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KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS NASCAR: RACING BY BARRIERS BENJAMIN CRUMP: THE VOICE OF JUSTICE RICK WADE: VP OF U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE DR. MICHAEL SORRELL: I AM THEIR FATHER TOO CHADWICK BOSEMAN TRIBUTE

Uncharted TERRITORY

HBCUs:

2020 Fall

WH AT’S INSIDE

C ONTE NTS

NASCA R : R A CI N G B Y B A R R I ER S

H B CU s : U N CHA RTER ED TER R I TORY

B E N JA M I N CR U M P: THE VOI CE OF SOCI A L JU STI CE

R I C K WA DE: STR ATEGI CA L A LLI A N CES WI TH HB CU s

I AM THEI R FATHER TOO

F O C U SI N G ON WHAT HB CU s DO B EST I N THE A GE OF C O VID-19

NAIDA R U THER F OR D: TR I PLE GLA SS CEI LI N G SHATTERE R

L E SLI E F OSTER : B U I LDI N G ON HOWA R D U N I VER SI TY’S LE G AC Y OF PR ODU CI N G EX CEPTI ON A L JOU R N A LI STS

C O VER STORY MAYOR K EI SHA LA N CE B OTTOM S: TR A N SF OR M ATI ON A L LEA DER

UN CF F EATU R E

T M CF F EATU R E

T H E HER I TA GE F OU N DATI ON

D R . DEE B ELL WI LLI A M S

C O VI D- 1 9 CA M PU S CLOSU R ES F OR HB CU s COU LD DEE P E N F I N A N CI A L HA R DSHI PS

S E R VA N T LEA DER SHI P, CR I SI S M A N A GEM EN T A N D POST PA N DEM I C R EA LI TI ES

C H ADWI CK B OSEM A N TR I B U TE

P O WER A LU M N I R EN ÉE HU TCHI N S F R EDN ESHA J. SA N DER S JESU LON GI B B S- B R OWN R A N SOM M I LLER , I I I

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RICK WADE:

STRATEGICAL ALLIANCES WITH HBCUs BY ERICKA BLOUNT DANOIS Growing up in Lancaster, South Carolina, Rick Wade’s faith was the cornerstone of his value system. Growing up in the early 1960s he got his first taste of racial discrimination when he ran for Vice President of the student body in high school in 1979. “I had to run as ‘Vice President black’ on the student ballot against the candidate ‘Vice President white,’” he remembers. As a child he remembers the “Colored Only” signs and having to go to the balcony in the segregated movie theater. He would be chastised by his mother and secretaries when he went to play on the “Whites Only” side in dentists and doctors offices. Still, he didn’t find it to be a huge transition making the leap from segregated schools early on in his childhood to integrated schools in middle school. Growing up in a poor section of Lancaster, his neighborhood was integrated with white children that he played with. “Our commonality was that we were poor,” he said. When he started in integrated schools in middle school, he didn’t recall any negative experiences. “The white teachers supported me, they saw something in me,” he recalls. “It was the system of society, societal laws, that was the problem.”

After running for “Vice President black” the next year in high school he ran for president. This time he ran as just “President” and won, even with a predominantly white student body. It would be the catalyst that would propel him into a lifetime of leadership. He started his political career as a page in the House of Representatives in South Carolina when he was an undergraduate student at the University of South Carolina. After graduating from college, he went back to his alma mater at the University of South Carolina to work in the admissions office and the president’s office. He would go on to be the chief of staff for the Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina and the South Carolina State Director of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services. He went back to school, now committed to a life of service, this time to Harvard University for a master’s in public administration. This led him to Washington, D.C. as the interim Secretary of Commerce for the Obama administration. He would eventually become a representative for the U.S. Department of Commerce on the task force for HBCUs, focusing on how the administration could engage HBCUs around issues of business, entrepreneurship, innovation and international trade. In a post-COVID-19 world, Wade thinks that both the private sector and HBCUs will benefit from partnering with each other.

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“Most of the 2.6 million black businesses in this country are sole proprietorship with one or two employees and in the service industry - retail, barbershops, food, beauty salons,” he said. “COVID will disproportionately devastate them.”

Five years ago, the foundation of leadership and the values he connected with his faith were shaken when Dylann Roof stepped inside Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, to murder parishioners and pastors in cold blood.

For black businesses to survive and thrive post-COVID, entrepreneurs have to plan for the short and long term, he says.

“It rocked my whole foundation and opened up these wounds from the past,” said Wade. “I couldn’t understand of all places, the idea that someone would shoot people that were just gathered to pray, on this racist manifesto that black people had done something bad to white people.”

“Brick and mortar is not as significant now that we use technology to reach out to customers,” said Wade. “What are the industries that will emerge from COVID-19 – health, access to healthcare. How can we create companies that deal with the vast disparities in healthcare – heart disease, cardiovascular disease? How can we solve these problems?” Wade has ideas around partnerships that have existed for centuries in the black community. Having barbers and churches – trusted partners in the black community – work in tandem and in proximity - to state agencies, social services, prescription services. In terms of access to care, some HBCUs have already begun those partnerships. Howard University Hospital, for instance, is expanding into Southeast Washington, D.C. to make sure vulnerable communities have access to quality healthcare. The city offered $300 million to build the new hospital campus.

For him he resolved to fight harder after bearing witness to this depravity. “We have so much work to do in our country if we are going to get to a place of racial equality. Racism undermines our ability to be whole as a country,” said Wade. In Wade’s role now as the Vice President of Strategic Alliance and Outreach at the Chamber of Commerce he is representing the voice of business owners on Capitol Hill and in Congress and working to have an inclusive economy of business.

Wade’s ideas all go back to mining talent at HBCUs.

His first initiative was to capitalize on the proximity Howard University had to the Chamber of Commerce. He created NextGen business partnership, an internship program that exposed Howard students to new careers and has now expanded to other HBCUs to include a faculty fellowship program.

“HBCUs are so critical as the largest pipeline for nurses, doctors – people that can practice medicine in a culturally sensitive way,” said Wade.

“We need HBCUs now more than ever,” Wade said. “But we have to rethink things to make sure that the work we’re doing is aligned with the challenges that exist in the 21st century.”

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