worked,” Schumer said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate were closer to one another than Republicans were to Donald Trump.” The extra money for domestic programs will now be that much harder to strip out of future budgets, and Trump’s priorities, such as money for a wall along the border with Mexico, could be more difficult to include. “We can’t pass anything without them,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), a top deputy to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said of Democrats recently. Hill Republicans remain skeptical of, if not openly hostile to, many of Trump’s plans — including the wall and proposals to slash millions from programs such as the National Institutes of Health and foreign aid. In addition to the $5 billion in domestic spending, the bipartisan agreement released early Monday morning is packed with Democratic priorities, such as protection for

funding for Planned Parenthood, a permanent extension of health care for coal miners and money to help Puerto Rico make up a projected shortfall in Medicaid. Pelosi celebrated in a letter to House Democrats on Monday, saying that the measure “reflects significant progress defeating dangerous Republican riders and securing key victories for Democratic priorities.” “In a defeat for President Trump, the [deal] does not fund the immoral and unwise border wall or create a cruel new deportation force,” Pelosi wrote. Democrats are counting on GOP infighting over spending to guarantee that those parts of Trump’s agenda won’t be funded in the next spending deal, either. Republicans could try to craft a new agreement to govern spending after Sept. 30, complete with domestic cuts and funding for Trump’s wall. But such a measure would probably fail in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slim 52 to 48 majority, short of the 60 votes needed to pass most legislation. Or, as they have often done in the past, lawmakers could abandon

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broad ambitions and decide to simply extend current spending levels, locking in Democrats’ policy victories for another year. Republicans in Congress were unusually quiet about the deal. But White House aides sought to put a positive spin on areas where Trump fell short, including the wall. “I think it’s great that the Democrats like the bill,” White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters during a Monday briefing. “We thought it was a really good deal for this administration as well.” He said the White House agreed not to “push for bricks and mortar for the wall” but to instead focus on fixing existing fencing and installing new lights and sensors on the border. Mulvaney was one of several top Trump aides who insisted that plans for wall construction would soon begin anew. “Make no mistake, the wall is going to be built,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at his daily briefing, adding that there is plenty the administration can do to plan for construction between now and when Trump gets his next opportunity to secure funding. But wall construction was one of several areas where GOP lawmakers’ decision to punt this week could doom the president’s priorities for the future. Language in the deal explicitly prohibits money for border security from being used for building the wall, for instance. Trump has said he plans to revive the push this fall. Both Spicer and Vice President Pence said they considered the $21 billion in additional military spending — $15 billion from an off-budget war fund and $6 billion in budget increases — to be their biggest victory, even though it was about two-thirds of what Trump had sought. Additionally, there were no reductions in funding to “sanctuary

cities”; a federal judge said last week that the Justice Department needed congressional approval to follow through on its threats to cut money for such places, which don’t comply with federal immigration authorities. Nor was there money to fulfill Trump’s promise of a hiring spree to build a deportation force at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Trump also agreed to continue paying Affordable Care Act subsidies after his aides threatened last week to use that issue as a bargaining chip. The subsidies, which go to insurance companies, reduce out-of-pocket expenses for low-income people who get coverage under President Obama’s signature domestic initiative. Pence celebrated the deal Monday, saying Trump himself played a key role in reaching it. “I think this morning’s announcement about reaching a bipartisan deal on the budget says that the American people can be encouraged that Washington is working again, thanks to the strong leadership of President Donald Trump,” Pence said on “CBS This Morning.” “Thanks to his direct engagement with members of Congress, we’re seeing real progress.” But Trump’s involvement was seen by many congressional aides as unhelpful to reaching a deal in the bipartisan talks. Negotiators were nearing an agreement on the spending portions and were ready to move on to unrelated policy measures when Mulvaney publicly renewed demands that the bill include money for a wall along the southern border. Mulvaney’s demand was out of sync with GOP leaders, who long ago said they wouldn’t seek any funding for a wall or cuts to sanctuary city funding. It also came weeks after Schumer

personally told Mulvaney that the best way to avoid a government shutdown would be for the White House to stay out of budget negotiations and let Congress work its will, according to two people with direct knowledge of the conversation. Mulvaney nodded, they said, and proceeded to make the demand anyway. His office did not return a request for comment on the subject. Democrats also believe that the White House created a public relations crisis when Trump threatened to end payments for the subsidies, which help cover roughly 6 million people under Obamacare. The president later withdrew the threat, and the White House decided to continue the payments, in hopes of reducing the number of sticking points in the spending bill. But the president put a spotlight on the issue just as public polls were starting to show overwhelming support for the subsidies and the ACA in general. Democrats were thrilled to add the attack on the health-care law to the mix in the spending fight because they thought the public would blame Republicans if a deal couldn’t be reached to fund the government, according to several Democratic aides familiar with the strategy. Now, Democrats believe, the public will also blame the GOP if the subsidies disappear, a win-win for them. “We had the upper hand, and we maximized that leverage,” Schumer said, predicting that the fight would go on. “We figured out our bottom line first, and we made it clear that we had the upper hand because the shutdown would fall on their shoulders.”  www.msn.com/en-us/news/ politics/democrats-conﬁdent-theycan-block-trump%e2%80%99sagenda-after-spending-bill-win/arBBABGV3?ocid=spartanntp

9  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Government

Trump Walks Back reat to Defund Black Colleges by Yamiche Alcindor and Charlie Savage

hen President Trump signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill on Friday, he zeroed in on a tiny sliver of it, suggesting that he might disregard $20 million in funding for loan subsidies and other aid to historically black universities. Two nights later, after a storm of criticism, the White House walked back the threat in a statement that declared the president’s “unwavering support” for such schools. But the two days in between left some African-American educators feeling used, many black politicians enraged and some demanding that Mr. Trump back his “unwavering support” with a show of budgetary support. It also, once again, revealed a White House where one team does not necessarily know what another team is up to. “I worked to make sure there was clarity because I observed that there was feedback and some

were misconstruing the signing statement,” Omarosa Manigault, a close aide to Mr. Trump, said in an interview on Monday. Ms. Manigault headed Mr. Trump’s outreach to black voters during his presidential campaign and had publicly promised that his budget would protect historically black colleges and universities. The Friday signing statement hit hard because in February, he had invited dozens of presidents from historically black universities to visit him in the Oval Oﬃce while he signed an executive order that moved an initiative to support such schools from the Education Department into the White House. That was followed by Ms. Manigault’s open boast that while cuts in the president’s budget would be deep, black higher education was safe. “I think it was a photo op,” said Marybeth Gasman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who

has studied historically black universities since 1994. She called Mr. Trump’s statement on Friday “offensive” and said she is worried that he is signaling to the schools that he has the power to make life difficult for them. Mr. Trump’s suggestion that he might disregard the aid provision was made in a signing statement, an official document laying out his interpretation of the new statutes created by a bill. In it, he suggested that directing government spending to universities associated with a particular race was an unconstitutional infringement of people’s due process rights. That language invoked the view,

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held by some conservatives, that aﬃrmative action-style programs amount to discrimination against whites. But it was not clear whether the White House was saying the executive branch would refuse to hand the universities the money that Congress had appropriated for them, or was merely gesturing to that view. Regardless, it prompted an uproar. Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called the statement “shameful.” The United Negro College Fund said it had sought “clariﬁcation” from the White House, while stressing that the schools were open to all races. Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Representative Cedric L. Richmond, Democrat of Louisiana and the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, released a joint statement on Saturday calling on Mr. Trump to reconsider. “For a president who pledged to reach out to African-Americans and

other minorities, this statement is stunningly careless and divisive,” they said. On Monday, the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, dismissed the flap, saying Mr. Trump was “obviously aware” of what was in the signing statement, but called it a “normal, pro forma” action. In the statement the White House issued late Sunday, Mr. Trump said his signing statement “does not affect my unwavering support” for historically black colleges and universities, saying his commitment “remains unchanged.” Mr. Trump’s second statement also noted that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is scheduled to be a commencement speaker this week at a historically black school, Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. Separately, Ms. DeVos issued a statement on Sunday night applauding Mr. Trump for reaffirming the administration’s support for such colleges. Michael L. Lomax, the president and chief executive of the College Fund, said he would take Mr. Trump and Ms. DeVos at their word but

expected action. “The clearest indication that they accept what has been the policy and the practice since 1965 would be the immediate release of the funds and the implementation of the program,” he said. Once obscure and rare, signing statements began to be used more frequently in the Reagan administration. They attracted broader controversy when President George W. Bush used them to challenge more provisions than all previous presidents combined had done, including asserting a right to bypass a torture ban. Although President Barack Obama had criticized Mr. Bush’s use of the device as abusive while running for oﬃce, he also issued some signing statements. Mr. Trump’s signing statement on Friday, the ﬁrst of his presidency, indicated that the practice will continue. The statement also challenged numerous other provisions of the omnibus spending bill that imposed limits or requirements on Mr. Trump’s power as president. But it seemed destined to be remembered for the colleges provision. On Monday, Ivory A. Toldson, who recently served as the executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities under Mr. Obama, said supporters of the schools would need to carefully to see what comes next. “We absolutely need to remain vigilant,” he said. “So we have to look at the appointments. We have to pay attention to the statements. And we have to make sure we understand the programs that are out there that will help us.” www.msn.com/en-us/news/ politics/trump-walks-back-threatto-defund-black-colleges/arBBATXmA?ocid=spartandhp

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Editorial

Fire in the Sky by Jonathan Rodriguez

generation. And many of these satellites are vulnerable to attack, not only from missiles launched from the ground — but also from weaponized satellites above.

Enter the Satellite Killer

or as long as man has recorded history, war has been fought on land and sea, and, more recently, in the air. But as the world advanced technologically, so have our weapons — and our battlefields. In addition to traditional methods of defense, governments around the world have been preparing for war on a variety of new fronts. Aiming to thwart attacks on critical network infrastructure, specialized solider units have been trained to fight off hackers. Heck, even bankers are being militarized and simulating attacks on the financial markets, such as competitive currency devaluations. You may have heard this called the “currency wars.”

Overlooked Battlefront Yet one battlefront is often overlooked. I’m talking about the more than 1,300 active satellites orbiting around Earth. As you know, satellites are critical to modern civilization. They facilitate cellphone transmissions, GPS navigation, weather forecasting and even power

In 2007, China destroyed one of its defunct weather satellites with what’s known as a kinetic kill vehicle (KKV). KKVs are launched into space on top of a ballistic missile. A kinetic kill vehicle is a projectile designed to destroy an object using the force of impact, as opposed to an explosion. They were initially developed in the 1980s to destroy incoming intercontinental nuclear missiles in space. China was, naturally, secretive about the whole operation, and the exact details of the weapon are unknown. But the Secure World Foundation (https://swfound. org) reports that the missile China used to launch the estimated 600 kg (1,322 lbs.) KKV was likely a modiﬁed medium-range rocket with a range of up to 2,500 km (1,553 miles). One year later, the U.S. — not to be outdone — launched its own KKV-tipped missile into the sky to destroy a defunct military satellite. Much like the Chinese operation, we don’t know much about the American satellite-killer outside of its stated purpose and reported success.

Follow the Money Now, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (https://history. nasa.gov/1967treaty.html) made it illegal to park weapons of mass destruction — such as nuclear weapons — in space or on the moon. But anti-satellite measures are perfectly legal. And as nations around the world bulk up on these technologies, the U.S. is beeﬁng up space defense spending… In 2016, the federal budget included $2 billion earmarked for the Pentagon to spend on space control measures. And according to SpaceNews (http://spacenews.com), federal spending on space control could hit $8 billion by 2020. In fact, the Trump administration seeks a $54 billion hike in defense spending in this year’s budget. Bottom line: The threat of space warfare is real. www.wallstreetdaily.com

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

Government

Black Members of Congress Demand Probe of Nooses at AU by Ben Nuckols

American University student government president Taylor Dumpson, second from right, accompanied by Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., left, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, second from left, and others speaker. The Associated Press

he hanging of bananas from nooses with hateful messages at American University in Washington, apparently targeting the ﬁrst black woman to serve as the student body president, prompted members of Congress to call for federal civil rights investigations. At least five bananas with nooses were found hanging from trees and lampposts around campus on Monday, Taylor Dumpson's first full day as student president. The FBI said Thursday that it is assisting a hate-crime investigation opened by campus police. The bananas included messages targeting Dumpson's historically black Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, along with the words "Harambe bait," referring to the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo that was shot and killed after a child fell into its enclosure. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat, and other members of Congress who are Alpha Kappa Alpha alumni called

on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to denounce and investigate the incident. They said President Donald Trump should speak out as well. "What happened at American University is tragic. A young woman's historic achievement has been clouded by hatred and bigotry," said Rep. Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat. "This incident is just the latest in a string of atrocities sweeping our nation. It's not a coincidence since President Trump's election that we've experienced a wave of intolerance and divide." A report by the Department of Education's civil rights division found that complaints of racial harassment on college campuses had more than doubled between 2009 and 2016. Some have led to federal prosecutions. One of two former University of Mississippi students was sentenced to probation last

year for placing a noose on the statue of James Meredith, the school's first black student. The other was sentenced to six months in prison. Just this week, officials at the University of Maryland, about 9 miles from the AU campus, said a noose was found inside a fraternity house. That, too, is being investigated as a hate crime. And last September at AU, white students were accused of placing bananas outside the doors of two black women's dorm rooms. Dumpson has said she was disturbed by racist comments on a messaging app that were traced to the campus during her freshman year, and that she considered transferring. Flanked by members of Congress outside the Capitol, she made her first extensive comments about this week's case, saying she hopes it can be a "catalyst for change" that leads the university to a more unified response to acts of bias on campus. "At the end of the day, this isn't just AU. This isn't just about me. This is a broader issue that impacts everyone," she said. "As a community, as a nation, we are never going to get anywhere if we do not talk about the uncomfortable truths that lie ahead. We are not in a post-racial society, unfortunately." http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/ us/black-members-of-congressdemand-probe-of-nooses-at-au/arBBAKryN?ocid=spartandhp

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

Government

High Court Ruling May Give Voter Rights Groups a Strong Tool by Jonathan Drew and Mark Sherman, Associated Press

he Supreme Court's ruling that two North Carolina congressional districts relied too heavily on race should give voting-rights advocates a potent tool to ﬁght other electoral maps drawn to give Republicans an advantage in the state. The justices agreed with a federal court that had struck down two congressional districts as illegally race-based. Because those districts were already redrawn for the 2016 election, the ruling doesn't require immediate changes from North Carolina. But it looms large in other battles unfolding over voting districts there and elsewhere. Also pending before the high court is a separate challenge to North Carolina state House and Senate districts that have helped the GOP cement veto-proof majorities in both chambers. A lawyer challenging the General Assembly districts said legislative mapmakers used similar reasoning to defend the congressional and legislative maps, so this ruling bolsters her cause. "It's abundantly clear that what the state of North Carolina did in drawing its legislative districts cannot withstand constitutional muster," Anita Earls of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice said in a phone interview. In the case Earls is arguing, a federal court had previously thrown out 28 state House and Senate districts as illegal racial gerrymanders. But earlier this year the Supreme Court temporarily halted an order to redraw those legislative districts. The justices

could act on the challenge to the state districts as early as next week. In recent years, the Supreme Court has ruled for civil rights groups and black voters in challenges to political districts in Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia. A Democratic group led by former Attorney General Eric Holder is focusing on redistricting challenges to counter political gains Republicans have made since the 2010 census and the redrawing of electoral districts that followed. Marc Elias, who argued the case decided Monday and is a senior adviser to Holder's group, said the ruling "will serve as a warning to Republicans not just in North Carolina but throughout the country that their cynical eﬀorts to use race will not go unchallenged." States have to take race into account when drawing maps for legislative, congressional and a host of municipal political districts. At the same time, race can't be the predominant factor without very strong reasons, under a series of high court decisions. A legal scholar who studies elections law said the ruling should help voting-rights activists show that partisan motives can't shield legislative mapmakers from accusations of relying too much on race. "This will lead to many more successful racial gerrymandering cases in the American South and elsewhere," Rick Hasen of the University of California-Irvine wrote Monday on his blog. North Carolina's congressional map was redrawn for the 2016

elections after the two districts were struck down by a federal court. But even with the new districts, Republicans maintained their 10-3 edge in congressional seats. Challenges to those new districts are pending, based on arguments that politics played too much of a role in their creation. On Monday, the justices ruled that Republicans who controlled the state legislature and governor's office in 2011 placed too many African-Americans in the two congressional districts. The result was to weaken African-American voting strength elsewhere in North Carolina. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, said the state did not offer compelling reasons to justify its reliance on race in either district. The court unanimously affirmed the lower court ruling on District 1 in northeastern North Carolina. Kagan wrote that the court will not "approve a racial gerrymander whose necessity is supported by no evidence." The state insisted that race played no role at all in the creation of one district. Instead, the state argued that Republicans who controlled the redistricting process wanted to leave the district in Democratic hands, so that the surrounding districts would be safer for Republicans. "The evidence offered at trial ... adequately supports the conclusion that race, not politics, accounted for the district's reconfiguration," Kagan wrote. The court action comes at a time of intense political division in the state, highlighted by legal battles over the GOP-controlled legislature's efforts to pass laws limiting some powers of North Carolina's new Democratic governor, Roy Cooper.  www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/highcourt-ruling-may-give-voter-rightsgroups-a-strong-tool/ar-BBBrLrc?li=AA 4ZnC&ocid=spartandhp

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www.sba.gov/nsbw/sites/all/themes/nsbw/images/topleft-header.png

www.sba.gov/nsbw

National Small Business Week (April 30th - May 6th) is an annual event hosted by the U.S. Small Business Administration to recognize the nation’s top small businesses, entrepreneurs, small business advocates and champions. We're pleased to announce this year's webinars on a variety of business topics. Visit www.sba.gov/nsbw to register for the webinars of interest to you. Also visit the NSBW website for information on national and regional events and programs.

The U.S. Economic Outlook and Its Impact on Small Businesses Presented by Visa May 2, 2017 | 2:00-3:00 pm ET 5 Fabulous Habits of Local Business Champions Presented by YP May 3, 2017 | 2:00-3:00 pm ET Grow Your Business Online Presented by Google May 3, 2017 4:00-5:00 pm ET

The Future of Small Business Innovation Presented by Salesforce May 4, 2017 2:30-3:30 pm ET How to Write Your Email Content in 15 Minutes or Less Presented by Constant Contact May 4, 2017 | 3:30-4:30 pm ET Find the Hidden Money in America Presented by Chase May 4, 2017 | 5:00-6:00 pm ET 

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

THE WHITE HOUSE

Small Business Week, 2017 -------

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

uring Small Business Week, we celebrate our Nation's small business owners, whose entrepreneurship and hard work bring jobs and prosperity to our communities. Small business owners embody the American pioneering spirit and remind us that determination can turn aspiration into achievement. This week, we affirm our commitment to removing government barriers to the success of American small businesses. Small businesses are an economic force in this country, and have grown by nearly 40 percent since 1982 despite often facing regulatory headwinds. They employ almost 58 million Americans, accounting for about 50 percent of all private-sector jobs in the United States. Our communities depend on the success of small businesses. More than 99 percent of all employer firms in the country are small businesses and in recent years, too many of them have been crushed by overwhelming Federal regulations. At the beginning of my Administration, I met with small business owners who continue to struggle under too many burdensome regulations. I have already signed legislation disapproving many excessive and unreasonable regulations and issued several Executive Orders to address other overreaching rules. These actions will free our Nation's entrepreneurs to spend more time creating jobs and less time navigating the Federal bureaucracy. My Administration is also working to ensure our Nation's trade deals establish favorable conditions for small businesses to export their goods and services. With a level playing field on the international stage, America's small businesses will lead an export revival that brings jobs and wealth back to our country. Our Nation also deserves a tax system that works for -- not against -- small business owners. One of the biggest problems facing our small businesses is an unduly complicated, and often unfair, tax system. Tax reform will unleash a new wave of investment, innovation, and entrepreneurship in our country. Americans will keep more money in their pockets, leaving them with the resources they need to expand their businesses and hire more workers. America's small business owners transform ideas into reality. They are a strong testament to the opportunities a market economy affords. During this week, we recognize the incredible contributions small businesses make to our country and pledge to foster the conditions that enable them to prosper and thrive. 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 April 30 through May 6, 2017, as Small Business Week. I call upon all Americans to recognize the critical contributions of America's entrepreneurs and small business owners as they grow our Nation's economy. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentyeighth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-first.

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

Government

Trump's Threat to the 2020 Census THE AGENDA By Danny Vinik

t’s three years away and still a year from its scheduled dress rehearsal, but nervous observers are already asking: What happens to the 2020 U.S. census under President Donald Trump? The first day of this month marked three years until Census Day: April 1, 2020. Though it may sound like one of the driest bureaucratic responsibilities of the federal government, the census has crucial implications for national politics— and requires years of planning, hundreds of thousands of new employees and even a marketing campaign to ensure the broadest possible snapshot of the American population. Already, Congress’ inability to agree on a full-year funding measure for fiscal 2017 has forced the Census Bureau to cancel multiple field tests and delay opening three field offices. It also had to cut back on new, less laborintensive methods for verifying household addresses, a critical undertaking that was supposed to make the 2020 census more costeffective and accurate. And more broadly, the Trump administration’s hard-line rhetoric and executive orders cracking down on undocumented immigrants may already be creating a major new risk for the census, making members of minority and immigrant communities less likely to respond. “If you imagine that the federal government is asking for personal information and you feel that the

federal government is hostile and that if you were to answer this, perhaps they would use this against you,” said Terry Ao Minnis, director of the census and voting programs at Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “That, of course, will make people less inclined to participate.” The U.S. census is the largest civic action undertaken by the entire country—a decennial event enshrined in the Constitution that aims to count every person living in the United States, regardless of race, gender or citizenship status. At least, that’s been its intent since James Madison helped design the first census in 1790. But census-watchers are increasingly warning that the 2020 census could be hobbled. The census requires a huge administrative ramp-up in the three years leading up to the national count, hiring hundreds of thousands of people and opening dozens of offices nationwide. The Census Bureau was one of few federal agencies outside the Pentagon to get an increase in Trump's 2018 budget—but that $100 million increase is misleading, because the House and Senate had already each proposed to increase the Census Bureau’s funding by about that amount for 2017. So at a time when the census needs to be ramping up sharply—it had requested a 21% increase for 2017, or $290 million— Trump’s 2018 budget represents no increase at all. Based on lack of funding and

technical challenges, in January, the Government Accountability Office added the 2020 census to its “high risk” list of programs and agencies. Without extra money to ramp up, "I am increasingly worried about a higher undercount in many communities,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, the former codirector of the Census Project, an organization that tracks the census. “We could be headed for a train wreck if the Census Bureau doesn't get the resources it needs." The census affects every corner of America, determining where hundreds of billions of federal dollars flow annually, where businesses open new stores and which states gain—or lose—seats in the House of Representatives in 2020 reapportionment. Businesses, trade groups and local communities have been tracking the progress for the 2020 census for years, since its preparations first began before the completion of the 2010 census. But counting everyone is expensive, and especially so for hard-to-reach people, such as poor families who move frequently or immigrants fearful of government authorities. The government spends billions of dollars tracking down these people, eventually sending human enumerators into the field to follow up with nonrespondents. Each step of the process is fraught with political landmines, from where advertising dollars are spent to what kind of questions to ask people. At the end of March,

18  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

for instance, the Census Bureau initially included sexual orientation questions in its list of planned topics for the 2020 census before quickly publishing a revised version that omitted any reference to such topics, drawing sharp rebukes from LGBTQ groups and Democrats on Capitol Hill. (The Census Bureau says the original inclusion was a simple mistake.) Immigrant-rights groups, too, have been watching with concern. The decennial census doesn’t traditionally ask about immigration status, but Republicans, led by former Sen. David Vitter, have long wanted to do so. In January, a leaked draft executive order proposed directing the Census Bureau to include a question on immigration status on the “longform” census, known as the American Community Survey, which is a longer, detailed survey for a subset of people living in the United States and is scheduled to be conducted in 2018. If the Census Bureau included an immigrationrelated question on the ACS but not on the census itself, it would raise questions about whether the White House intends to use the information collected on both the ACS and census to track down and deport undocumented immigrants. That could further discourage immigrants from participating in the census. White House spokesperson Michael Short did not respond to questions about whether the White House’s policies and rhetoric could discourage participation in the census, but said, “The administration has been very clear about its enforcement priorities, which are to focus on those here illegally who have criminal records as well as those who pose a threat to public safety or national security.” The Census Bureau and Commerce Department did not

respond to detailed questions about their plans for the 2020 census. One other twist in the 2020 census could raise trust issues: For the first time, Americans will be asked to respond online. This raises new cybersecurity concerns, as the Census Bureau will not only have to secure all the collected data, with tens of millions of online responses coming in in just a few days, but it will also have to convince Americans that the data they submit online won’t be hacked, the way other major federal personnel records systems have been. “We have never done an internet census. We presume it won’t be hacked, but if it gets hacked and it gets out right away, for heaven’s sakes, people aren’t going to send it in,” said Kenneth Prewitt, a former director of the Census Bureau. If that happens, he added, the Census Bureau won’t have trained enough human enumerators to go into the field and manually follow up with households. The Census Bureau has had costly tech snafus before. In 2010, the agency commissioned a specially designed handheld computer for its employees going house to house to conduct follow-up surveys for nonrespondents. Thanks to missed deadlines and technical problems, they abandoned the device late in the process—instead sending census-takers out with paper forms. That failure ended up costing an additional $3 billion. This time, Congress has told the Census Bureau it can’t exceed the $12 billion it spent in 2010. It has made some major changes intended to save costs, from online forms to more efficiently updating its address book. By all accounts, it’s a well-designed plan. Overall, the Census Bureau says these changes will save $5 billion—though both the GAO and the Department of Commerce inspector general

have questioned the census’ cost estimates. But experts said those savings will not happen unless Congress adequately funds the agency in the next few years so it can employ new techniques in updating its address book and test out its new technology. “They are missing out on some important preparation steps, and it’s going to cause problems,” said Howard Fienberg, a lobbyist at the Insights Association, a trade group that represents the research industry. The White House rejected that critique, and says the Census Bureau has the money it needs to build out its systems now. “The increase proposed in the budget blueprint provides adequate funding for the Census Bureau to support IT system investments to conduct a modernized decennial census in 2020,” said Coalter Baker, a spokesperson for the White House budget office. The census is one of the most impressive attempts any country makes to count its own people, a crucial building block for the world’s largest economy that informs important business decisions, such as where to open a new store or whether a state is a good place to invest. “Our census data provides a level of transparency for our economy that gives our country a competitive edge over other countries, and a failed census puts that at risk,” said a former congressional staffer who worked on census issues. “It all starts with statistics.” “That’s the gold standard,” said Ken Fears, an economist at the National Association of Realtors, which produces a monthly housing report that uses census data for its baseline. “If the gold standard becomes silver, you have a problem.”  http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/04/ trumps-threat-to-the-2020-census-000404

19  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Government

EB-5 Program Extended until September 30, 2017 By Williams Global Law, PLLC

n May 5, 2017, the U.S. president signed a bill (which was passed by both House of Representatives and the Senate) extending the EB-5 Regional Center Program (www.williamsgloballaw.com/eb-5-immigrantinvestor-program) through September 30, 2017, without any modifications. This means that foreign investors have only five (5) months left to invest through the EB-5 program on current terms, and Regional Centers have the same amount of time to raise EB-5 funds before imminent changes to the EB-5 Program occur. We assume that this will be the last extension of the program with no changes. Changes, which will likely to happen after September 30, 2017, will include increase of the investment amounts, a change of the definition of “Targeted Employment Areas” (TEAs) and increase of the compliance requirement, etc.! 

www.williamsgloballaw.com/so/9LlkrjeG?cid=ea69dbe2-a897-44e2-91f3-56d05196b000&region=a87b2f35-f520-420bbc38-39115f16ef27#/main

FEMA Seeks Comments on NIMS Resource Management Supplemental Guidance and Tools

he Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released ﬁve documents designed to strengthen the Resource Management component of the National Incident

Management System (NIMS) and is now beginning a 30-day National Engagement period. The National Engagement period will conclude at 5 pm EDT on June 9, 2017. The drafts released today include

the NIMS Guideline for the National Qualification System (NQS), NIMS Job Titles/Position Qualifications and accompanying Position Task Books (PTBs), the NIMS Guideline for Mutual Aid, and an updated NIMS Guideline for the Credentialing of Personnel. Together, these documents are designed to enhance interoperability and the effectiveness of mutual aid. FEMA is hosting a series of 60-minute engagement webinars

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

Government

USCIS Reminds Beneﬁciaries of Temporary Protected Status for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone of May 21 Termination

SCIS (www.uscis.gov) is reminding the public that the designations of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone terminate effective May 21, 2017. To provide sufficient time for an orderly transition, the Department of Homeland Security gave beneficiaries under these three designations 8 months advance notice of the expiration by publishing 3 notices in the Federal Register on Sept. 22, 2016 (one for each country). These notices urged individuals who did not have another immigration status to use the time before the terminations became effective in May to prepare for and arrange their departure from the United States or to apply for other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible. Although TPS benefits will no longer be in effect starting May 21, 2017, TPS beneficiaries will continue to hold any other immigration status that they have maintained or acquired while registered for TPS. Individuals with no other lawful immigration status on May 21, 2017, will no longer be protected from removal or eligible for employment authorization based on TPS. TPS-related Employment Authorization Documents issued under the Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone designations are only valid through May 20, 2017, and will not be renewed or extended. After reviewing country conditions and consulting with the appropriate U.S. government agencies, former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson determined that conditions in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone no longer support their designations for TPS. The widespread transmission of Ebola virus in the three countries that led to the designations has ended. Additional information about TPS is available at uscis.gov/tps. For more information about USCIS, visit www. uscis.gov or follow us on Twitter (@uscis), YouTube (/uscis), Facebook (/uscis), and Instagram (/uscis).  www.uscis.gov/news/alerts/uscis-reminds-beneficiaries-temporary-protected-status-guinea-liberia-and-sierra-leone-may21-termination

to describe the draft documents and answer participants’ questions about providing feedback. All open webinars are geared toward the whole community. National engagement provides interested parties with an opportunity to comment on the draft documents to ensure that the ﬁnal documents reﬂect the collective expertise and experience of the whole community. To review the drafts of the NIMS Resource Management

supplemental guidance and tools, and to obtain additional webinar information, visit www.fema.gov/ national-incident-managementsystem/national-engagement. To provide comments on the drafts, complete the feedback form and submit it to FEMA-NIMS@fema. dhs.gov.  www. blackemergmanagersassociation. org

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

BBN Show Biz Buzz

One and SoundCloud, with ads from Toyota, Audible, Hennessy, Tracfone, Amex and Quicken Mortgage.  by Gregg Kilday www.hollywoodreporter. com/news/bronzevillepodcast-teams-laurencefishburne-939887

By Linda Ware

'Bronzeville' Audio-Drama Podcast Streaming NOW!

aurence Fishburne and Larenz Tate have joined forces for a new 10-part podcast called

Bronzeville, which will begin streaming in January. Written by Josh Olsen, an original screenplay Oscar nominee for 2005’s A History of Violence, the series is set in the AfricanA m e r i c a n B r o n z e v i l l e Laurence Fishburne ne ig hbo rh ood of Chicago and follows the lives of players who ruled the numbers games, the illegal lottery that swept through the black community in the 1940s before it was taken over by the mafia. Fishburne’s Cinema Gypsy Productions and Tate’s TateMen Entertainment have partnered with Audio HQ, the digital audio Larenz Tate ad sales company, on the project that is billed as an audio-drama. Bronzeville will be available, free of charge, on iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn, Radio One/Interactive

'Dear White People' TV Series Based on Movie a Go at Netﬂix

reakout screenwriter-director Justin Simien is bringing Dear White People to the small screen. He will write the 10-episode comedy series as well as direct the premiere installment. Netflix has handed out a straight-to-series order for a comedy based on his 2014 crowdfunded movie, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The 10-episode, 30-minute project hails from Lionsgate Television and will, like the film, follow a diverse group of students of color as they navigate a predominantly white Ivy League college where racial tensions are often swept under the rug. The series is a send-up of "post-racial" America that also weaves a universal story about forging one's own unique path. "During the film's release, I had the pleasure to speak with hundreds of students and faculty across a variety of college campuses dealing with these very issues in real time," said Simien. "I'm so grateful to have this platform — not only to give a voice to those too often unheard in our culture, but to also tell great stories from new points of views. From Day 1, Lionsgate has been remarkably Justin sup por t iv e Simien Jordan of the vision Strauss/ for the show,

Invision/AP

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see page 25

and working with Netflix is every bit as harmonious as I'd imagined it would be. Bringing this show to such a vibrant platform is an honor I don't take lightly." Simien used his tax refund to underwrite a concept trailer for the film, which was produced by Lionsgate corporate sibling Roadside Attractions. By 2014, the crowdfunded movie became a favorite at film festivals and went on to earn the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at the Sundance Film Festival. It has grossed more than $4.4 million domestically.  http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/dear-whitepeople-tv-series-890882

RYSE TV Now Oﬀers Video On-Demand (VOD)

he RYSE team is in the business of Empowerment! Educating and Motivating, Informing and Empowering, Connecting and Uplifting, Advocating and Celebrating a new generation of Trendsetters, Innovators and Game Changers. The RYSE Website (www.ontheryse.com) is the door to all of the offerings: RYSE Magazine (a destination for sharing empowering stories; a road map to achieving your own dreams), RYSE Live (Connect online, build relationships in person), RYSE Live Events (Events

that engage and add value beyond our digital platform), RYSE Connected (share valuable resources and tips with other success-driven members), RYSE TV (video programming available on-demand).  www.ontheryse.com

"Everybody" on Stage

randen Jacobs-Jenkins is a playwright drawing from a range of contemporary and historical theatrical genres to engage frankly with complicated issues around identity, family, class, and race. Many of Jacobs-Jenkins’s plays use a historical lens to satirize and comment on modern culture, particularly the ways in which race and class are negotiated in both private and public settings. Although the provocation of his audience is purposeful, Jacobs-Jenkins’s creation of unsettling, shocking, often confrontational moments is not gratuitous; these elements are of a piece with the world he has established on stage and in the service of

the story he is telling. Branden's works include: Appropriate (2012), An Octoroon (2014), and Gloria (2015). "Everybody" is playing at the Signature Theatre. Jac ob sBranden Jacobs-Jenkins Jenkins is currently a Residency Five playwright at Signature Theatre and master-artist-in-residence in the Playwriting MFA program of Hunter College, City University of New York.  https://www.macfound.org/fellows/958

Steve McQueen To Direct Tupac Shakur Documentary

teve McQueen, 12 Years A Slave helmer, will direct a full length feature documentary on the life of iconic hip hop star Tupac Shakur. A deal has come together between Estate trustee Tom Whalley and Amaru Entertainment, the company created by Afeni Shakur to release her son’s posthumous projects. They are teaming with Nigel Sinclair’s White Horse Pictures and Jayson Jackson to produce a fully authorized documentary with Amaru on the life of late hip-hop artist, writer and poet. McQueen, who won the Oscar for the Best Picture winner 12 Years A Slave will direct Tupak Shakur and Jayson Jackson (What Happened, Miss Simone?) will produce with Sinclair, the man behind a slew of musical

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BBN Show Biz Buzz

from BBN Show Biz Buzz on page 25

documentaries including the most recent, The Beatles: Eight Days A Week–The Touring Years, along with Nicholas Ferrall and Whalley.

Steve McQueen Gloria Cox, Tupac Shakur’s aunt and Afeni Shakur’s only sister, will executive produce along with White Horse’s Jeanne Elfant Festa. White Horse Pictures will be the worldwide sales agent on the film. Beyond the support of Shakur’s estate, the film will also have the support of Interscope Records, which release most of Shakur’s catalog, and Universal Music Publishing Group. Which means access to songs that have not lost their resonance over time. 

cademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Cheryl Boone Isaacs will not run for the academy's board of governors in the next election. Boone Isaacs has served on the academy's ruling body, which hosts the Oscars ceremony, for 24 years and as the first black president — the third female — for the last four years. Boone Isaacs was not eligible to run for president following the completion of her fourth one-year term. But she was eligible for one more threeyear term on the governors board. However, Boone Isaacs put out a statement Friday saying she would also not seek her seat in the upcoming elections (nomination for board voting opens May 15). “It’s been my greatest honor serving on the academy’s board of governors in numerous capacities for more than two decades, and it will be a privilege to provide the opportunity for new voices to have a seat at the table," the statement said. Boone Isaacs' term as president has featured initiatives to promote diversity within the academy,

including expansion of the ruling body, which is the official host of the annual Academy Awards.  www.msn.com/en-us/movies/oscars/ cheryl-boone-isaacs-to-leave-academyboard/ar-BBB4pdV?ocid=spartandhp

Africa Today TV

frica Today TV (www. africatodaytv.com) is a new channel for an American audience interested in African & International affairs, as well as the African diaspora here in the USA. The goal of the channel is to focus on the uniqueness of Africa and it’s myriad of inspiring stories that

have become an unseen part of the continent’s narrative. We aim to change that perspective by placing a spotlight on the success and hope that is emerging from all corners of Africa.

www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/ steve-mcqueen-to-direct-tupac-shakurdocumentary/ar-BBAXlh7?li=AA2qN5v&oc id=spartandhp ED. BBN

Cheryl Boone Isaacs to Leave Academy Board Cheryl Boone Isaacs 26  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

. In addition to its own in-house production, Africa Today TV will offer original African TV programs – including current affairs, politics, business, society, entertainment and films – in the Washington D.C. area and the rest of the United States. Africa Today TV also provides leaders from African and the U.SA a platform for a daily dialogue.  www.africatodaytv.com

Miss D.C. is Miss USA 2017 Kára McCullough

Kára McCullough

ára McCullough took home the Miss USA crown at the end of the night, marking the second year in a row that

Miss District of Columbia won the miss-usa-kara-mccullough.html competition. 25-year-old Kara McCullough is the seventh foreign-born Miss USA. She was born in Naples, Italy and grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. uzan-Lori Parks’ play Miss McCullough works as a Venus officially opened May scientist for the U.S. Nuclear 15 at the Signature Theatre. Regulatory Commission. She earned her Bachelor of Science Directed by Obie Award winner degree in Chemistry, with a Lear deBessonet, the play depicts concentration in Radiochemistry the real-life journey of Saartjie from South Carolina State Baartman, the unfortunate star of 19th century London’s freak-show University in 2013. Miss McCullough was crowned circuit. Venus began performances April Miss District of Columbia 2017 at the capital’s pageant in December 15 in The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature 2016. Miss McCullough was Center, where it is playing through widely praised during June 4. Obie Award winner Zainab the Miss USA pageant Jah (Eclipsed) stars as Baartman. The play chronicles the for sporting her naturally devastating— curly hair, as opposed unexpected—and to the trend of smoother rise to fame of Baartman, who locks, something she traveled from South Africa to admitted she was initially London in search of a better life, but became known as “Hottentot nervous about. "I didn't know if people Venus” and paraded on the freakwere going to accept it... show circuit because of her large if anyone was going to be buttocks. The play details her receptive to it at all," she relationship with a French scientist, said in an interview with and oﬀers a unique perspective on Refinery29. After Sunday night’s program, the beauty queen said she wants to use her platform to inspire children in the fields of science, engineering, technology and mathematics. "I love science," she explained. "I look at this as a great opportunity to ... get to experience worldwide culture, as well as just having Suzan-Lori Parks, Zainab Jah the opportunity to be impacted by so many children, hopefully in the math and the way we live and love today.  sciences."  www.playbill.com/article/suzan-lori-parks-

www.foxnews.com/ entertainment/2017/05/15/who-is-

Venus' OﬀBroadway

venus-opening-night-oﬀ-broadway

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

BBN Show Biz Buzz

BET Announces New Series for the Coming Year By Cynthia Littleton

Steve Harvey Images © Provided by Variety

ET has ordered a slew of new series for the coming year, including scriped and unscripted comedies from Kevin Hart, Steve Harvey, Wanda Sykes and “The Nightly Show” alum Robin Thede. The Viacom cabler also confirmed it will pick up the second season of hip-hop drama “The Breaks,” which is moving from sibling channel VH1, and produce new episodes of VH1’s dance-set drama “Hit the Floor.” BET Networks chairman-CEO Debra Lee was scheduled to unveil the programming news at the cabler’s upfront presentation in New York. BET also confirmed that its struggling spinoff channel Centric will be rebranded BET Her.

Wanda Sykes

“BET’s global influence is stronger than ever and we are continuing to expand beyond the television screen to impact our audience – and the world – across multiple platforms,” Lee said. “Some networks offer reach and some engagement, but no other network offers reach, engagement, culture, lifestyle and influence.” BET’s new series include the scripted half-hour dramedy “Divorce Saved My Marriage,” produced by Kevin Hart; “50 Central,” a variety and sketch comedy series from 50 Cent; “Mancave,” a roundtable discussion show produced by Steve Harvey; and “Face Value,” a gameshow produced by Wanda Sykes. Thede, who was head writer and a featured player on Comedy

Kevin Hart

Robin Thede Central’s “Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore,” will host a weekly news wrap series “The Rundown with Robin Thede,” which is exec produced by Chris Rock. BET is also looking to capitalize on its success earlier this year

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

The Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Summit kicks oﬀ in Houston May 17–20, and I want to make sure you don’t miss out. Consider this my personal invitation to attend the most impactful business conference for black entrepreneurs and small business owners. We have recently reduced the registration rate to $495, but with my special code you save an additional $200. Use code ALFRED and pay $295 to attend. Past attendees of the Entrepreneurs Summit have gone on to launch proﬁtable businesses, win funding in pitch competitions, appear on hit TV shows such as Shark Tank, and join the ranks of high net worth earners. Hundreds of your colleagues and future potential business partners have already signed up! Register today to take your business to the next level. Hurry, before space runs out! Here are just a few reasons you won’t want to miss this opportunity: • A Shark Tank open casting call on Saturday, May 20th. • Meet with angel investors to perfect your pitch and get funding • Take three days to focus solely on building and expanding your business • Attack your business blind spots with one-on-one coaching sessions • BE 100s 45th Anniversary Celebration and Awards Gala • Countless opportunities to network, build, and learn from successful entrepreneurs and executives • Connect with your fellow ES attendees in the BE Events App and keep the conversation going post-event • All evening functions included Use the link below to register now. Use code ALFRED. The dates are quickly approaching—don’t miss out! www.cvent.com/events/2017-black-enterprise-entrepreneurs-summit-hosted-by-nationwide/custom-19eabb4769eb34488abcc70c47ad0af0dd.aspx?tw=D8-18-86-E1-C6-11-A1-D7-6C-E9-0B-86-A7-B5-92-46&_ga=1.211332 43.167959527.1465996972 with “The New Edition Story” by greenlighting biopics on Bobby Brown and famed Death Row Records founder Suge Knight. The rebranding of Centric as BET Her is an effort to strengthen the channel’s appeal to AfricanAmerican women. Centric launched in October 2009 as a rebrand of what was then BET on Jazz. “The Breaks,” set in the world of 1990s hip-hop in New York, bowed

in February with its primary run on VH1. BET has already carried reruns of the series and the telepic that was the back-door pilot. “Hit the Floor,” about the dance team aligned with a fictional basketball team, ran for three seasons on VH1 but hasn’t been on the air in a year. The network shuffle for “Breaks” and “Hit the Floor” comes as Viacom cablers are undergoing a broad strategic

shift to direct more resources to six core channels, of which BET is one. Among returning shows, BET said it has renewed “The Quad,” the collegiate drama starring Anika Noni Rose.  www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/ bet-sets-new-comedies-rebrandscentric-and-nabs-%e2%80%98thebreaks%e2%80%99-%e2%80%98hitthe-floor%e2%80%99-from-vh1/ ar-BBAsjUU?ocid=spartandhp

Business - Ransomware Alert

Ransomware: How to Protect Yourself An Information Blog from Carbonite.com Edited by the Black Business News

devastating ransomware attack recently raced around the globe, locking down data and infecting systems at hospitals, businesses and residences in more than 150 countries within 72 hours. The WannaCry ransomware virus first made headlines when it began disrupting operations at hospitals throughout Great Britain. A few days later, the ransomware had spread to more than 200,000 computer systems worldwide.

Protect yourself from WannaCry WannaCry's creators are using a massive email phishing campaign to snare victims. The emails contain malicious links and attachments that, when clicked, download the ransomware onto the victim's computer. At one point, the creators of WannaCry were sending five million phishing emails per hour, according to Forcepoint Security Labs. Victims who regularly back up their files can recover from a ransomware attack relatively quickly—without giving into the demands of cybercriminals. Here's a step-by-step guide on what to do if you're attacked: • Remove the computer from the network it’s running on so the infection doesn’t spread to other computers. If the computer isn’t running on a network, skip this step. • Shut down the computer by holding down on the power button. • Turn the computer back on and select Safe Mode with Networking.

• Reconnect to the internet then download and run a malware detection and removal tool such as Malwarebytes or Norton Power Eraser. • Once the virus is removed, delete all encrypted files and restore clean versions from the Carbonite backup service. If your computer is backed up with Carbonite, do not pay the ransom. Carbonite can help you restore clean versions of your files after they’ve been infected with ransomware. Our ransomware recovery team is available from 8:30am to 7pm EST Monday through Saturday.

WannaCry demands $300 in bitcoins Experts say anyone running Windows 7 or above should run Windows Update. Users running older or unsupported versions of Microsoft Windows—including Windows XP and Windows 2003— can download the patch from Microsoft's website.

Ransomware is designed to encrypt victims' computer files, essentially holding data hostage until a ransom is paid. WannaCry victims receive a ransom note demanding $300 in bitcoins, a cyber-currency that's notoriously difficult to trace. If the fee is not paid within three days, the ransom is doubled. If the ransom is not paid within one week, victims' files are permanently deleted. WannaCry is designed to exploit a Windows operating system flaw first discovered by the U.S. National Security Agency. Microsoft issued a patch for the vulnerabilities prior to Friday's attack, but unpatched systems are still vulnerable. On Friday, Microsoft also took the highly unusual step of issuing a fix for some "retired" versions of Windows that are still in use.

Protect Yourself The best way to avoid a ransomware infection is by educating yourself and your employees. You also need to keep

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

Business

Black Woman Entrepreneur Launches Low Cost Organic Grocery Store

lympia Auset, a native of Los Angeles and a graduate of Howard University, grew tired of having to travel 2 hours by bus every time she wanted to buy healthy vegan food. She lives in Inglewood, and it quickly became clear that if she wanted better health around her, she would have to do something. So, she created and launched her very own organic grocery store. Creating Something Different Of the many organic and vegan grocery stores, very, very few of them are affordable to low income families and individuals. So Olympia created SÜPRMARKT - a low-cost, organic grocery that pops up weekly to provide 100% organic produce in areas with limited access to food. Her mission is to make great health and healing within reach of communities that need it the most, and her grocery store's motto is aptly named "Save Big. Eat Great." She comments, "I think the

firewall and antivirus software up-to-date. But most importantly, be sure to take the initiative and protect your home and business computers with a backup service like Carbonite (or other service providers). Thanks to Carbonite, more than 10,000 ransomware victims have restored their files without paying the ransom.

Additional resources Want to learn more? Here are some additional resources that will help keep your home and business protected against WannaCry and other forms of ransomware: • Five ways to detect a malicious 'phishing' email (www.carbonite. com/en/cloud-backup/business/

greatest takeaway about this project is it shows there are things every person can do to tackle societal issues that face their community. It isn't always about waiting on corporations or governments to get things done." How She is Able to Do it SÜPRMARKT blends new produce with slightly impaired produce to address the food waste question in Los Angeles. Olympia partners with major organic suppliers in the area to distribute un-sellable food to communities that can make use of it. The subscription service offers low-cost weekly packages of produce, and EBT is accepted for all food sales. These factors make SÜPRMARKT a viable solution in tackling the questions of food insecurity and food waste, while also building a healthier world. Providing Hundreds of Cases of Good Food Since starting in June 2016, resources/carbonite-blog/five-waysto-detect-a-malicious-phishingemail)

• How does Carbonite protect my files from ransomware? (www. carbonite.com/en/cloud-backup/ business/resources/carbonite-blog/ five-ways-to-detect-a-maliciousphishing-email)

• Protect your company from ransomware: Six best practices for IT pros (www.carbonite.com/en/ cloud-backup/business/resources/ carbonite-blog/protect-yourcompany-from-ransomware-sixbest-practices-for-it-pros)

• Fight back against a ransomware attack in four easy steps (www.carbonite.com/en/ cloud-backup/business/resources/

Olympia's grocery store has sold hundreds of cases of organic fruit, veggies, and seeds affordably to low income communities. She has also received grants from The Pollination Project and Co-opportunity, and leveraged the support of food figures such as Robert Egger of LA Kitchen and organizations like The Underground Museum. For details about SÜPRMARKT, visit www.suprmarkt.la.  http://blog.blackbusiness.org/2017/05/ olympia-auset-black-womanentrepreneur-suprmarkt-low-costorganic-grocery-story.html?m=1#. WSQkYoWcFrT Edited by the Black Business News

carbonite-blog/fight-back-againsta-ransomware-attack-in-four-easysteps)

• White hat hacker shares ransomware protection tips for small businesses (www. carbonite.com/en/cloud-backup/ business/resources/carboniteblog/white-hat-hacker-sharesransomware-protection-tips-forsmall-businesses)

Protect your files from WannaCry and other dangerous virus attacks. Learn more about Carbonite (or other service providers) data protection solutions.  www.carbonite.com/en/cloud-backup/ business/resources/carbonite-blog/ wannacry-ransomware-wreaks-havocacross-globe-how-to-protect-yourself/

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

Business - Marketing

Add Music/Sound to Enliven Your Marketing By Kat Powers, CabinetM Top Shelf

usic makes explainer videos pop, adds excitement to slideshows, and gives your live and online sales presentations a “wow” factor. Sound eﬀects can add an element of humor, punctuate your bullet points, or emphasize a key part of your message. The music, clips and sounds that you embed in presentations, videos and other digital assets make the viewing experience more enjoyable for your audience -- more memorable, too. Even the most basic presentation and video creator tools include an “add music” feature. If you’re not a musician, or have a few on call, how do you source -- or even make -- original music, cool loops and sound eﬀects that will amplify your message, entertain and connect with your audience? Use these tools to get the sound you need to grab your audience.

Music Maker JAM (www.magix. com/us/apps/music-maker-jam) is an audio workstation app for Win-

dows users. No previous experience is required to create beats, record vocals, adjust tempo and add effects. BEST FEATURES: Library of professionally-pr odu ced loops you can arrange and combine to create your sounds. PRICING: Free up to three sounds. Stagelight (http://us.openlabs. com/stagelight) is a mobile music studio for Windows, Android and macOS devices. Packed with royalty-free loops, sounds, effects, Stagelight makes music creation easy for all skill levels. BEST FEATURES: An in-app store for fresh content. Get the latest EDM, Dubstep, Rock, and Hip Hop sound packs. PRICING: Free to get started. Premium downloads $9.99 to $49.99. PowerFX Sound Libraries is an online database with over 20,000 unique effects, loops and samples. Subscribers simply search and download to get started right away building original audio for commercial use. BEST FEATURES: Registered subscribers can modify the sounds for use in ads, soundtracks and more. PRICING: $2/sound, or choose from many bundled sound packs.

Mixcraft (www.acoustica.com/ mixcraft) is a feature-packed digital audio workstation that includes an enormous library of royalty-free loops, sound eﬀects, and samples for fast and easy professional production for all your needs. BEST FEATURES: Song Kits enable incredibly easy track creation with no musical training required. PRICING: $49 - $179 one-time purchase.

AudioBlocks (www.audioblocks. com) is a subscription-based, royalty-free audio library containing over 100,000 music tracks, sound eﬀects and loops. Search for just the right music based on mood, genre, instruments, tempo and duration. BEST FEATURES: Download and use any sound in any type of commercial project. Unlimited evergreen downloads for subscribers. PRICING: $79.99/month SoundCite (https://projects. knightlab.com/projects/soundcite) is a unique tool for writers and publishers whose audience is reading stories online. You can enhance any story with relevant inline audio clips, adding information, emotion or context.. BEST FEATURES: Easily integrate any kind of audio clip inline with any story. PRICING: Free PremiumBeat (www.premiumbeat.com) is a royalty-free website

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

that provides high-quality tracks and sound eﬀects for use in videos, ﬁlms, apps, games, and TV programming. Per-track licensing so

you only pay for what you need. BEST FEATURES: Thousands of exclusive songs, handpicked so your project will have fresh tracks that aren’t overused. PRICING: $49/track GarageBand (www.apple.com/ mac/garageband) is a user-friendly audio workstation app for Mac users. It’s easy to create your own pro-sounding tracks with the built-in sound library, presets for guitar and voice, and virtual session drums. BEST FEATURES: So intuitive that anyone can create tunes, audio logos and more for any recorded

asset. PRICING: $4.99 CabinetM (www.cabinetm.com) helps modern marketing teams build, manage and optimize their marketing technology stacks in a rapidly transforming digital marketing environment. With more than 6900 marketing technology tools across hundreds of categories, CabinetM has the world’s largest marketing technology directory and makes it easy to ﬁnd the tools marketers need to acquire, engage and retain customers.  www.cabinetm.com

Publisher's Message from page 3 to be much more supportive of each other. It is long overdue for us to support and build our people, communities and families, by building sustainable business enterprises. Stay prepared, and you’ll always be prepared! Mark Your Calendars! National Small Business Week recently kicked oﬀ on April 30th and runs through May 6th, where along with the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Black Business News Group celebrates the contributions of small business entrepreneurs. The SBA is now under the leadership of former World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) co-founder, Linda McMahon. Ms. McMahon recently stated in a video message that “National Small Business Week honors the innovators who take a risk on an idea, invest in their communities, and create jobs… Their skills and creativity not only support their own families, they make our neighborhoods vibrant places to live and work and fuel our nation’s economic strength.” As President and CEO of the Black Business Association,

in headquartered in Southern California, please mark your calendars for one of our biggest events of the year, in recognition of Black Music Month. Our Awards Dinner theme is “The Business Behind the Music”, as the BBA proudly its Lifetime Achievement Award to Clarence Avant, “The Godfather of Black Music” and also

Special Recognition to radio pioneer and entrepreneur, Lee Bailey. We appreciate your taking time to read our publication. Your support is important as we advocate for the growth of African American businesses worldwide. Thank you for your continued support of the Black Business News Group.

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

www.bbala.org

Business - Travel

Google Trips Just Got Even Better By Brad Rickman

016 was a big, bold year for Google in the travel space. The tech giant released two major new products—Destinations, which helps users decide where to go next; and Travel, a rollup of existing tools like Flights and Maps—as well as understated but powerful updates to its flight deal and hotel search functions. It took Translate offline last May. Then in September, with the launch of Google Trips (https://get.google. com/trips) for Android and iOS, the company dug even deeper into travelers' workflows, bringing semiautomated trip planning to their smartphones. Now, as proof of the future the company sees in the standalone app, Google Trips is getting some significant updates, with new features like the ability to share travel plans with friends and an easy way to make last-minute changes when said plans go awry. With three new updates just announced, Google Trips comes even closer to being your on-the-go control center while traveling. To start: You can now forward centralized trip info to anyone—say, a friend or parent picking you up at the airport, or a travel buddy you're meeting halfway through a trip—as an email or in the app, rather than digging through your inbox to find individual

reservations. The app will also be able to recognize if two people are going on the same trip and merge itineraries automatically. Additionally, when a flight is canceled or a reservation changes, Trips users can now edit plans easily by tapping the '+' in the Reservations section and feeding in the new flight number or hotel reservation; everything else will be updated for you. Finally, Trips users can now organize bus and train tickets alongside flight, hotel, car, and restaurant reservations. “We really want [Google Trips] to be an on-the-go, in-your-pocket travel guide”—something people can use when they’re on a trip, in a foreign city, rather than just when they’re planning, said Jonathan Alferness, Google’s VP of product for travel. That, of course, means it needs to be on travelers’ phones. Because international travel can also mean expensive, thin, or nonexistent data pipelines, offline support is critical, and really only possible in an app.

So how good is it, really? Trips is at its most impressive when you've already got a voyage in the works—ﬂights booked, hotel reserved, European train tickets purchased. Open the app and, as long as you're logged into your Google account, your trip will be waiting. Users of Google Now or Inbox have seen precursors of this experience for a while now— instances of Google “reading” your email, extracting key data, and repackaging everything into a clear and colorful display that gets ﬁled and resurfaced just when you need

it. Trips does all that, but then goes beyond it, turning your upcoming journey into a platform. You can use the app to plan around your reservations, whether for basics like restaurants and bars or for city-speciﬁc attractions like parks, museums, beaches, and landmarks. At ﬁrst glance, the Trips interface is unsurprising: thematic categories like “Things to Do” and “Food & Drink” are populated from Google’s unparalleled database of places in your destination. For each option you get all the useful info that Maps has taught you to expect: descriptions, location info, hours, links to websites, menus, directions, and reviews. Google’s in-house editorial team (“It’s small but growing,” says Alferness) adds context to these collections in the form of brief overviews and categorizations— particularly helpful when it comes to food, where cues can (and should) be taken from the city itself. “Food trucks” and “star chef eateries” make sense in Los Angeles, for instance, but not in Paris or Barcelona. It’s the kind of nuance that lifts Trips out of the realm of pure technology and makes it feel like a true guide—someone who knows the places we travel to, as well as why we go.  www.cntraveler.com/story/googletrips-is-here-with-your-nextvacation?mbid=nl_042717_Intel&CNDID= 38890654&spMailingID=10903486&spUs erID=MTQ5NTc0OTAyMDYxS0&spJobID =1142166100&spReportId=MTE0MjE2NjE wMAS2

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

Business - Supply the Future

China and Europe's 'Moon Village' Could Boost Lunar Mining, Space Tourism By Charlie Osborne

hinese and European space agencies have come together to consider the possibility of a new joint base on the Moon. Representatives from both groups, China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have begun discussing collaborative projects including the moonbase alongside other joint schemes, and as China continues to grow in the space exploration arena, a human outpost could benefit both parties. As reported by The Independent, the so-called "Moon village" could act not only as a launching pad for other missions -- such as trips to Mars -- but also could become a base for lunar mining or space tourism. The discussions were first revealed by Tian Yulong, the secretary general of China's space group, and later confirmed by European representative Pal Hvistendahl. "The Chinese have a very ambitious moon program already in place," Hvistendahl told the publication. "Space has changed since the space race of the Sixties." "We recognize that to explore space for peaceful purposes, we do international cooperation," the spokesperson added. China was late to the space exploration game but has caught up rapidly, becoming the third country to send a human into space in 2003 and launching everything from cargo ships to satellite since. The country is also joining NASA, Europe, India, the US, and the United Arab Emirates in the hopes of sending research vehicles in July 2020 to Mars, taking advantage of a small time window in which such a launch is possible. At a U.S, Senate hearing on Wednesday, companies involved in the space industry pressed for a shake-up of existing, aging laws on research and collaboration, including tweaking the UN Space Treaty to prevent "ownership" of space assets such as the Moon by nations, as reported by Quartz. China plans to land two lunar probes in the next year.

In the meantime, the US Trump Administration has talked up plans to visit both the Moon and Mars but declined to join discussions with China and the ESA.  www.zdnet.com/article/china-and-europe-plot-to-build-base-onthe-moon/?loc=newsletter_small_thumb&ftag=TRE6a12a91&bh id=22879832233920783794305160720838

35  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Entrepreneurs! Innovators! Tech in uencers! Join 100 global speakers and 1000+ aî&#x20AC;&#x201A;endees in Haiti at the

Haiti Tech Summit!!

June 6-7, 2017

The Haiti Tech Summit is a cultural tech festival that highlights the importance of startup ecosystems to either create or disrupt industries across all disciplines - from food to commerce to music and more. The central theme of the 2017 global summit is to catalyze startup ecosystems in emerging markets Ticket packages include hotel accommodation, food, and airport pick up. Use discount code "globalhaiti" for 10% oďŹ&#x20AC; your package. Limited quantity available. For group rates - message the team at info@haititechsummit.com. So what are you waiting for?

Haiti Tech Summit Team www.haititechsummit.com

Business - Evolution Profile

ESPN’s Content Evolution Strategy By Marie Donoghue, Stephanie Druley, Rob King, John Kosner, Burke Magnus, Connor Schell and Norby Williamson

ESPN explains moves to redeﬁne and restructure itself for the cord-cutting digital age

ied to the news ESPN President John Skipper shared with ESPN employees this morning, we ﬁrst wanted to thank our colleagues for their collective contributions. It is important to us to provide some additional context on how our content is evolving. In short, given how fans’ habits are changing, our focus continues to be providing high-quality, distinctive content at any minute of the day on any screen. For instance: Perhaps the most noted example of this strategy is our recent approach to our ﬂagship program, SportsCenter. SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt, the launch of SC6 with Michael Smith and Jemele Hill, and the debut of more digital-

only content socially and on our App means SportsCenter in its many forms is easily accessible, informative and primed with personality. Our evolving ESPN App is the best mobile destination for sports fans and has been bolstered by the recent launch of home screen video and increased personalization. On the horizon is more live news video and enhanced video and audio streaming. There are numerous examples this year of ESPN’s multi-screen approach around big events, ranging from the College Football Playoﬀ Championship Megacast, the NBA Sidecast, the Tournament Challenge and Fantasy Football Marathons, and the Women’s Final Four. And at the start of NFL free agency, ESPN3’s show featured “Schefter Cam” while ESPN.com and the App were providing extensive clips featuring our NFL reporters and analysts, and ESPN2 wrapped it up with a comprehensive show. And on the immediate horizon,

three days of NFL Draft TV coverage will be complemented with even more online (which can be personalized to match a fan’s favorite team), the cover package of ESPN The Magazine, Mike & Mike and First Take on location, behindthe-scenes coverage on Instagram Stories and more. In May, two of our biggest journalism brands — Outside the Lines and E:60 — will relaunch with an emphasis on increased collaboration and a larger presence digitally, socially and across all our screens. All this in addition to the extensive coverage this spring of NBA Playoﬀs, Major League Baseball, Indy 500, the men’s and women’s College World Series, and more. Our goal continues to be to maximize our unparalleled scale in every medium with storytelling that stands out and makes a diﬀerence. We are well-equipped to thrive going forward by embracing these themes.  http://www.espnfrontrow.com/2017/04/ espns-content-evolution-strategy/

37  May2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Business - Health

Xavier University Researchers Develop New Treatment to Combat Cancer By Della Hasselle

avier University of Louisiana (www.xula.edu) has released a new study showing that a recently developed “super cocktail” can have

The study, conducted by the historically Black college, shows that a specific mix of chemicals effectively kills a certain kind of mutated breast cancer cell called

undergone bilateral mastectomies because they carried this mutation.” The findings were conducted in the school’s Ireland Lab by researcher Dr. Shubha Ireland, a professor of biology at Xavier. Dr. Madhwa HG Raj, a professor at LSU Health Sciences, also collaborated on the project, as did Dr. Shailajja Raj, a member of the Metairiebased Protegene Corporation (www. protegenecorporation. com), a company that

significant impacts in fighting breast cancer (www.xula.edu/mediarelations/ images/cancerstudy2017.pdf) .

BRCA1, without affecting normal cells present in the body. School officials have described the development as “groundbreaking.” “Women carrying BRCA1 mutation almost certainly get breast cancer and ovarian cancer, for which there is currently no known treatment other than radical mastectomy followed by chemo and radiation therapy,” officials said in a release issued last week. “Celebrities including Angelina Jolie and other public figures have

develops nutritional supplements based on published scientific research. Specifically, the study shows that the ‘super cocktail’ — a mix of six phytochemicals, or various biologically active compounds found in plants — can kill BRCA1 mutated breast cancer cells and inhibit “tumorosphere” formations in the breast. A tumor sphere is a solid and spherical formation developed from the proliferation of one cancer stem or originating cell, frequently called a progenitor cell. The three-dimensional spheres are characterized by their ability to self-renew, according to several scientific publications. In a release issued by Xavier

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

University recently, university officials said the cocktail was able to inhibit the formation of these dangerous cancer cells because it had been achieved at “bioavailable” levels, meaning that the drug was easily absorbed by the body. Xavier’s findings were built upon previous research conducted in the Ireland Lab and published in the Journal of Cancer in November 2013, according to university officials. In that publication, researchers found that without having adverse effects on normal, non-cancer cells, the cocktail mix of drugs showed 100 killings of triplenegative breast cancer cells. According to breastcancer.org, a test showing results with triplenegative cancer cells means the cancer’s growth is not supported by the hormones estrogen and progesterone, nor by the presence of too many of a certain kind of hormone receptors. Ultimately, that means triple-negative breast cancer does not respond to hormonal therapy. About 10% to 20% of breast cancers, or more than one out of every 10, are found to be triple-negative. The results published in 2013, along with genetic and molecular data, were the impetus for development of Breast Safeguard-Susthana, a nutritional supplement, by the Protegene Corporation, according to Xavier officials. The data was presented at the meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on April 4 in Washington D.C. The super cocktail studied was developed to simultaneously inhibit characteristics common to several cancers, namely cell proliferation to form tumors,

cell survival by immortalization and metastasis resulting in spreading of the cancer to other organs. Students at Xavier are currently working on studies showing that the mix of drugs also works against prostate and lung cancer cells, in addition to the hormone-sensitive triple negative and BRCA1 mutated human breast cancer cells, school officials said. In all studies, the super cocktail is unleashing ‘programmed cell death,’ also called apoptosis, in the cancer cells specifically, without affecting normal, non-cancerous cells. More than 750 women with and without breast cancer have used the super cocktail without reporting adverse reactions or side effects, according to the release. The ongoing research is funded by The Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium and

Ireland’s Xavier Eminent Scholar XXXVIII Professorship through the Louisiana Board of Regents funding. Founded in 1925 by Saint Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, Xavier University of Louisiana is the only Catholic and historically Black higher education institution in North America. The ultimate purpose of the school is to “contribute to the promotion of a more just and humane society by preparing its students to assume roles of leadership and service in a global society,” according to university officials. The university also sends more African-American students to medical school than any other college in the country, officials said.  www.louisianaweekly.com/xavieruniversity-researchers-develop-newtreatment-to-combat-cancer/

Editorial

Death by Tax Cuts: The Republican Health Care Plan

onald Trump hosted a celebration in the White House Rose Garden for House Republicans after they passed their party’s health care plan by the thinnest of margins. They were celebrating what Trump called a “win,” without any thought about consequences. None of them had read the bill, which was released only a couple of days before the vote and rushed to the floor. The vote took place before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office could issue a revised assessment of its costs and effects. House leaders and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney dismissed criticisms, saying that Senate Republicans planned to start all over anyway. This bill addresses onesixth of our national economy, and an industry that has been a leading source of jobs growth. Don’t worry, say House Republicans, we just had to get the win; forget about the substance. Americans shouldn’t just be worried; they should be furious. The Republican bill will throw literally millions off health care, put people with pre-existing conditions at risk and raise premiums particularly for workers aged 50 to 64 — in order to give a massive tax break to the very wealthy. At the annual shareholders meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, billionaire investor Warren Buffett called it for what it is: “a huge tax cut for guys like me.” The richest 400 people in America will get a tax break estimated at about $7 million a year. To pay for that, millions will lose their coverage,

and millions more — the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions in various states — will see premiums soar and insurance become unaffordable. You can’t sugarcoat this. It’s not enough to say the Senate will fix it (the 13 white men — no women, no people of color — on the Republican Senate Working Group certainly will not). It’s not acceptable to say, “We don’t mean it; we just had to pass it.” Why did they have to pass it? This is complicated, but if you follow it, you can understand the backroom plunder that is taking place. As Peter Suderman explained in the New York Times, Republicans have to pass it because the top-end tax cuts in the health care bill are vital for their central goal: to deliver to their corporate and wealthy donors another massive tax cut in the next budget reconciliation vote. They have to do the tax cuts in what’s called “reconciliation” because that allows them, under the

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

obscure rules of the Congress, to pass the bill with only 50 votes — with only Republican votes. But the reconciliation rules only allow tax cuts if they don’t raise deficits after a 10-year window. So to get what Trump calls the mother of all tax cuts, Republicans want to cut the taxes out of Obamacare in the FY2017 reconciliation (that only lasts until next September) and then have a lower baseline for cutting taxes in the FY2018 reconciliation (the budget that begins on October 1). Tax cuts for the wealthy will be paid for by sickness and death by millions of the uninsured. Republican Sen. John McCain criticizes the House for proceeding without a CBO estimate of the costs, saying, “I want to know how much it costs.” Republican senators vow not to act until the CBO reports. The CBO’s estimate will show what we already know from its last estimate: Millions will lose their insurance, and the wealthy will pocket millions in tax cuts.

A former insurance executive, Richard Eskow, did the real math. He took the best estimates of how many avoidable deaths come from not having health insurance with the rollback of Medicaid and taking away protections for pre-existing conditions. He compared that to the tax cuts that would be pocketed by the 400 richest Americans, people who, like Buffett, make on average over $300 million a year. Here’s his estimate of the real cost: Ten people will die under the Republican bill to give each of the 400 richest people in America a tax break. For every person who dies, they’ll pocket about $787,151. As Eskow noted, those rich beneficiaries aren’t likely to know anyone who will lose his or her life as a result of being stripped of health insurance. And while the $787,000 isn’t much for a multimillionaire, it’s just the appetizer for the big take they will get out of the Trump tax cut plan that will follow. Thirteen white, rich men will now create the Republican plan in the Senate. They’ll decide how many millions to strip from health insurance to pay for tax cuts many of them will enjoy. They’ll decide whether to deprive low-wage women of Planned Parenthood’s health care services. They’ll decide just how many deaths are needed to cover the tax cuts for the very rich. Ugly language? No this is a morally indefensible, ugly piece of work. It is simply obscene to choose consciously to condemn low-wage workers or older workers to unnecessary illness and death in order to afford tax cuts for the already wealthy.  www.rainbowpush.org

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www.naacpconvention.org

Business - Tech Tools

Google Fights ‘Fake News’ as Americans Prove Unwilling to Fact-Check By Ian James Wright

hen the mighty Google changes its algorithm, all of PR is pushed in the same direction by the shockwave; here's hoping that the most recent change will nudge us into a better place. The search engine's latest move is to demote (but not remove) pages that propagate lies, hoaxes, conspiracy theories and other junk content that more and more is collectively being labeled "fake news." Google had not previously made this fix because, according to executives, although the results were important, the amount of traffic relevant to the issue was so small—a quarter of a percent, reports Bloomberg. But when these queries did produce a fake news story as the top result, it made Google seem embarrassingly fallible, especially when it returned phony answers in a "feature snippet," the authoritative-looking box that seems to state the simple truth. This news comes at the same time as survey results from Zignal Labs /Harris Poll that reveals that 86% of Americans don't fact-check articles they see on social media, and more than a quarter of Americans share articles that they don't factcheck, because they tend to trust their friends who posted it. This gives us insight into how fake

news can be amplified via friend networks faster now than ever before. “For brands and public figures with the potential to find themselves in the media spotlight, this means swiftly identifying and maximizing opportunities—or mitigating reputational risk—is more critical now than ever before," said Josh Ginsberg, Zignal CEO.

PR Webinar PR News is jumping into the fray May 31 with a new webinar, "How to Navigate #FakeNews as a Communications Professional," featuring expert advice from Reebok, IBM, LexisNexis and more. Join us as we discuss how to debunk fake news to your stakeholders, how to engage on social media and how to get leadership on board with your efforts to set the record straight in an era of information confusion.  www.prnewsonline.com/google-ﬁghts-fake-news-asamericans-prove-unwilling-to-fact-check

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Editorial

The Fine Print In The 'State of Black America' Report By Nick Chiles

hile this year's annual State of Black America report from the National Urban League focuses as usual on areas of progress (education, healthcare and economic wellbeing) and regress (criminal justice) over the past year, the report took the unusual step of warning that the organization now has a new priority: protecting areas of progress from retrenchment during the Trump years. "During the Obama era, the economy added 15 million new jobs, the black unemployment rate dropped and the high school graduation rate for African Americans soared," Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said in the report. "Now that progress, and much more, is threatened...The National Urban League is resolute; we will protect our progress." In the report, called "Protect Our Progress," the Urban League suggested that the nation should invest in a "Main Street Marshall Plan" that would ensure that

the gains made by black Americans during the Obama administration aren't lost. The plan includes expanding pre-K, increasing the number of college students receiving Pell grants, increasing the minimum wage and summer youth employment programs, and incentivizing more doctors to accept Medicaid. But amidst a climate where the current administration is looking to make cuts in many of these areas — as the Urban League acknowledges in the report — it would be daunting to initiate a national movement to mobilize the Urban League's Main Street Marshall Plan. As it has for more than a decade, the Urban League used its Equality Index to track how close black America has gotten to white America in ﬁve major areas: education, health, social justice, economics and civic engagement. For the

8th year, the report also tracks the progress of Hispanic Americans compared to whites. In addition, the report ranks the nation's 70 largest metropolitan areas on the measures of black-white and Hispanic-white unemployment and income equality. There wasn't much change

Buy Black! Educate Black! Bank Black! Invest Black! 44  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

between 2015 and 2016 in the five areas the Urban League measures. For this reason, the overall 2017 Equality Index of Black America was 72.3%, compared to 72.2% the year before. An index of 100% would mean full equality in the particular measure between blacks and whites. The biggest increase came in the area of education, which rose from 77.4% in 2015 to 78.2% in 2016. The report attributed the rise to three areas of progress: a large decline in the share of AfricanAmerican students who have teachers with less than three years of experience; a higher percentage of African Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 earning associate's degrees; and increased home literacy activities for AfricanAmericans. "The education index also received a positive boost from a notable decline in high school dropout rates among all students, including African Americans," the report noted. In economics, black Americans went from an equality index rate of 56.2% in 2015 to 56.5% in 2016 — largely due to an improvement in the black unemployment rate, an increase in black women's wages, an increase in black-owned businesses and a decline in highpriced loans for black consumers. In healthcare, the equality index between black and white Americans went from 79.4 to 80% between 2015 and 2016, partly due to greater access to healthcare because of the Affordable Care Act and a decrease in the number of overweight children. The only decrease came in social justice, from 60.9 to 57.4%. While part of the drop was due to a change in how the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports data on traffic stops, the report said there was also an increase in the

incarceration of African Americans following an arrest. In the category of civic engagement, African Americans actually surpass whites, according to the Urban League, with the number between 2015 and 2016 remaining at 100.6%. As for Hispanics, there was a bigger increase in the overall Equality Index, from 77.9% in 2015 to 78.4% in 2016. According to the Urban League, this was largely due to a major improvement in the health index (from 105.5% to 108.8%, meaning Hispanics are healthier than whites) and smaller gains in the education (from 74.2% to 75.3%) and economics indexes (from 61.9% to 62.1%). Those improvements helped oﬀset regressions in social justice (from 75.9% to 69.7%) and civic engagement (from 67.6% to 67.3 %).

Location Matters For the report, the Urban League also ranked the 70 metropolitan areas from the smallest gap in unemployment between blacks and whites (and Hispanics and whites) to the largest gap. For blacks, the area with the smallest blackwhite unemployment gap was San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX, where the black unemployment rate was 6.4% (down 1.9 percentage points from the previous year) and the white rate was 4.5% (down 0.4 percentage points). The area with the largest gap was MilwaukeeWaukesha-West Allis, WI, where the unemployment rate for blacks was 13.8%, while just 2.7% for whites. This area also ranked last in last year's report. In income inequality, RiversideSan Bernardino-Ontario, CA for the third consecutive year had the smallest diﬀerence between black median household income and white median household income — even though the median black

household income in Riverside fell from 76 cents for every dollar of median white household income in 2015 to 72 cents in 2016. The city with the biggest income gap was Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI, where the chasm was 41 cents for blacks for every dollar earned by a white person. In Minneapolis, the median household income for blacks was $31,672 (up 12.4% from last year's Index) compared to $76,581 for whites. For Hispanics, there were four areas where Hispanics actually had a higher employment rate than whites, with North PortSarasota-Bradenton, FL, as the most advantageous for Hispanics with a percentage of 114.5. The metro area with the largest disparity between the Hispanic and white unemployment rate was Rochester, NY, at 35.7 percent. As for income inequality, the area with the least inequality was Modesto, CA, where the median Hispanic household had 88 cents for every dollar of median white household income. Springﬁeld, MA, had the biggest gap between Hispanic and white incomes at 40 cents on the dollar. For both blacks and Hispanics, the area with the highest median household income was WashingtonArlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MDWV, at $68,054 for blacks and $69,481 for Hispanics. It also had the highest white household income at $112,177. As the Urban League focuses on protecting advancements, Valerie Rawlston Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute's Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, said the 2017 Equality Index provides a "line in the sand" to measure what happens from now on.  www.npr.org/sections/ codeswitch/2017/05/02/499244087/ the-ﬁne-print-in-the-state-of-blackamerica-report

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

Business - Tech

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-

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 h a v e 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 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

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Business

The Important Role of Entrepreneur Development Organizations and Their Activities they create. Using the metropolitan areas of St. Louis and Kansas City, this paper provides insights into how regions can accelerate momentum and increase their return on these investments. The paper focues on Entrepreneur Development organizations, which provide the ﬁrst step in any ecosystem's startup pipeline and feed and strengthen Venture and Economic Development to achieve economic outcomes. 

ntrepreneurial ecosystems are becoming recognized as a way to stimulate economic growth, innovation, and social change. Their implementation is

gaining momentum across the United States and other parts of the world as their beneﬁts are recognized. Nations, cities, regions, universities, and others are collaborating to put in place entrepreneurial ecosystems as a critical component of their innovation strategies seeking to improve economies, societies, and institutions. Innovation Districts, Smart City Infrastructures, research parks, coworking spaces, and regional economic clusters are examples of economic development investments that are being made by many, yet it is well recognized that much of the value comes from the personal collisions and relationships that are possible because of the physical proximity, information exchange, and density

and disseminate them to the world," says Craig Thompson, president 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. 

www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/ research/2017/entrepreneurialecosystem-momentum-andmaturity?utm_source=newsletter&utm_ medium=email&utm_ campaign=ideasatwork05_05_17&_cl dee=bGlvbi5jb21tQGhvdG1ha WwuY29t&recipientid=contactc5fd32cf10cfe311992e3cd92beec6c8-c21a 22dfa416499daf87825688aaf7eb&esid=04 c940c2-d630-e711-80c3-00155d028307

www.baselinemag.com/innovation/ ai-ushers-in-a-new-era-of-business-andtech.html?utm_medium=email&utm_ campaign=BL_NL_BB_20170503_STR3L2 &dni=408841499&rni=25652266

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Business

Your Advertising Stinks. Chatbots can Help By Matt Asay

n a new report, The End Of Advertising As We Know It, (www. forrester.com/report/ The+End+Of+Advert ising+As+We+Know +It/-/E-RES137501)

CHAT BOT Short for chat robot, a computer program that simulates human conversation, or chat, through artiﬁcial intelligence. Typically, a chat bot will communicate with a real person, but applications are being developed in which two chat bots can communicate with each other. Chat bots are used in applications such as ecommerce customer service, call centers and Internet gaming. Chat bots used for these purposes are typically limited to conversations regarding a specialized purpose and not for the entire range of human communication. One well known example of a chat bot is ALICE.

any better in terms of its impact on customer experience. In TV and print advertising, ads regularly interrupt the viewing or reading experience, prompting more consumers to ﬂee to platforms (like Netﬂix) that allow them to trade cash for an adfree existence. Online, Google and Facebook interrupt search and social with ads (that really aren't all that tailored, anyway, despite all the data they collect). In response, 38% of US adults have installed an ad-blocker to reclaim their online experiences. That's the bad news. The good news is that digital can be so much more than catchier display ads, as Forrester

Forrester posits a very different way to connect with customers. Insisting that "People have less time for interruption-driven Short for Artificial Linguistic Computer Entity, an open media," Forrester source, natural language chatbot that relies on artificial proposes an intelligence for human interaction. advertising ALICE is programmed with AIML (Artificial Intelligence age that could Markup Language), a XML specification for programming eviscerate $2.9 chat bots. Its simplicity and ease-of-use allows nonbillion worth of programmers, who have some HTML experience, to create display advertising. their own chat bots. With AIML, developers can create And that's just for customized chat bots with unique personalities and areas of starters. expertise.  While advertising has served a have never been all that effective, variety of useful advises. purposes in the past, digital has as Forrester calls out. To wit: Speak to me (just to me) transformed how a brand can reach • Advertisers blew $7.4 billion on poorly-placed ads in 2016 Consumers, Forrester notes, its customers, and measure the • Display ad click-through rates are happy to engage with a brand impact. The first wave of digital generate a meager 0.35% they like. Rather than interrupting advertising more or less extended success rate their browsing or social experience, traditional advertising to the web, • 40% of ads aren't viewed by however, savvy brands are with the real innovation being ever a living person at all (fraud is starting to find ways to connect more sophisticated methods for rampant) with consumers in more natural getting consumers to click ads. Part of the problem has been ways, using chatbots, messaging Unfortunately for brands (and consumers), those display ads that advertising hasn't become apps, and other one-to-one 48  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Google Home Amazon Alexa

communication technologies. Take Dunkin Brands (www. dunkinbrands.com), for example. As Melanie Cohn, Senior Manager of the company's digital and social media, has written: "At Dunkin', we've embraced the philosophy of choice-based media versus interruptive, unwanted experiences. The new brand opportunities within iMessage (http://www.macworld. com/article/1162984/ios-apps/ios-5imessage.html) allow us to provide

exactly that. We're able to develop rich tools our fans actually want instead of unexpected ads they do everything in their power to avoid." In practice, this means that Dunkin Brands has enabled consumers to create stickers and other iMessage experiences that augment a consumer's communication, rather than interrupting it. In the process, an "advertisement" for Dunkin is passed along. We're at the front end of chatbots' ( w w w. w e b o p e d i a . c o m / T E R M / C / chat_bot.html) potential, given their

relative immaturity. Even so, 33% of US adults already interact with

a voice-activated assistant like Siri or Alexa, Forrester pointed out, and the 6 million Alexaenabled devices in the US are Siri expected to swell to a population of 26 million (powered by Alexa or similar solutions) this year. That's a big increase, and it provides a training ground for brands to learn how to talk with customers on their terms, rather than interrupting the ﬂow of their lives. To be clear, we are very much in the experimental stage, and there's potential to get it wrong. As Nike senior director of global marketing, Kelly McCarthy, cautioned, "Not every brand can be humanized in a natural way, and this may end up hurting your brand rather than helping it." Even so, the rewards for those enterprises that learn how to engage with consumers in a one-to-one fashion is worth the risk. According to Forrester, "Consumers are ready for deeper relationships with the companies that matter to them." For businesses, that means it's time to start test-driving chatbots and messaging app engagement..  www.techrepublic.com/article/your-advertising-stinks-chatbots-can-help/? ftag=TRE6a12a91&bhid=22879832233920783794305160720838 http://imessageforpc.com/

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Register for Free Webinar on the Education Landscapes in Nigeria and Ghana Tuesday, May 9th from 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT Overview Is your school interested in recruiting more students from Sub-Sahara Africa? If you seek to diversify your student body, increase enrollment and want more information about how to connect with students from West Africa, this webinar is for you. Webinar Information Learn from the US Commercial Service and EducationUSA specialists about higher education systems, current market trends and typical student profiles from Nigeria and Ghana. Find out what opportunities are available for U.S higher education institutions, including the upcoming Education Recruitment Tours to Nigeria and Ghana in September 2017. Why Nigeria? This market is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, both in terms of the economy and the population. One-fifth of Nigeria’s population is between the ages of 15 and 24, creating significant demand for higher education opportunities. As the demand cannot be met domestically, students are searching for international opportunities. Education fairs will be held in both Abuja and Lagos, Nigeria. Why Ghana? Ghana has experienced a decade of sustained economic growth, and its education expenditure relative to income is double the average for the African continent. These factors, coupled with the fact that English is the primary language of instruction, sets Ghana as the second largest sender of students to the United States. U.S. schools will participate in an education fair in Accra, in addition briefings, meetings, and networking events. For More Information Contact: Daniel Gaines, Senior International Trade Specialist, 703-235-0104, daniel.gaines@trade.gov Marisa Ring, Senior International Trade Specialist, 816-421-4809, marisa.ring@trade.gov Bobby Hines, International Trade Specialist - Textile/Apparel/Food/Agriculture/Publishing and more DownTown Los Angeles Export Assistance Center U.S. Department of Commerce|International Trade Administration 213-894-4231/C 213-276-3675 /FAX 213-894-8789/Skype for Business Email: bobby.hines@trade.gov

Entrepreneurial Winning Women Program Boosting Women-owned Businesses to Achieve Accelerated Growth

he EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ program is a national competition and executive education program that identiﬁes a select group of high-potential women entrepreneurs whose businesses show real potential to scale — and then helps them do it.

Apply or Nominate by June 9th (www.ey.com/us/en/services/strategic-growthmarkets/entrepreneurial-winning-women--how-toapply-and-nominate)

Results show that the program is spurring rapid growth. According to an independent impact assessment directed by the Babson College Center for Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership, North America program participant companies’ total 2014 revenue was 54% higher than their total revenues in the years before they joined the program. Individual participants average 20% revenue growth annually; in the second year of participation, however, their companies have been known to grow up to 50%. Winners also report increases in entrepreneurial conﬁdence, growth goals, networks and media visibility, to name a few. For more on the program’s impact, visit our recent study, Force Multipliers (www.ey.com/us/en/services/ strategic-growth-markets/ey-3-adaptations-to-help-womenentrepreneurs-scale-big).

The Entrepreneurial Winning Women join an elite business network and customized executive leadership program with year-round activities designed to help their companies grow rapidly: • Expand their knowledge with the latest information, research and executive dialogues about business strategies and practices

• Identify potential partners, strategic alliances, customers and suppliers as well as prospective sources of private capital • Provide access to informal, one-to-one guidance and support • Strengthen their executive leadership and business skills and identify opportunities to grow through meetings with senior advisors and seasoned entrepreneurs • Increase national and regional visibility for themselves and their companies among corporate executives, investors and the media

Know it before you need it: Distance learning for fast-growth companies Whether you are an oﬃcial member of the program or not there is access to some of the advisory information available to all. EY’s Know it before you need it curriculum addresses key issues often encountered by fastgrowing companies. These 30-minute online sessions are designed to introduce the basic principles of each topic, encouraging listeners to think through the right questions in advance rather than unwinding missteps due to a knowledge gap (www.ey.com/us/en/services/ strategic-growth-markets/entrepreneurial-winning-women-distance-learning).  www.ey.com/us/en/services/strategic-growth-markets/ entrepreneurial-winning-women?_cldee=bGlvbi5 jb21tQGhvdG1haWwuY29t&recipientid=contactc5fd32cf10cfe311992e3cd92beec6c8-dfc00794c758408 cb3ab65e541c806d6&esid=8e4505c1-8536-e711-80c300155d028307

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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, June 13, 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.

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

Business

BET is Leaving Washington. Will it Lose its ‘Secret Sauce’?

ET Networks, the country’s largest cable network for African American audiences, is moving its headquarters from Washington to New York, ending a nearly 40-year relationship with its home town. The move — part of a years-long transition into the Manhattan offices of its parent company, Viacom — comes as major cable networks struggle to stay relevant. ESPN earlier this year announced widespread layoffs to make up for millions of lost subscribers, and many others have been facing similar battles as customers cancel their cable in favor of streaming video services such as Hulu and Netflix. BET’s Washington office, which has about 40 full-time employees and 36 freelancers, will close July 7. “This closure is in line with our overall strategy to make New York BET’s new headquarters,” Debra L. Lee, the network’s chief executive, wrote in a memo to staffers on Tuesday. BET, once a prized, black-owned cable network, has in recent years struggled to hold its own against smaller outfits such as TV One and Bounce TV. The network’s gospel show, “Joyful Noise,” which is taped in Washington, was among its lowest performers, with a reported viewership of 13,000. (There have, however, been a few

bright spots: The recent premiere of the miniseries “The New Edition Story,” for example, attracted 4.2 million viewers, marking a five-year high for the network.) Viacom, which acquired BET for $3 billion in 2000, has said it plans to build BET into one of its flagship channels, alongside MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. “I know that this period of uncertainty has caused some anxiety, and I really appreciate your patience,” Lee wrote to staffers. “Like many of you, I too grew up on this campus, and I am honored that D.C. is the birthplace of BET.” Robert L. Johnson, a former

cable-industry lobbyist, along with his wife at the time, Sheila, founded Black Entertainment Television in 1980, with $500,000 in funding and a $15,000 bank loan. In its earliest form, the channel offered a few hours of programming — mostly music videos and reruns of black sitcoms — each week. But quickly, BET grew to become a stand-alone channel complete with its own scripted programming. A decade after its founding, it was turning an annual profit of more than $9 million and attracting 4 million new subscribers each year. Robert Johnson, who went on to create RLJ Lodging Trust, could

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not be reached for comment. Sheila Johnson, now CEO of Salamander Hotels & Resorts and a partner in the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, was not available for comment, according to her spokesman (www. washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2010/07/02/AR2010070204911. html).

BET’s move to New York is likely to cut costs and help executives secure more advertising, said Neil Foote of Foote Communications, a Dallas-based media firm. “The critical challenge for any African American media outlet is getting advertising money,” said Foote, who is also president of the National Black Public Relations Society. “Being in New York, BET would literally be a cab ride or a walk away from the largest marketers and ad agencies.” But, he and others said, the

company’s move out of Washington — where African Americans made up 70% of the population in 1980, when the company was founded — deals a symbolic blow to the region. “BET setting up in Washington certainly sent a message to the world that it was okay to be here,” Foote said. “It also gave the network a certain credibility.” “When I first walked into BET, I saw a sea of black people doing the same jobs that I had always seen only whites doing elsewhere,” Curtis Gadson, a former executive vice president at the company, told Forbes in 2001. “I was almost in tears. The playing field was all of a sudden equal.” In the decades since, Washington’s African American population has steadily declined. As of 2014, black residents were no longer a majority.

At the same time, BET’s programming shifted, too, from music videos that were largely produced in its Washington studios to a lineup of scripted series and reality shows produced in Los Angeles, New York and Atlanta. “BET having its headquarters in D.C., that was a landmark for so many of us,” said Karen Taylor Bass, president of TaylorMade Media, a public relations firm in New York. “That was the first thing we’d see when we were coming in on the Amtrak. And as an African American executive, I remember feeling such a sense of pride seeing that building in the skyline.  www.washingtonpost.com/ business/economy/bet-is-leavingwashington-will-it-lose-its-secretsauce/2017/05/10/0d634f74-358a11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html

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Business

Future Business Model

he business model of the future is called the "platform company". Alex Moazed and Nicholas Johnson are the authors of the groundbreaking book Modern Monopolies. They define a platform company as one that allows “consumers and producers to connect with each other and exchange goods, services, and information.” A 'digital platform' lifts multiple businesses. And each business can build its own products and services on top of the digital platform. Take Apple for example. Its iPhone allows developers to build apps on its iOS operating system… and then sell those apps to customers via its App Store. Facebook’s platform allows people to build online communities and share them. And Amazon’s platform provides an online “market” for buyers and sellers. The platform provider doesn’t necessarily sell a product or provide a service. It creates value by providing a space where people can connect and make transactions. This new model is completely disrupting the old linear model. Facebook is taking over the social media space. That’s because when a person signs up to use the website, they’re not just connecting with one person. They’re potentially connecting with all of Facebook’s billion-plus users. The same thing is happening with Amazon. If you sell shoes or cars on the platform, you have the potential to make millions of connections. This ability to scale exponentially will eventually make the linear business model obsolete. 

Welcome to More.

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

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Community/Public Interest - In Memory Of

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Business

As Johnson Publishing Declines, Chicago Loses a Link to its Past By Lynne Marek

series of rapid-ﬁre developments at Johnson Publishing and its former Ebony outlet suggest the end of the black media empire, at least in Chicago. CEO Desiree Rogers resigned last week, saying she would hand leadership of the company's remaining cosmetics business to Chairman Linda Johnson Rice, who a day earlier cut most of the Chicago jobs at the former publishing enterprise. Johnson Rice also reclaimed leadership of her family's magazine business in March, despite its sale last year. Once a bulwark of black business in Chicago and the pre-eminent African-American magazine publisher, the company was built by Johnson Rice's father, John H. Johnson, the grandson of slaves who moved with his family from Arkansas to the segregated city in the 1930s. With their Ebony and Jet magazines, the patriarch and his wife, Eunice Walker Johnson, created a brand, along with their Fashion Fair cosmetics, that was a centerpiece of African-American life, before the business' slow decline in recent years in the face of industry headwinds. Ebony debuted in 1945, a few years after Johnson founded his publishing house in 1942, and it was followed by its weekly sister, Jet, in 1951. "Sadly, it was expected, but it's still devastating," said Ron Childs, a former associate editor of Ebony Man, a magazine discontinued in

(TOP) Ebony's June 2016 issue, left, and Jet's ﬁnal print issue in June 2014. (BO Photo by Vieilles Anonces/Flickr

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the 1990s. "It's just the end of a legacy in Chicago's history of AfricanAmerican publishing." The publisher has documented the African-American experience, including chronicling the civil rights movement and key happenings in the latter half of the 20th century. Fashion Fair, the Johnson Publishing cosmetics brand that Rogers had been leading, has also shrunk in recent years, with the

makeup available at fewer department store counters. Among the Chicago Ebony staﬀ dismissed on May 5 were Editorin-Chief Kyra Kyles and Managing Editor Kathy Chaney. "We've done the most with the least during my six-year tenure, and I've deeply enjoyed getting to know you all," Kyles said in a note OTTOM) to co-workers May 4 after the com-

pany's employee cuts. "I want you to know that what has happened today has NOTHING to do with anyone's individual talents and dedication. For those who remain with the company, I am rooting for you to win." Michael Gibson, chairman of the Texas investment firm, CVG Group, that bought the magazines last year and renamed the operation Ebony Media, told the Chicago Tribune that the remaining staff would be led by a Los Angelesbased editor, Tracey Ferguson, who joined Jet in February. She is the latest in a list of several new top editors in the past five years. Ebony cut 10 of its 35 employees last week, Gibson told the Tribune. Aside from Chicago and Los Angeles, some p u b l i sh i ng employees had also worked in New York. Johnson Publishing isn't the only Chicago print publisher to buckle in recent years under increasing competition from digital products. The offices of Playboy magazine, also formerly headquartered in Chicago, left the city for Los Angeles in 2012. Print newspapers and magazines alike have struggled to pay for their legacy printing infrastructures as

readers and advertisers slip away to digital alternatives. Johnson grappled this year with making home deliveries of Ebony to subscribers—never a welcome development for advertisers that count on a certain number of readers. Plus, freelancers recently prompted a social media firestorm about the company not paying for their services. Childs listed other significant events that preceded last week's tumult, including the 2010 sale of the company's South Michigan Avenue building—once a sign of the founder's success—and the sale last year of the magazines to CVG Group, which at the time said it would keep the headquarters in Chicago. There was also the sale of a minority stake to JPMorgan Chase in 2011, the end of Jet's print edition in 2014, and a series of job cuts in recent years that whittled down the staff. For the fewer than 10 remaining Chicago editorial and business employees, there's a lot of confusion, according to a source familiar with the situation. Since moving out of the Johnson Publishing offices they shared with Fashion Fair staff, they have been working from a temporary space. The latest development "is stunning for the city," said Charles Whitaker, a professor at Northwestern University's Medill School and a former Ebony magazine editor. As for the magazine's roots, John Johnson "would say this could only have happened in Chicago," where he found a burgeoning group of middle-class black entrepreneurs and intellectuals eager to read his publications and support his business.  www.chicagobusiness. com/article/20170508/ NEWS06/170509855/johnson-publishing-and-ebony-layoffs-suggestend-of-chicago-era

71  MaY 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

72  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

www.nubianskin.com/us

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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

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Business - Marketing

Getting Targeted on Instagram By Megan Arevalo

ompetent brands recognize that social media is an invaluable channel for marketing that can help convey the brand’s image and directly increase conversions and sales. Most businesses now have active profiles on Facebook and Twitter, but an Instagram account is also a must. It’s actually now the secondmost active of the big three, with over 300 million daily users. In fact, according to research done by Websitebuilder. org, Instagram users engage more per post than any other social network. Furthermore, 50% of users follow at least one business. This business could be yours! A range of paid advertising options are also available on Instagram for those that want to supplement or bypass organic posting. According to the company's pitch, 70% of performance campaigns have generated statistically significant lifts for advertisers for online conversion or mobile app installs. Of course, whether you go organic, use paid advertising or both — just like any other marketing campaign — success on Instagram hinges on targeting the right audience and gaining their interest. Getting followers is one thing, but if they don’t care about your brand that coveted follower count is worthless. So, how do you get targeted?

Connect With Your Niche A lot of businesses rely solely on their posts and leveraging their existing web presence to build followers on new platforms, but the

key to social networking is in the name — networking. If you want to find your audience on Instagram, you will need to connect with the competition and their followers, influencers and thought leaders, and other profiles related to your industry. This includes following them (in hope they will return the favor) but also commenting, liking and sharing their posts when it’s suitable and you have something of value to add.

Utilize Hashtags On Instagram, using hashtags is one of the primary ways you can attract new targeted followers. The concept is fairly simple. When you make a post you can begin or end the caption with a series of relevant keywords. Typing the hash symbol before each word will turn it into a link, which when opened takes the user to a chronological feed of other posts that have included the same hashtag. • #beyonceknowles (90,487,743 followers) • barackobama (11.5 mil followers) • #daymondjohns • #drdre • #imblackintech • #bet • #tvone • #magicjohnson • #neildegrassetyson • #cuisinenoir • #africanunion The benefit is that when a user searches on Instagram, the results are drawn from these hashtag feeds, i.e. if you used the hashtag #soccer in a recent post and

somebody searches "soccer," they will see your post in the feed even if they don’t follow you. Perhaps now they will? Users might also follow a specific hashtag to get aggregated content on their favorite subjects. Marketers need to strike a balance between broad and popular terms, highly relevant terms, and not including too many per posts — which can appear spammy.

Promoted Posts Instagram’s paid advertising options include "promoted posts," which take your regular posts and put them directly in front of the audience you choose. Options include age, gender, location and interests, so you can really laser target your campaign. There are currently around 500,000 advertisers on the platform, so pricing is still competitive.

Partnerships Another way to get targeted is to form a partnership with influencers in your niche. This is especially effective when organically interacting with the community is not paying off. This might involve giving review copies of products or free access to services, with the agreement that the user promotes them and gives their honest opinion. You can even directly pay users to promote your brand.

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INSTAGRAM TOP HASHTAGS Marketing #social #socialmedia #giveaway #entrepreneur #entrepreneurship #tech #contestalert #sweepstakes #deal

#branding #success #sales #marketing #branding #business #discount #travel #smallbiz

General #love #photooftheday #beautiful #me #tagforlikes #followme #summer #slike4likes #art #instadaily #smile

#instagood #tbt #cute #selﬁe #happy #fashion picoftheday #fun #friends #girl #repost

Restaurants #food #foodie #nom #hungry #cleaneating #wine #dinner #italian #chinese #organic #breakfast #foodgasm #lunch

#foodporn #yummie #nomnom #delish #paleo #vegan #vegetarian #pizza #sushi organicfood #healthy #dessert

https://websitebuilder.org/ resources/139-facts-about-instagramone-should-be-aware-of-in-2017

One of the most liked photos of all time on Instagram, and an example of influencer marketing, is actress and singer Selena Gomez promoting Coca-Cola.

For more data that you can apply to your Instagram marketing strategy, check out the full infographic (https://websitebuilder. org/resources/139-facts-about-

instagram-one-should-be-aware-ofin-2017) from Websitebuilder.org. 

www.targetmarketingmag.com/ article/getting-targeted-oninstagram/all/

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

Mother's Day

OR ANY SPECIAL OCCASION

Business 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.

The Business of Podcasting

odcasting is exploding, but monetization remains a challenge. Art19 (https:// art19.com) has developed, with

• • • • •

that a podcast is downloaded and listened to More Social linkage - know that a podcast is shared More Discovery options tagging increases search hits More Marketing options access to more channels Ad Serving - Access to a wider variety of podcasts for marketing Targeting - Assistance with market segmentation and outreach Monitoring - tools to track podcasting activity Reporting - Dashboard style activity displays More Income

Promotion of the podcast productions via the Art19 website builds interest, subscribers and community.  https://art19.com

"Alice" a New Business Success Tool for Women Entrepreneurs

input from top ad agencies, groundbreaking technology that provides new and improved listening metrics that are ﬁnally bringing major brands into the podcasting fold. ART19’s WarpFeed technology provides near real-time RSS ad insertion, unlocking regional and international advertising as well as

nly 2% of women entrepreneurs in the U.S. make over $1M in their companies? Dell is helping launch an Artificial Intellegence tool named “Alice,” that is going to change that stat to 98%! During the Dell EMC World the Circular Board, a datadriven, scalable ecosystem connecting women entrepreneurs to sources of capital, mentorship, events and resources, Dell and Pivotal announced “Alice,” the world’s first artificial intelligence platform for women entrepreneurs.

Through data analytics, Alice can access resources for founders in real time, speciﬁc to their industry, stage of growth and location. As Alice populates, machine learning will allow her to predict the needs of founders to guide them to referrals, events, mentors, access to capital and ecosystems. Dell’s commitment to the business value and social importance to women founders led to countless discussions with women entrepreneurs through which we’ve learned that issues around access to capital, technology, networks and talent often stand in the way of their success. These four ‘pillars’ of innovation, as we call them, are where we see the most potential to change the course of their careers: • Technology: At Dell, we believe in empowering people around the world to do what they dream, to achieve every goal imaginable, and use technology to make that happen. Women face so many hurdles when starting their own companies – but technology shouldn’t be one of them. • Capital: Tracking down funding can be a major challenge for women entrepreneurs, whether it’s venture capital or angel funding in developed countries or having the connections to ﬁnancial institutions and loans in

monetization of back catalogs. WrapFeed technology and tools results in: • More data collection - know 80  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

the emerging economies. • Networks: For many professional women, getting their foot in the door is sometimes the hardest step. Women entrepreneurs and business owners are increasingly turning to each other for help. One way we help facilitate these connections is through Dell Women’s Entrepreneurs Network ( DWEN). • Talent: Finding the right talent to make your business successful can be a serious challenge. But by partnering with expert organizations, women entrepreneurs are better able to make logical decisions that their ventures to scale.

quest for wellness, productivity, and inspiration. The oNotes app and the Cyrano device empower you without the particles and solvents that can make candles and perfumes allergenic. Nothing to make you sneeze or wheeze here. Only delightful on-demand scent. Move your Cyrano from your workspace, to your living room or bedroom, to lift your experience everywhere in the house. Cyrano is a scent speaker? It is an elegant, technological device that plays scent medleys, or olfactory notes, like a sound speaker delivers music. We're creating scent families--Cyrano Scent Cartridges--that are endless in their expressive possibilities, and In the fairytale classic, Alice asked in their ability to move us. Three the Cheshire Cat, “Where should I scent families are available now go?” and he responded with, “That depends on where you want to end up.” Our goal is that Alice will provide women entrepreneurs with the resources and guidance to chart their own paths, and to not only believe in the impossible – but achieve it. Together we can change that stat today. Please tweet to #HelloAlice with more to come - Cancun Stroll, to tell every entrepreneur your Central Park and Einstein. oNotes is compatible with a best piece of advice so we can all variety of iPhone, iPad and iPod achieve the impossible.  devices. Android compaitibility is in https://blog.dell.com/en-us/ the works. The app also works with achieving-the-possible-with-alice// Spotify. 

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even fit us in your pocket with our FREE app (www.headspace.com/ headspace-meditation-app). On your mobile and tablet, you can listen to Headspace on the go and download sessions to use offline. On your computer, you can play any session, any time. Browse our collections and pick sessions to suit your mood and lifestyle. Choose your session length, replay your favourites and learn how to apply mindfulness to your everyday activities. Join over 5 million users already getting some Headspace. Map your journey, track your progress, and get rewards as you go. You can even buddy up with friends and motivate each other along the way. Subscribe (www.headspace.com/

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eadspace is your very own personal trainer, here to help you train your mind. You can

buy) to continue and unlock your full Headspace Journey. Unlimited access to hundreds of hours of content.  www.headspace.com Submitted by LaSandra Stratton, Chief Content Administrator of the Black Business News.

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

Community/Public Interest -Tribute to Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama Mural

By Andrea V. Watson Ed: BBN

he mural project, spearheaded by artist Chris Devins of Hyde Park, Chicago, IL, was completed recently on the southeast corner of 74th Street and Chappel Avenue in South Shore, Chiago. That's two blocks from the former first lady's childhood home at 7436 S. Euclid Ave. and across the street from Bouchet Elementary, which she attended when it was known as Bryn Mawr  Image School. created by The colorful mural portrays the former first Gelila Mesﬁn lady as an Egyptian queen — an image created by Ethiopian-born artist Gelila Mesfin, who posted a photo of the work to her Instagram Mural account, @Thick_East_African_Girl, in painted by November. Chris Devins Devins launched a GoFundMe campaign in November to create the mural on the outside of Bouchet school, but the mural was put on an apartment building instead. "The purpose of this mural is to give today's children someone they can literally look up to and to celebrate Mrs. Obama's life and accomplishments during the last 8 years as First Lady of the United States," the original GoFundMe stated.  www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170424/south-shore/michelleobama-mural-chris-devins-gelilamesﬁn 84  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Community/Public Interest - Scholarships

Beyoncé Announces Formation Scholars Program By Ariana Bacle

eyoncé is

celebrating the one-year anniversary of Lemonade, her award-winning visual album, by launching a scholarship program for young women. The singer made the announcement on her website Tuesday. The Formation Scholars program will kick off in time for the 2017-2018 academic year "to encourage and support young women who are unafraid to think outside the box and are bold, creative, conscious, and confident." Four scholarships total will be awarded to incoming, current, or graduate female students studying creative arts, music, literature, or African-American studies at Berklee College of Music, Howard University, Parsons School of

Design, and Spelman College. The announcement does not specify the scholarships' financial worth. Beyoncé has long been heralded for supporting and encouraging women with both her music and her actions outside of the industry. In 2013, she helped launch Gucci's Chime for Change, a campaign intended to empower young women. "I have always felt strongly about equal opportunity for women. Girls have to be taught from early on that they are strong and capable of being anything they want to be," she said at the time, Vogue (www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/beyonceknowles-salma-hayek-gucci-chimefor-change-campaign-frida-giannini)

reported. "It's up to us to change the statistics for women around the world. I'm honored to be in the company of women who live fearlessly and set an example for the next generation of young ladies." In 2015, that campaign partnered with Global Citizen for a long-term partnership "to convene, unite, and strengthen the voices speaking out for girls and women globally." Read more about it at www. globalcitizen.org/en/partners/ chime-for-change-founded-bygucci, and see Beyoncé's full Formation Scholars announcement at www.beyonce.com/formationscholars.  www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/ beyonc%c3%a9-announcesformation-scholars-program/arBBAmemm?ocid=spartanntp

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Community/Public Interest

Black Harvard Students Holding a Graduation of Their Own By Collin Binkley, Associated Press

lack students at Harvard University are organizing a graduation ceremony of their own this year to recognize the achievements of black students and faculty members some say have been overlooked. More than 700 students and guests are registered to attend Harvard's first Black Commencement, which will take place two days before the school's traditional graduation events. It isn't meant to replace the existing ceremony, student organizers say, but rather to add something that was missing. "We really wanted an opportunity to give voice to the voiceless at Harvard," said Michael Huggins, president of the Harvard Black Graduate Student Alliance, a campus group that is planning the ceremony. "So many students identify with the African diaspora but don't necessarily feel welcome as part of the larger community, and they don't feel like their stories are being shared." Harvard joins a growing number of universities that have added graduation events for students of different ethnicities. Some have offered black commencement ceremonies for years, including Stanford University, Marshall University and the University of Washington. Some have added them more recently, and are also adding events for a variety of

cultural groups. The May 23 event at Harvard will feature four student speakers discussing the hurdles they faced on the way to graduation. Every student will receive a stole made of traditional African kente cloth, meant to symbolize their shared heritage and to be worn with their cap and gown at the university's graduation. Students have raised $35,000 for the event, mostly from schools within the university. Organizers say some university deans and professors have agreed to attend. A Harvard spokesman declined to comment. "This event is truly open for everyone," said Huggins, who is graduating with a master's in public policy this month. "We really want this to be an open affair where people can learn about some experiences that often go unnoticed." Students at Harvard began an annual Latino graduation ceremony in 2015, and black undergraduates have held similar events. Students say the new event is the first that's open to black students across the university. The University of Delaware held its first ceremony for LGBT students this year, joining dozens of other colleges that have added such "lavender graduation" events in recent years. Along with its traditional

commencement, Virginia Commonwealth University last year added new ceremonies for black students, Latinos and military veterans. "They're small aﬀairs, but they're meaningful," said Michael Porter, a spokesman for the university. "It's really a social event, and one more time to get together as you wind down the college career." Cultural graduation events are typically started by students, experts say, and often by those who feel marginalized on their campuses. They can be particularly important for black students, many of whom are the ﬁrst in their families to graduate from college, said M. Evelyn Fields, president of the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education. "When you're a little speck of pepper in a sea of salt, you can get lost," said Fields, who is also a professor of early childhood education at South Carolina State University. "They don't want to just be lost in the sea. They want the recognition that they believe they deserve, for the work that they've done." Black students at Harvard represent 5% of the overall student body, compared with whites, who make up 43%, according to federal education data. Campus tensions at the Ivy League school have been heightened over the past two years

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© The Associated Press - In this April 27, 2017 photo, Maurice Cooley, right, Associate Vice President of Intercultural Aﬀairs at Marshall University, presents Demetrius Miller with his Kente cloth during Marshall's spring Donning of the Kente ceremony in Huntington, W. Va.

after a series of racially charged episodes. Harvard police called it a hate crime when framed portraits of several black law professors were defaced in 2015. No suspect was found. Months later, the law school agreed to abandon its oﬃcial coat of arms after student activists protested the symbol's ties to an

18th-centry slave owner. Organizers of the Black Commencement say it's partly meant to highlight racial disparities on campus. But ultimately it's a celebration of achievement, said Jillian Simons, a law student and president-elect of the Harvard Black Graduate Student Alliance. "We want to acknowledge how

far we've come," Simons said. "We want to say that there is a time to be jubilant and to acknowledge something that is positive instead of something that is causing heartache."  www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ black-harvard-students-holdinga-graduation-of-their-own/arBBBdK2N?ocid=spartandhp

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Community/Public Interest

Children’s Book Intends to Inspire Girls to Pursue STEM By Mikhail Klimentov

he tech industry has a gender diversity problem. A 19-year-old from Washington D.C. is pushing back with a new book. Sasha Ariel Alston began writing “Sasha Savvy Loves to Code,” a semiautobiographical story about a 10 year-old African American girl and her friends attending an all-girls coding camp. Her goal was to inspire young girls to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math, while teaching some programming basics as well. When Alston completed the book as a sophomore at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business, she brought it to Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com/projects/

sashaariel/sasha-tech-savvy-loves-to-code-stem-childrensbook) in an effort to raise $5,000 for “final production,

printing, and distribution costs.” There, the book found a wildly receptive audience: “Sasha Savvy Loves to Code” reached its $5,000 goal in four days, and raised $17,602 by the end of the campaign. Alston is still talking with publishers and there is no release date just yet. Even though the book garnered overwhelming support online, while writing, Alston kept it a secret from her friends. Alston considers herself a nerd, but the stigma surrounding coding makes her uncomfortable. “My

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friends knew that I was interested in coding and they would call me a nerd. They would say a lot of mean stuff,” she said. “My friends didn’t know about the book until I announced it because I didn’t want them to know or say anything about it.” Part of the problem is a self-sustaining cycle. According to portrayals in popular media, Alston said, “you have to be a white male or boy, and have glasses.” These stereotypes, in turn, can drive girls away from STEM, making the tech industry even more homogenous. Alston hopes to remedy this trend, at least in part, with her new book. Alston first became interested in coding in the 11th grade, with an internship at Microsoft. The experience exposed her to a wider range of applications of coding that weren’t being taught in the classroom. It also exposed her to the realities of diversity and representation in tech. “With all of my internships, I noticed that I was either the only girl or only African American,” Alston said. “My school was mostly African American so I didn’t really know how to interact with anybody else. … Going into the spaces at the beginning felt very challenging and difficult to me.” Alston was inspired to write the book by an important woman in her life—her mom, or as she calls her on Kickstarter, her “MOManager.” During a radio interview during her senior year of high school, Alston was asked to explain coding. Her mother Tracy Chiles McGhee, an author herself, thought Alston’s

answer was particularly clear, and urged her daughter to write a children’s book. Since then, McGhee has acted as Sasha’s project manager: the two brainstorm together, and despite a nine-to-five job, McGhee helped organize the book-writing process, managing spreadsheets which tracked everything from agents to deadlines. Other women were also instrumental to the process. A librarian, a school teacher, and two other writers— all mothers—gave their feedback and helped edit the book. “They were able to say ‘my child would probably do this, or my student would probably do that’,” Alston said. Feedback from parents was especially useful, given that Alston learned programming as a teenager and wasn’t sure which ideas younger readers might have trouble with. The tech industry can be isolating, Alston said, “Even with me in [tech], I still don’t feel necessarily comfortable, because I don’t really think I have anybody that I can truly relate to.” In this sense, Alston and her book are models for the next generation of girls, showing that they can be interested in tech without stigma, that they too can love to code. www.therenewalproject.com/shes-a-19-year-oldblack-woman-who-loves-to-code-so-she-wrote-abook-about

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

Community/Public Interest

Lawsuit: Law Ofﬁcers Unfair to Blacks in Mississippi County By Mikhail Klimentov

aw enforcement officers in one majority-white Mississippi county are unfairly targeting black people for traffic stops and searches of homes and property without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, a civil rights group claims in a new federal lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi (www.aclums.org) on Monday sued the sheriff's department in the Jackson suburb of Madison County. The suit seeks a court order against what it calls

lawsuit says Tucker has continued longstanding policies, including warrantless searches of black residents' homes and seizure of their property, vehicle roadblocks that target black people and "jump out" patrols by plainclothes deputies that target black people for searches. Madison County is 58% white and 38% black, roughly the same as Mississippi. Plaintiﬀs Khadafy and Quinnetta Manning are a married couple who

"a coordinated top-down program" that creates unequal treatment of black and white people. It also seeks a civilian board to review complaints against the department. Sheriﬀ Randy Tucker would not immediately comment Monday because he had not seen the lawsuit, spokesman Heath Hall said. Tucker, who is white, took oﬃce in 2012. ACLU Mississippi executive director Jennifer Riley-Collins said problems in Madison County have existed for generations. The

live in Canton, the seat of Madison County government. The lawsuit says that in the early morning of June 26, 2016, six deputies "stormed" into their home and demanded that the couple sign false statements saying they had witnessed a crime in their neighborhood that they did not see. During a news conference Monday at the ACLU oﬃce in Jackson, Quinnetta Manning, 29, said deputies handcuﬀed and beat her 35-year-old husband, who uses a cane because of a nerve condition.

She said one of the officers called her husband "Mr. Cripple." She said one deputy threatened to arrest and jail them if they didn't write a false witness statement against another black person. "I was terrified," Quinnetta Manning said. "I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what would happen to my children or I, so I agreed to write the statement." She said her husband was dragged out of the house, down some stairs, and was put into a patrol car and beaten until he wrote a false witness statement. "I am scared all the time that the sheriff's department will hurt me or family," Quinnetta Manning said. "I feel unsafe in my own home." Another plaintiff, 27-year-old Steven Smith of Canton, said that in January, he and a friend were walking near the mostly black housing complex where they live, and they were stopped by deputies. "I should be able to walk home without being harassed by the police," Smith said Monday. Smith, who works as a restaurant cook, said he was jailed after a deputy ran a background check on him and found he owed an unpaid fine to the county. "I should feel protected, but I don't feel protected, and I don't trust them," Smith said. "It's not a crime to be black, and I shouldn't be targeted just because of the color of my skin." Paloma Wu, legal director for the ACLU of Mississippi, said research for the lawsuit started months ago. She said dozens of people were interviewed, and the ACLU filed numerous public records requests with the sheriff's department.  www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ lawsuit-law-officers-unfair-toblacks-in-mississippi-county/arBBAT3Bh?ocid=spartandhp

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Community/Public Interest - Obituary

Christopher ‘Big Black’ Boykin, ‘Rob & Big’ Star, Dies at 45 By Alex Stedman

hristopher “Big Black” Boykin, half of MTV’s “Rob & Big” duo, died on Tuesday, his rep conﬁrmed to Variety. He was 45. Boykin was skateboarder and entrepreneur Rob Dyrdek’s best friend and bodyguard, starring alongside him in “Rob & Big” for three seasons. The reality series showed the two in their day-to-day lives, ﬁlming such adventures as the duo adopting a mini-horse and breaking Guinness world records.

The show premiered in 2006 and ended in 2008, after Boykin had a child and stopped living with Dyrdek. He would go on to appear in several episodes of Dyrdek’s follow-up to “Rob & Big,” “Fantasy Factory,” as well as three episodes of Dyrdek’s other MTV show, “Ridiculousness.” Before he was on television, Boykin served in the U.S. Navy. He also started a clothing line named after his catchphrase, “Do work,” in 2007. Boykin last tweeted just a day

before his death, on Monday. Chanel West Coast, who appeared with Boykin on “Fantasy Factory” and “Ridiculous,” tweeted after news broke, “RIP @BigBlack. My heart is crushed. I’ll remember all the times you made me laugh and my prayers go out to your family.”  www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/ christopher-%E2%80%98bigblack%E2%80%99-boykin%E2%80%98rob-andbig%E2%80%99-star-dies-at-45/ar-BB AXi0b?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

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

Community/Public Interest - Obituary

Seahawks Hall of Famer Cortez Kennedy has Died By Colin Liotta

he NFL world lost a legend recentlyy, as Seattle Seahawks Hall of Fame defensive tackle Cortez Kennedy was found dead in Orlando Tuesday morning at the age of 48. In 11 years with the Seahawks, Kennedy accumulated 58 sacks, including a career-high 14 in 1992. USA TODAY Sports has confirmed the story first reported by TMZ.

Orlando Police spokeswoman Wanda Miglio told USA TODAY Sports there is "nothing suspicious" about Kennedy's death, but the department is conducting an investigation. Miglio said Kennedy was "unattended" when he died. The cause of death has not yet been announced, but that hasn't stopped Twitter from reacting to the sad news www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/twitter-reacts-to-the-death-of-seahawkshall-of-famer-cortez-kennedy/ar-BBBsJGn?li=BBgET5V&ocid=spartandhp

94  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

HOSTED BUYER EVENT: MICE EAST AFRICA FORUM & EXPO – HOSTED BUYER PROGRAMME INFORMATION RELEASED -June 7-10, 2017 ‘WELCOME HOME’ – ETHIOPIAS WARM WELCOME TO INTERNATIONAL MICE BUYERS. Are you interested in new destinations? Have you ever thought about East Africa? Then you should apply to visit MICE East Africa Forum & Expo as a hosted buyer! Africa’s largest airline – Ethiopian Airlines - connects Addis Ababa efficiently to all major hubs in the world and to a wealth of African destinations. Of course there are many other airlines covering the destination too! On 7 June 2017 international hosted buyers will participate in a site inspection programme in Addis Ababa including the United Nations Conference Centre Addis Ababa, Hotel Sheraton Addis, Golden Tulip Addis Ababa Hotel, and Radisson Blu Hotel Addis Ababa. I have seen these facilities and I am delighted to note that you will find them more than suitable for your events. In the evening of 7 June 2017, a welcome reception & dinner hosted by the Minister of Tourism will be held at the beautiful Hotel Sheraton Addis. From 8-10 June 2017 MICE East Africa Forum & Expo will again open its doors to the international buyer at Millennium Hall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. With the Exhibition Space in high demand and exhibitors preparing for the event, the strategic partnership between Ozzie Hospitality Business Management and the MIDROC Technology Group companies, Rainbow Exclusive Car Rental & Tour Service and TNA – Trans Nation Airways, was signed on April 12, 2017. With the signature, the parties announced that Rainbow and TNA will be in charge of the Post Programme for Hosted buyers happening on June 11-12. International Hosted Buyers will have the chance to experience the Southern Region of Ethiopia; the city of Hawassa and its facilities, and the regions’ hotels and providers catering for business event groups. Post Programme Hosted Buyers will return home from the evening of 12 June 2017 or continue with their own agenda. Go to www.miceeastafrica.com for your hosted buyer application. 

7th Annual Pan African Global Trade and Investment Conference Our 2017 Conference Theme: Rebuilding Our Sankofa Village Through Entrepreneurship & Cooperative Economics When: September 15 - 17, 2017 Where: Carson Community Center, 801 E. Carson Blvd., Carson California Our focus for 2017 will be building local economies by providing local small business owners and entrepreneurs with information and resources needed to improve and sustain their business activities. We will also feature new and existing community based businesses that provide needed products, services and employment opportunities for local community residents. To Register, RSVP or get more Information: www.panafricanglobaltradeconference.com.

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

HOSTED BUYER EVENT: MICE WEST AFRICA – WELCOME TO THE EMERGING WEST AFRICAN REGION 23-25 November 2017, Accra, Ghana

WEST AFRICA

I am very happy to inform you that MICE West Africa celebrates its inaugural event November 23 to 25 in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. The organizing Street of Gold Foundation (SOG), founded by Mr. Royal Panford who acts as its CEO, cooperates closely with the nation's Ghana Tourism Authority to develop the common understanding of the importance of the meetings industry inside the country, and offers the platform for the nations – but also for the regions’ providers to connect with the international buyers. But the SOG is working far beyond the normal organizational efforts to create the much-needed platform for exhibitors and buyers. SOG also assists the visitor through connecting them to the appropriate organizations and associations to ensure that groups to Ghana experience the country at its best and enjoy incredible value for money. Oh – and one word about Ghana: Should you think about the Ebola disease outbreak. Ghana did not have a single case. This information has been published by the WHO and the US CDC – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Interested? Let’s meet in Accra! Apply to the MICE West Africa hosted buyer programme to connect with local suppliers and to site-inspect the destination during the post-event Site Inspection Programme. Find details on www.micewestafrica.com. 

AFRICA DAY, MAY 25TH

‘Harnessing the Demographic Dividend Through Investments in Youth’ The Africa Day (#AfricaDay) traces its roots to some of the continent’s heroic and visionary leaders; Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and Sékou Touré of Guinea. These leaders were on the front line of freeing their respective countries from the exploitative grasp of the European colonial masters. These leaders together with their counterparts from 17 other African countries that had fought for their independence by 1958 came together and formed the African Liberation Day. The day was meant to commemorate the independence of African nations from the colonial masters. That set the stage for the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) on May of 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 21 other African countries have since joined the organization. In 2001, the organization was renamed to the African Union (AU). The AU sets the theme for the Africa Day. 99  May 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

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

International

USTDA Connects U.S. Energy Industry to Opportunities in Nigeria and Kenya

CJoseph Adebiyi, Director, CESEL (left); Dr. Patrick Tolani of CESEL (center); John Bray, U.S. Consul General of Lagos (right)

NIGERIA

he U.S. Trade and Development Agency awarded a grant to the Nigerian company, Community Social Enterprises Limited (CESEL), for a feasibility study supporting the roll-out of 25 solar photovoltaic microgrids across Nigeria. Together, the microgrids will produce more than 5 megawatts. This project will help Nigeria to capitalize on its tremendous solar energy potential by scaling up the deployment of oﬀ-grid generation and minigrid systems, ultimately increasing access to electricity. The

study will focus on providing solar energy for rural and peri-urban communities that generally lack reliable access to electricity. The microgrid systems will operate on a “pay-as-you-go” structure using mobile payments, with production and consumption monitored on a real-time basis. This structure ensure payment and sustainability, as well as provide consistent, reliable power at a lower price than diesel generators. CESEL selected the U.S. ﬁrm, Renewvia Energy Corporation (Atlanta, GA), to conduct the feasibility study. The project presents opportunities for U.S.

businesses to make sales in solar PV modules, batteries, electrical equipment, control systems and meters across Nigeria. “We are proud to connect CESEL with a leading U.S. company on this important project to expand energy access in Nigeria,” said Lida Fitts, USTDA’s Regional Director for SubSaharan Africa. “We’re delighted to be selected as technical services partner for this project with CESEL,” said Trey Jarrard, CEO of Renewvia. “We look forward to continuing development of solar microgrids in Sub Saharan Africa, and we’re excited to play such an important role in helping to

102  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Robert F. Godec, signs the grants on behalf of USTDA, along with Xago Managing Director, Paul W. Webb.

advance Nigeria’s support for oﬀgrid power.” The grant was signed by the U.S. Consul General of Lagos John Bray and Dr. Patrick Tolani of CESEL. This project advances the goals of Power Africa.

KENYA

STDA is partnering with Kenyan company, Xago Africa Limited, on developing a utility scale solar photovoltaic power plant with battery storage in Siaya County, Kenya. North Carolina-based Alevo USA, Inc., a battery storage technology manufacturer will provide technology and analytics services for the project. The plant will be among the ﬁrst utility-scale battery storage installations in SubSaharan Africa. “Energy storage will transform transmission networks,” said Paul W. Webb, Xago Managing Director. “It will rapidly accelerate the take-

up of renewables, and we are proud to be partnering Alevo, which leads the field in battery technology and network analytics.” USTDA signed an additional grant with the Kenya Electricity Generating Company Limited (KenGen) for a study assessing the use of U.S. technology solutions to increase energy efficiency and power production. Nevada-based energy equipment manufacturer, Langson Energy, Inc., is conducting the study in partnership with KenGen. “USTDA is pleased to facilitate new business partnerships between U.S. and Kenyan companies that can spur long-term, sustainable economic growth,” said Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Director Lida Fitts. “The adoption of innovative and cost-effective U.S. technology can help Kenya to meet its energy development goals.” U.S. Ambassador to Kenya, Robert F. Godec, signed the grants on behalf of USTDA, at a ceremony

in Nairobi, Kenya, along with Eng. Albert Mugo, KenGen MD & CEO, and Xago Managing Director, Paul W. Webb.

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 planning activities, pilot projects, and reverse trade missions while creating sustainable infrastructure and economic growth in partner countries.  www.ustda.gov/news/pressreleases/2017/ustda-connectsus-energy-industry-opportunitiesnigeria www.ustda.gov/news/pressreleases/2017/ustda-supports-usand-kenyan-business-partnershipspower-sector

103  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

International

Investors Urged to Support Forest and Landscape Restoration By Emmanuel Ntirenganya businessmen, b a n k representatives, public officials, and representatives of agribusiness cooperatives from Ethiopia, Tigray region, Kola District. As part of the Africa. World Bank funded Sustainable Land Management The meeting Program, the whole community, men as well as focused on women, work relentlessly to prevent erosion and land s h o w c a s i n g degradation by planting local species of trees. b u s i n e s s opportunities in forest and landscapes, including nvesting in forest and landscape restoration as well as ensuring those in agroforestry and forestry their sustainability will improve value chains (wood and non-wood livelihoods of African people, forest products), such as coffee, tea, timber, macadamia, silk, and experts have said. Speaking at a two-day Forest cassava; creating a marketplace and Landscape Investment for effective forest and landscape Forum in Kigali, recently, the project design and increased experts called for investments to investment opportunities. Mamadou Moussa Diakhité, team make green cover of more than 100 Leader for sustainable land and million hectares of degraded forests water management programme and land on the continent. The forum is in line with the at New Partnership for African Sustainable Development Goal Development, said about three (SDG) 15 – that calls for halting million hectares of land and forest and reversing land and natural cover are degraded in Africa habitat degradation; and the Bonn annually. He said restoring land and forest Challenge – to restore 350 million hectares of the world’s deforested in Africa has multiple benefits, including economic value, combat and degraded land by 2030. According to speakers at the desertification and drought and forum, this commitment will negative impact of climate change improve the quality and resilience and loss of biodiversity. The Minister for Natural of ecosystems, improve livelihoods, Resources, Dr. Vincent Biruta, secure water and energy supply and support low carbon economic said the forum will promote a broad spectrum of investments in forests development. Under the theme, “Unleashing and landscapes for environmental, and financial business opportunities for socio-economic returns. sustainable landscapes,” the Diakhité told The New Times forum convened more than 250

that there is estimated $1.5 billion pledged in funding AFR100 Initiative, a country-led effort to restore 100 million hectares of degraded landscapes across Africa by 2030. He said the World Bank has pledged $500 million funding for landscape restoration in Africa in the next 10 years. Minister Biruta said the ambitious restoration goals set by the global development agenda requires large investments. Going by a recent analysis by FAO and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Biruta said, between $36 and $49 billion of investments is needed every year to achieve these goals. But investments in forests and landscapes are unevenly distributed because most are made in Latin America and only one per cent is in Africa, he added. “The main barrier is not the lack of investors but rather the lack of knowledge of stakeholders on the variety of financing opportunities and on how to access them,” Biruta said. “Rwanda pledged to restore two million hectares at the Bonn challenge. Together with other ministers and government officials representing 13 African countries, adopted Kigali declaration reaffirming and increasing their commitment to the Bonn Challenge,” he said.  http://africanleadership.co.uk/ investors-urged-to-support-forestand-landscape-restoration/

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

konya

gi.co.t z

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

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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 109  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Skin Care for You om Smokey Robinson www.skinphonic.com

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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! e collection is comprised of a Strapless Convertible Bra, Short and ong 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. e perfect addition to any out t when you want to shine! We hope you enjoy our new collection, because ‘Shine Never Goes Out of Style.’ www.nubianskin.com/global

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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 116  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

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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.

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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

119  May 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

120  May 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

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

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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. 125  May 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.

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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

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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

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MICHELE FOODS, INC. 1-708-331-7316 www.michelefoods.com

133  May 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.

135  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

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

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

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136  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Books to Consider

Books to Consider...

Black Privilege:

honesty at all costs, Charlamagne hopes this book will give others the confidence to live their own truths.  https://www.amazon.com/Black-Privilege-OpportunityComes-Create/dp/1501145304

David Adjaye:

Opportunity Comes to Those Who Create It

Constructed Narratives

by Charlamagne Tha God

Edited by Peter Allison

harlamagne Tha God—the self-proclaimed “Prince of Pissing People Oﬀ,” co-host of Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, and “hip-hop’s Howard Stern”—shares his unlikely success story as well as how embracing one’s truths is a fundamental key to success and happiness. In his new book, Charlamagne Tha God presents his comic, often controversial, and always brutally honest insights on how living an authentic life is the quickest path to success. Beginning with his journey from the small town of Moncks Corner, South Carolina to his headline

grabbing interviews with celebrities like Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, and Hillary Clinton, he shares how he turned his troubled early life around by owning his (many) mistakes and refusing to give up on his dreams, even after his controversial opinions got him fired from several on-air jobs. Charlamagne Tha God Combining his own story with bold advice and his signature commitment to

onstructed Narratives brings together essays and several recently completed buildings by David Adjaye, in the United States and elsewhere. In the essays, Adjaye shows how his approach to the design of temporary pavilions and furniture, private houses, and installations at the 2015 Venice Biennale feeds into his designs for public buildings. Other essays discuss his engagement with geography, the urban environment, his approach to materiality, and architectural types. The presented projects include two public libraries and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, all in Washington D.C., a residential mixed-use building in New York, and a hybrid art-retail building in Beirut, as well as two current projects  https://aabookshop.net/?wpsc-product=david-adjayeconstructed-narratives

Adjaye: Africa: Architecture: Compact Edition

by David Adjaye (Author), Peter

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

Allison (Author)

complete overview of architecture in ﬁftythree African cities, seen through the eyes and images of one of the world’s leading young architects Educated in England, David Adjaye’s lifelong dream was to return to Africa as an architect to document the continent’s built environment. Over a decade, he tirelessly documented these dynamic, colorful cities, photographing thousands of buildings, sites, and public spaces, and letting each building speak for itself. The result was a stunning seven-volume work that has become an essential resource for all those interested in the burgeoning continent. The fifty-three cities featured in this remarkable study are grouped according to the terrain in which they are set: the Maghreb (north Africa); Desert; Sahel (the semi-arid transitional region between the Sahara and the south); Forest; Savannah and Grassland; and Mountain and Highveld. Each metropolis is illuminated by a concise urban history, maps, and satellite imagery, along with the dozens of photographs Adjaye has taken with an architect’s eye. This compact edition selects the highlights from over 4,000 buildings and places captured for the initial seven-volume work. The result is one of the most original, ambitious, and important architectural publications of our time. 700+ photographs in color.  https://www.amazon.com/Adjaye-Africa-ArchitectureCompact-David/dp/0500343160/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid= 1493184039&sr=8-2&keywords=david+adjaye

Txt Me: Your Phone Has

Changed Your Life. Let’s Talk about It.

David Adjaye

by B. Bonin Bough obile devices have become staples of daily life, and our nonstop use of them has changed society . . .

forever. In Txt Me, B. Bonin Bough, one of the world's leaders in digital marketing, explores the exciting impact and future implications of mobile devices and digital communication on individuals, companies, and society. Including insights from the minds behind Coca-Cola, Conde Nast, NASCAR, and Twitter, Bough breaks down the often counterintuitive ways mobile devices and digital data are reshaping the way we experience, consume, and think, including: • Why consumers now have more control of their shopping and spending • How mobile phones have actually "rescued" language • Why parents—not kids—should put down their phones • How our relationship with politicians has evolved— and improved • Why cell phones have improved our interaction with our surroundings—not hindered it

139  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Books to Consider • How mobile devices are enabling us to better monitor, and enhance, our personal health Txt Me is a fascinating, funny, entertaining exploration of how our mobile society is changing the way we are behaving, reacting, thinking, learning, parenting, dating, having sex, eating, worshiping, exercising, and buying. It will challenge, surprise, provoke, and inspire you. Yes, the number on the cover is real. B. Bonin Text B. Bonin Bough Bough at (646759-1837) with your answers to any of the questions called out throughout the book. He will text back with his thoughts. Just remember to include the hashtag of the question you’re answering in each text! Participating in the Txt Me experience may unlock exclusive deals and special offers. As your contribution is most important, please keep in mind that standard carrier rates regarding SMS or data may apply, and you can opt out whenever you wish by texting “Stop.”  www.amazon.com/Txt-Me-Phone-Changed-Life/ dp/1942952376

The Little Black Book of Success:

Laws of Leadership for Black Women by Elaine Meryl Brown, Marsha Haygood, Rhonda Joy McLean

n this engaging and invaluable “mentor in your pocket,” three dynamic and successful black female executives share their strategies to help all black

women, at any level of their careers, play the power game—and win. Rich with wisdom, this practical gem focuses on the building blocks of true leadership—selfconfidence, effective communication, collaboration, and c o u r a g e — w h i l e dealing specifically with stereotypes (avoid the Mammy Trap, and don’t become the Angry Black Woman) and the perils of self-victimization (don’t assume that every challenge occurs because you are black or female). Some leaders are born, but most leaders are made— and The Little Black Book of Success will show you how to make it to the top, one step at a time.  www.amazon.com/Little-Black-Book-SuccessLeadership/dp/0345518489

Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison

to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women

by Susan Burton & Cari Lynn

usan Burton’s world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine, then crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over fifteen years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction. On her own, she eventually found a private drug rehabilitation facility. Once clean, Susan

140  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

dedicated her life to supporting women facing similar struggles. Her organization, A New Way of Life, operates five safe homes in Los Angeles that supply a lifeline to hundreds of formerly incarcerated women and their children—setting them on the track to education and employment rather than returns to prison. Becoming Ms. Burton not only humanizes the deleterious impact of mass incarceration, it also points the way to the kind of structural and policy changes that will offer formerly incarcerated people the possibility of a life of meaning and dignity.  http://thenewpress.com/books/becoming-ms-burton www.thenation.com/article/what-i-learned-from-susanburton-a-modern-day-harriet-tubman/

Augustown: A Novel

by Kei Miller pril 11, 1982: a smell is coming down John Golding Road right alongside the boy-child, something attached to him, like a spirit but not quite. Ma Taffy is growing worried. She knows that something is going to happen. Something terrible is going to pour out into the world. But if she can hold it off for just a little bit longer, she will. So she asks a question that surprises herself even as she asks it, "Kaia, I ever tell you bout the flying preacherman?" Set in the backlands

Kei Miller of Jamaica, Augustown is a magical and haunting novel of one woman’s struggle to rise above the brutal vicissitudes of history, race, class, collective memory, violence, and myth.  www.amazon.com/Augustown-Novel-Kei-Miller/ dp/110187161X/ref=la_B001JP804S_1_1?s=books&i e=UTF8&qid=1495203545&sr=1-1

Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success

by Chika Onyeani r. Onyeani’s prevailing treatise is “Economic autonomy" – cooperative ideologies inherent in other ethnic groups that is missing within the Black Race, breeds endemic dependency. Until every individual within the African diaspora recognizes and heeds Dr. Onyeani’s counsel, the Black race will continue to be

marginalized and victimized. Dr. Sam Chekwas, Publisher.  www.amazon.com/ Capitalist-Nigger-ChikaOnyeani/dp/0967846099

141  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819

Tuesday, Jun 20,, 201 7 BBA Salute to Black Music

Taking place at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, Downtown Los Angeles. 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. 

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Media/Information Africa Interactive Multimedia Press/Content Agency in Africa -- www.africa-interactive.com Africa is a Country -- www.africasacountry.com Africa News & Stories -- http://africatodaytv.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 How Africa, The Rise of Africa -- http://howafrica.com 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

-- www.blackemergmanagersassociation.org CauseCast -- www.causecast.com www.causecastfornonproﬁts.com Community Healing Network -- www. communityhealingnet.org 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

Organizations African Leadership Forum -- http://afrialeadership.org African Union -- www.au.int/en Black Business Association -- www.bbala.org Black Emergency Managers Association International 143  May 2017  Black Business News  www.blackbbusinessnews.net  1-323-291-7819