SHOPPE BLACK

Why Black Banks Need Policy Support, Not Just Deposits

16 mins read

Few institutions are as strongly connected to black communities as historically black banks. Where others see neighborhoods that are too risky or, conversely, only targets for predatory lending, they see differently.

Joseph Haskins, CEO of The Harbor Bank of Maryland, tells of a black entrepreneur from an inner-city neighborhood who came needing a loan to get started working on a new contract for his storage and junk removal business. The loan would allow him to hire another 15 people on top of the 25 he already employed. Interested in the impact of such a loan, Haskins asked about who those 15 people would be.

“He has no problem finding people in the inner city because they know each other,” Haskins, who co-founded Harbor Bank 35 years ago, adds. “He’s not holding an incarceration against them, or counting them out because they didn’t finish high school. He said, ‘If I can get this money, it’ll allow me to do this contract, and you can come up and see who I’ll hire.’”

Historically black banks have had a strong role in black communities. Their loans often finance projects that other banks wouldn’t take on, and at fairer interest rates.

And yet partnering with or addressing the top priorities of historically black banks hardly registers a blip on policymakers’ radar screens. At best, banks that serve black communities have been left to fend for themselves, while public policies provided an extra boost to banks serving exclusively white communities. At worst, policymakers from both parties have held up historically black banks as a way of distracting from structural changes necessary to address the racial wealth gap in the United States.

That history of black banks is now more accessible than ever before, contained in the pages of The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap, by author and law professor Mehrsa Baradaran.

“I want to attack this myth about small banking in general, that poor, marginalized communities can overcome systemic macro-economic problems through small banks or community banks,” Baradaran says. “If we’re trying to close the wealth gap, we have to do it the way that everyone else has been able to gain wealth,” referring to the long history of government working hand-in-hand with private banks to create widespread wealth—but only for white households.

As Bardaran’s book shows, banks that focus on lending to black households have never gotten the policy support needed to create wealth.

A bank instead of 40 acres

Offering up a bank as a distraction or a consolation prize in lieu of structural change was there at the very beginning of black banking in the United States.

As told in Baradaran’s book, General William Tecumseh Sherman had confiscated some 400,000 acres of land in the South during the Civil War, and the U.S. government was prepared to hand it over to ex-slaves as a place for them to live free of white control. After President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the plan was called off, and all that was left was Freedman’s Savings Bank, the first historically black bank and the only savings bank ever created by an act of Congress. As the book notes, the bank’s intention was to allow ex-slaves to save up their new wages to buy the land that Sherman had promised them. Instead, ex-slaves soon ran into the policies of Jim Crow that denied them the means to make the purchase. In the end, all they got was the bank.

A century later, after the Civil Rights Movement achieved a string of key policy victories including the Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, and Fair Housing Act, President Richard Nixon “threw his weight behind black banking so that he could oppose controversial desegregation programs and woo white moderates and conservatives unwilling to push further on racial reforms,” Baradaran writes. So politically successful was Nixon’s platform of “black capitalism,” Baradaran writes, that every administration since Nixon’s has adopted it in one form or another, including current or former members of the current administration. From Reagan, to Carter, to both Bushes, to Clinton, to Obama, Baradaran shows how each administration has said a lot about the importance of black-owned business and black-banks, while mostly ignoring the structural changes and policy shifts needed to actually create wealth in black communities. The pattern has continued for members of the Trump administration.

“When Steve Bannon is pushing black businesses, you’ve got to wonder,” says Baradaran. “It’s surprising to some, but not if you understand the history.”

There are positive lessons to learn from history, too—like the power of policy to work with the banking system to create wealth for an entire generation of people at a time. Between 1934 and 1968, Baradaran writes, mortgage insurance from the Federal Housing Administration and an accompanying Veterans Administration program opened a spigot of mortgage lending, resulting in millions of mortgage loans on mass-produced homes in ready-made communities across the country. “If you could save a few thousand dollars, you could buy a house, build wealth, and become middle class,” Baradaran writes.

But those loans were only available to white households. The Federal Housing Administration’s rules also contained a number of restrictions that made it essentially impossible to offer those mortgages to people or neighborhoods of color. As Baradaran notes in her book, from 1934-1968, 98 percent of federally insured home mortgages went to white households—the practice that became known as redlining. Those homebuyers left behind black households in inner city neighborhoods that began to decay. Meanwhile, because they focused on lending to black households, historically black banks never got the same boost that other banks got.

“The Federal Housing Administration did more to shape American life than any other government agency during the New Deal,” Baradaran writes. “It is also unparalleled in the injustice its policies wrought on the black population.”

What can policy do for black banks today?

Campaigns to move money to black banks are helpful, in Baradaran’s view, but they are far from sufficient to address the racial wealth gap. In the most recent Federal Reserve estimates, the median net worth of white households is $171,000, while median net worth for black households is $17,600.

Others agree. “I always start by raising the question as to whether or not the racial wealth gap can be closed by autonomous actions by black Americans,” says William “Sandy” Darity Jr., principal investigator for the National Asset Scorecard for Communities of Color project, based at Duke University.

In her book, Baradaran proposes a short litmus test to any proposal meant to address the racial wealth gap: “Does the program require some collective sacrifice or does it place the burden of closing the wealth gap entirely on the black community? If the latter, this is a cop-out that refuses to acknowledge that the black community did not create the problem in the first place.”

If policymakers are committed to closing the wealth gap, she continues, black bankers must be seated at the head of the table—and they should not be the only ones in the room. “Black bankers have a firsthand understanding of the headwinds affecting black prosperity. While black banks cannot close the wealth gap alone, their specialized focus and expertise must play a role in any plan to address this problem,” she writes.

While black bankers would certainly have a lot to say about all kinds of policy or regulatory reforms that would help black households create wealth, the top priority for black banks today is raising capital.

“It always comes back to raising capital,” says Doyle Mitchell, president and CEO of D.C.’s Industrial Bank, which his grandfather founded in 1934. “It’s the biggest challenge for black-owned businesses, period. Raising capital, trying to get to a scale where we can be more profitable.”

In banking terminology, capital is different from deposits. While deposits can come from anyone, capital comes from the bank’s shareholders or from retained profits of the bank. Generally, federal regulators want banks to hold around eight dollars of capital for every $100 they make in loans and other investments, partly as a cushion against losses or downturns.

Crucially, a bank can’t grow without more capital—if a bank doesn’t have enough capital to meet the necessary ratio, regulators might limit the bank’s activities, perhaps even ordering the bank to stop making new loans until it raises more.

“If I can raise the capital, I can scale Harbor eight to ten fold over the next two years or so,” Haskins says. “The demand is there.”

Bigger national or regional banks can attract capital from investors around the world. Community banks—the category of banks that most historically black banks fall into, because of their size and geographic focus—have a shallower pool to draw from. A community bank’s shareholders typically come from its community—local businesses, independently wealthy individuals, or sometimes straight from friends and family of the bank founders.

For historically black banks, community sources are often far thinner than they are for mainstream community banks. On top of the household racial wealth gap, white-owned businesses are bigger and more profitable, averaging $2.4 million in annual revenues, compared with $1.3 million in average annual revenues for black-owned businesses, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent Survey of Business Owners.

Evelyn Smalls is president and CEO of United Bank of Philadelphia. In a rare breakthrough for a black-owned bank, United scored two capital investments last year, from two larger financial institutions in the Philadelphia region whom Smalls found through industry circles or prior business with United Bank. It’s not just about finding people with money, Smalls explains, it’s about finding investors who also understand and place value in the mission of a community bank and especially a black-owned community bank.

In 2012, United Bank joined the Small Business Administration’s 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program, which provides federal loan-loss guarantees to support small business lending to borrowers who would not qualify for conventional small business loans. United Bank is the only historically black bank in the Philadelphia region, and since joining the 7(a) program they’ve made loans to 47 businesses that it otherwise wouldn’t have been able to—and their pace is accelerating, now doing 10-14 such loans a year, at an average loan size around $840,000.

But even with a loan guarantee program, or down payment assistance programs, any bank still needs capital to keep growing.

Mitchell, of Industrial Bank, thinks policy can do more to address the capital issue directly for black banks. For a little over a year now, he says, he’s been talking up the idea of creating a tax credit for investing in minority banks, to incentivize investors who might be interested in making a difference when it comes to equal opportunity for minority communities. He’s had talks with investors who have expressed such an interest, but no one has written a check yet.

Others, like Darity, are more muted about the potential impact of supporting black banks or black businesses. “It’s not necessarily a bad idea, but it’s not going to accomplish the objective of closing the racial wealth gap,” he says.

In Darity’s view, any direct help for black banks would need to be part of a larger program, what he’s referred to as “a portfolio of reparations.”

“Some component would involve distribution of checks,” he says, “but there could also be components of it that could involve various institution building, or small business building. If you had a total sum of funds devoted to reparations, you could design the program so there were multiple ways in which those funds could be used.”

 

Source: NextCity

New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center Acquires Collection of Fab 5 Freddy

2 mins read

Some 120 boxes of archived notebooks, screenplays, fliers, and photography from the collection of hip-hop legend Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite are headed to the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.

Fab 5 Freddy

More than half the materials in the archive are audio and video, though also included in the acquisition are photographs by Brathwaite—candid snapshots of rap icons such as Notorious B.I.G., Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and P. Diddy.

Fred “Fab 5 Freddy” Brathwaite is a rapper, producer, and filmmaker who emerged in New York’s downtown scene during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. He went on to be the host of MTV’s popular music program, Yo! MTV Raps.

Fab 5 Freddy
Fab 5 Freddy and Jean-Michel Basquiat

In a statement, Brathwaite said, “Growing up in Bed-Stuy [in] Brooklyn, our home was full of books and periodicals, as my dad was a ferocious reader.” He recalled visiting the Schomburg at his father’s suggestion. There, he came across “books by and about people like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, J.A. Rogers, and one of my favorites as a kid, a book called Harlem on My Mind, filled with photos and stories on the history of Black Americans living in Harlem.”

Highlights from his collection include VHS recordings of rap music videos, three screenplays, and countless handwritten notes of ideas. Brathwaite continued, “Knowing my archive will be at the Schomburg, now and forever, is both gratifying and very humbling.”

 

Source: ART News

Feature Image: The Source

Six Historically Black Beaches to Visit This Summer

13 mins read

When we think of black history often times vacation destinations are left out of our dialogue. Our past is well documented with stories of slavery, plantations, and oppressive reality yet little do we hear about how some of our ancestors and those who came before us got to celebrate their lives.

As I decided to write this article I was just thinking about the history of African American tourism. As a little girl I grew up in Florida and the beach was a regular part of my life. I wondered about the history of our beaches in relation to us and discovered some amazing stories.

While many of the historic black beaches in America have seen gentrification and lack of restoration, there are a few which still remain as active and flourishing destinations that you can spend your dollars and enjoy a lovely time. It is estimated that African-Americans spend billions annually so why not get a dose of sun and history in the process?

As Black history month comes to an end I will share with you some of the top historically black beaches and resort towns in America. Grab your swimsuits, pack a bag, and prepare for an amazing summer drenched in your Blackness.

1. Highland Beach (Maryland)

black beaches
YWCA camp for girls hosted at Highland Beach in 1930

This is the oldest of all the black resort towns in America. Founded by Charles and Laura Douglass in 1893, Charles was the son of the well renowned Frederick Douglass.

This beach is located approximately 35 miles outside of Washington D.C. and was the very first black owned resort in the history of America. This destination was birthed from an act of racial discrimination when the Douglass’s were denied entry into a restaurant on Chesapeake Bay.

Charles Douglass then decided to delve into the real estate industry and began purchasing beachfront property and selling lots to his friends and family. Some of its earliest purchasers were notable African American politicians in the DC/Baltimore area including Senators, Congressman and Judge Robert Terrell and his wife, Mary. Terrell was the first black judge in the District of Columbia.

Charles Douglass, the youngest son of abolitionist and activist Frederick Douglass

When Charles Douglass died in 1920 its ownership was transferred to his son Haley Douglass who in 1922 led a movement to make Highland Beach the first African American incorporated municipality in the state’s history.

Today there are approximately 90 homes still owned and occupied by descendants of the original settlers of Highland Beach and the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center ‘Twin Oaks’ is a local attraction at this distinctive resort destination.

Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois and singer Poel Robinson all made Highland Beach their summer home.

black beaches
19th century Photo of Highland Beach Residents
The Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center, housed in “Twin Oaks”

2. American Beach (Jacksonville, FL)

On Amelia Island and Founded in 1935 American Beach is Florida’s first African American beach. Located in Jacksonville this tourist destination was founded by Florida’s first black millionaire Abraham Lincoln Lewis and his Afro-American Life Insurance Company.

Another beach which came to fruition in defiance of segregation and Jim Crow laws, Lewis saw this as a safe haven that his friends and employees could peacefully enjoy themselves. The streets along the beach are all named after the African American founders and their families.

As tourism grew the beach known as “The Negro Ocean Playground” became sprinkled with food, lodging and entertainment. It was place of refuge for black people during a time when other beaches were out of their reach due to segregation. On any given weekend you might see Ray Charles, Zora Neale Hurston or Hank Aaron having a good time.

The beach saw a decline as it was struck by Hurricane Dora in 1964. Many of its tourists began vacationing elsewhere after the Civil Rights Act desegregated beaches. It still however remains a popular destination and historians and preservationists have been committed to preserving its heritage. When you visit be sure to check out The American Beach Museum which documents all the history of this fascinating place. If you seek a quieter spot to enjoy the ocean and sand it would be well worth paying a visit while passing through Jacksonville or visiting beautiful Amelia Island or Fernandina Beach.

3. Oak Bluffs/ Martha’s Vineyard (Massachusetts)

For more than 100 years African Americans have flocked to this area on Martha’s Vineyard. One of President Obama’s and the late Maya Angelou’s favorite vacation destinations this tourist area boasts a rich history rooted in black culture and remains lively today.

Some of its first dwellers were runaway slaves and indentured servants. During the era of segregation Martha’s Vineyard was always a popular beachfront for white tourists and thanks to Charles Shearer the son of a slave and her white owner, he turned a beach cottage into the first Inn where African Americans could lodge. This began the expansion of the black community on Martha’s Vineyard.

black beaches
African American residence in Martha’s Vineyard began in the Oak Bluffs neighborhood at a small inn called Shearer Cottage, which was established in 1912
President Barack Obama visits Oak Bluff on Martha’s Vineyard (Darren McCollester / Stringer / Getty Images)
Visitors at Dorothy West’s Oak Bluffs cottage, now a site on the African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard. (Credit Julia Cumes for The New York Times)

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture has dedicated an exhibit to honor the work of Charles Shearer entitled “The Power of Place” and features the history of Oak Bluffs and how it has empowered African American culture. It celebrates a myriad of black writers, political and social leaders, musicians, and thinkers that have traveled to the area.

When you visit Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard be sure to take a tour down the African American heritage trail where you will get a chance to view historic homes of people in our history.

4. Sag Harbor (Long Island, NY)

black beaches
Photo courtesy of Hamptons Mouthpiece

We all have heard of the luxurious destination known as the Hamptons, and Sag Harbor is the black wing of this popular and affluent beachfront. It was an enclave for generations beginning in the early twentieth century. If your pockets allow for some time up north this summer during a trip to New York you will find some great history in this town.

After World War II during segregation Sag Harbor developed a robust community of African Americans. Working class black families were able to purchase land and start development in the area. Over the years thankfully Sag Harbor has been able to fight off gentrification and property development and keep its roots in tact. Keeping its identity has remained important to black residents. Today as you visit you will still see a community of middle class families with a population of doctors, lawyers and other professionals.

5. Atlantic Beach (South Carolina)

Known as the “Black Pearl” located between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach, Atlantic Beach remains the only current black owned beach in the nation.

Many of the properties are black owned and operated which include hotels, gift shops, restaurants, and night clubs.

Atlantic Beach hosts ‘Black Bike Week’ every year which draws large crowds of African-Americans to its shores.

black beaches
Atlantic Beach is nestled in between Myrtle and North Myrtle Beach in North Carolina

6. Gullah-Geechee Islands (South Carolina)

If you are looking to venture or remain in the South the Carolina’s offer a nice mixture of beach destinations. Hilton Head Island and the Charleston area are both areas which also offer a historical mix. The area known as the Lowcountry is the site of Gullah tradition.

Gullah Geechee Culture in my opinion is not as well taught in discussions of black history. The irony to this is that the Gullah/Geechees have preserved their history more than any African American community in the United States.

The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of Central and West Africans and were enslaved together on these isolated islands which stretch along the U.S. coastline from North Carolina down to St. Johns, Florida. They developed a Creole language and today continue to preserve African practices in arts, crafts, agriculture and edible cuisine.

If you are visiting the Carolinas, Hilton Head Island, or the Coast of Georgia you can take part in several attractions to further your education of this history.

The Gullah Heritage Trail Tour on Hilton Head Island will drive you through compounds and stop at several historic sites. This includes ‘Mitcheville’ the first freedman village in the United States. The Gullah Geechee Visitor Center in Beaufort is also a quick drive away.

The Penn Center on St. Helena Island is a former school for freed Sea Island slaves and offers several tours, presentations, and a museum which exhibits the history of the school.

If you are visiting the Charleston, SC area the McLeod Plantation, Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture, and the Gullah Tours will all give you a thorough background.

black beaches
black beaches
Gullah Museum of Hilton Head Island

Honorable Mentions

Definitely worth noting are a few other historic black beaches which are now less developed or that no longer exist. These beaches all have a significant black history that can be researched or traveled to if you are one who seeks to explore outside of your vacationing.

  1. Chicken Bone Beach (Atlantic City, NJ)
  2. Idlewild (Michigan)
  3. The Inkwell (Santa Monica, CA)
  4. Bruce’s Beach (Manhattan Beach, CA)
  5. Freeman Beach (Wilmington, NC)
  6. Carr’s Beach (Annapolis, MD)

Happy Vacationing!

black beaches

By Angela Dennis  a Freelance Writer and Blogger residing in Knoxville, TN


-Tony O. Lawson (IG@thebusyafrican)

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Husband and Wife team create a Coloring Book App For the Culture

8 mins read

Over the past few years, adult coloring books have become increasing popular. Some researchers suggest that coloring is an excellent form of relaxation and meditation. Enter Color Noir, a coloring book app that celebrates #BlackGirlMagic in all of its glory.

This coloring book app is the creation of tech power couple Muoyo Okome and Nicaila Matthews Okome. We chatted with them to find out more about their new project.

Coloring Book App
Muoyo and Nicaila

What inspired the creation of Color Noir?

Muoyo: I hadn’t colored since childhood, and knew nothing about coloring books for adults until a few years ago when I noticed quite a few of them popping up during my routine App Store research.

I saw that they were becoming popular and successful, but I didn’t understand why. It turns out that people use them to have fun and relax, and as I started to play around with a few different ones, I began to understand the appeal.

Coloring Book App

I also noticed that (similar to many other forms of entertainment), despite millions of people using them, these coloring book apps made Black people an afterthought. It didn’t click to me at that moment.

Later, when my wife and I watched Black Panther and saw the impact it had on us and so many others by unapologetically telling a black story via a black director and a black cast, set in a black land with beautiful black people and black culture… it got us thinking.

We realized that we are also passionate about using our talents to amplify the stories of black people, and there is a huge need to do so. So I returned to this idea of a coloring book, and the vision for Color Noir took shape from there.

What different skill sets did you both contribute to the success of this app?

Nicaila: Muoyo is the Computer Scientist and App Guy, so he handles the project management with our development team, troubleshooting any coding issues, and getting the product made. I am the visual side.

I feel strongly about curating how things are displayed, the user interface, and the overall user experience, as well as the actual images in the app.

So I work to continually improve that and talk with Muoyo about what’s working and what’s not, what features we should include, and pay attention to what kind of images people are gravitating to. We combine this with feedback from the community to make Color Noir the best it can be.

What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs who have an idea for an app?

Muoyo: This might sound harsh, but I’m going to keep it real with you: nobody cares about ideas no matter how cool or novel they may be. People care about their own wants and needs, and the more you can help them with those the more successful you are likely to be.

You want to really make sure there is demand for the app that you want to produce so you’re not wasting your time and money on something nobody wants.

I’ve seen this happen many times, and even done it before. Not a lot of fun. Get to know the intended audience for your app and really fall in love with them, so that you can continue to solve their problems and serve them over the long term.

Just like with anything else worthwhile, it’s not going to happen overnight just because you have a great idea. You have to commit to learning and doing with intensity, and then continue until things start to work.

When I was getting started, I was able to follow in the footsteps of entrepreneurs who were quite a few steps ahead of me, by reading their books and blogs, listening to their podcasts, joining their groups, and even investing in their courses and seminars.

Ultimately I still had to put in the work and learn through my own execution, as no two paths will ever be exactly the same, but having their examples to follow helped to save time and cut down on my learning curve. This combination of intense learning and intense execution will always pay dividends over a long enough period of time.

In what other areas of the tech industry do you feel there needs to be more Black representation?

Nicaila: Just about every area. There’s no shortage of Black talent, but there is still a huge problem with inclusivity in hiring practices and the cultures within many of these big tech companies.

There is a need for more opportunities for black developers & engineers, technical leaders, entrepreneurs, investors, and every other position you can imagine. We are some of the biggest consumers of technology, so why shouldn’t we be among the biggest producers as well?

On our side, we are just going to take matters into our own hands. We want to have as much impact as we can. We’ll continue to attack the representation problem via Color Noir and subsequent apps we produce, as well as by helping other aspiring entrepreneurs via our respective podcasts, Side Hustle Pro and Game of Grow, as well our accelerator programs for aspiring podcasters (Podcast Moguls) and app entrepreneurs (App Moguls), and Muoyo’s book “The 7 Steps to App Success”. We are proud and excited to play a small role in many other success stories and benefit others along the way.

What else do think our readers should know about the Color Noir app?

Nicaila: Color Noir is currently available for iOS in the App Store (download at appmagic.co/color ) and is on the way soon for Android. We are super active on Instagram (@colornoirapp) and have a Color Noir Facebook group where hundreds of our users are sharing their creations, contributing feedback, and getting the latest updates behind the scenes.

We are growing our user base every day and will continue to invest in making this one of the best apps in its category, as well as in the entire store, over the long term.

-Tony O. Lawson

Yo Stay Hungry is Serving Culinary Competition’s for The Culture

6 mins read

Yo Stay Hungry is a live culinary competition bridging hip hop with food and beverage. It began in 2015 as a citywide culinary competition for high school students in Queens, NY.

We caught up with founder, Syreeta Gates to find out more about how she and her team are using food and hip hop to educate and inspire.

Yo Stay Hungry founder, Syreeta Gates – (photo cred: Sho Shots)

What inspired you to create Yo Stay Hungry?

For some context I actually wanted to be a chef in high school (that’s what it says in my yearbook). In HS I was baking and selling cakes, lasagna and all of that. So, some years later I googled hip hop and food and the only thing that appeared was a few articles that had lyrics mentioning food and beverage.

I was like wait a minute, something is missing. I was rocking in August Martin HS at the time and they had a Culinary Academy, so the bells went off. What’s hip hop without beef? BOOM! Let’s do a culinary competition.

photo cred: Wayne Washington

 

How would you describe your relationship with hip hop?

My boy Yahdon Israel said hip hop is my first language. I really dig that! My relationship with hip hop is rooted in my relationship specifically with my uncles and big cousins. More specifically, how it happened was really the brainchild of stylist extraordinaire’s Misa Hylton and Groovey Lou.

In the late 90’s, one of my uncles had a cream SC 400 Lexus with gold bbs’s. He and my cousin walked into my grandma’s house as I was sitting on the step and I was absolutely blown away. Mind you, I was only about 10 years old.

My uncle had on a Versace silk shirt with the matching shades and my cousin had on a DKNY body suit. I had no clue was hip hop was, one thing I was clear of was that whatever it was I wanted to be apart of it.

yo stay hungry
photo cred: Wayne Washington

How do you select what chefs are involved with the project?

We rock though referral, a lot of chefs have been reaching out to us to participate, so that’s been great. We have a system around how we choose chefs to rock, but we are thankful they see what we are doing and want to be apart of it. 

The 2019 “Biggie Day” Chefs

What does the phrase “Everybody eats” mean to you?

It means there’s enough room for everybody at the table. “Everybody Eats” is one of our beliefs at Yo Stay Hungry. The phrase represents the idea that through teamwork everyone is taken care of. #teamUS Everybody Eats is also from the classic 2002 drama “Paid In Full”, you know we have to keep it consistent. 

What is your vision for YSH?

Take over the world LOL! Nah, more specifically, Yo Stay Hungry will take over people’s kitchens. We will put on for the culture and preserve the culture in a way that’s never been done before. We have the adult competitions launching Fall 2019 which I am really excited about.

The 2019 “Biggie Day” Judges

Why a food and hip hop business? 

We live in a world where hip hop is pop culture. I don’t believe that Yo Stay Hungry could have existed before my generation. Folks like Jay Z, Queen Latifah, Sylvia Robinson, and Puff and the like really set the stage around what’s possible business wise in the culture.

photo cred: Wayne Washington

They created TV/film opportunities, record labels, make up endorsements, liquor companies, streaming services, and the like. Throughout the entire genre of music one thing that has been consistent is food and beverage.

yo stay hungry
photo cred: Wayne Washington

With Yo Stay Hungry we have an opportunity to build a business for the culture, literally. We aren’t looking at it from the outside looking in. The team is thinking what would we be interested in, what would we want to do, and from that we create a business model that’s scalable.

 

-Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson (IG@thebusyafrican)
Feature Image: The Yo Stay Hungry Team (photo cred: Sho Shots)

Billionaire Robert Smith to pay off Morehouse Class of 2019’s student loans

1 min read

Billionaire Robert F. Smith, who received an honorary doctorate at Morehouse College’s Sunday morning graduation exercises, had already announced a $1.5 million gift to the school.

But during his remarks in front of the nearly 400 graduating seniors, the billionaire technology investor and philanthropist surprised some by announcing that his family was providing a grant to eliminate the student debt of the entire Class of 2019.

“This is my class,” he said, “and I know my class will pay this forward.”

The announcement elicited the biggest cheers of the morning.

Tonga Releford, whose son Charles Releford III is a member of the Class of 2019, estimates that his student loans are right at about $70,000.

“I feel like it’s Mother’s Day all over again,” she said.

The gift has been estimated at $40 million.

 

Source and feature image: AJC

11 Malcolm X Quotes That Are Still Relevant Today

1 min read

Today, May 19th, we acknowledge the birthday of Malcolm X, one of the most influential people in history. We’ve compiled a short list of is many wise words that are still relevant to this day.

malcolm x

Malcolm X Quotes

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”

malcolm x

“My alma mater was books, a good library… I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”

“Dr. King wants the same thing I want. Freedom.”

malcolm x

“I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.”

“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”

“Stumbling is not falling.”

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

“Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again.”

“Change is only a good thing if you change in a good way.”

“Without education, you’re not going anywhere in this world.”

 

-Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson (IG@thebusyafrican)

Black Owned Art Galleries & Museums You Should Know

1 min read

Hello Art Lovers! We’ve compiled a list of Black owned art galleries located across the country and some internationally. Be sure to check them out. #BlackArtMatters

Black Owned Art Galleries

Hammonds House Museum (Atlanta, GA)

black owned galleries

Rush Arts Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA)

The Museum of African American Art (Philadelphia, PA)

The Colored Girls Museum (Philadelphia, PA)

Black Owned Art Galleries

Northwest African American Museum (Seattle, WA)

The Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum (Culver City, CA)

Woodcuts Fine Art Gallery (Nashville, TN)

Benoit Gallery (Lafayette, LA)

Essie Green Galleries (New York, NY)

The Studio Museum (New York, NY)

Black Owned Art Galleries

MoCADA, Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (Brooklyn, NY)

Black Owned Art Galleries

California African American Museum (Los Angeles, CA )

The William Grant Still Arts Center  (Los Angeles, CA)

Gallery Chuma (Charleston, SC)

Lybenson’s Gallery (Beaufort, SC)

Sabree’s Gallery of the Arts (Savannah, GA)

Annie’s Art Gallery (Upper Marlboro, MD)

Stella Jones Gallery (New Orleans, LA)

Black Owned Art Galleries

Jonathan Green Studios (Charleston, SC)

E&S Gallery (Louisville, KY)

Black Owned Art Galleries

Mariane Ibrahim Gallery (Seattle, WA)

ZuCot Gallery (Atlanta, GA)

Terrance Osbourne Gallery (New Orleans, LA)

Nike Art Gallery (Lagos, Nigeria)

Berj Art Gallery (Labone, Ghana)

 

-Tony O. Lawson

 

Byron Allen Secures $10 Billion Sports Network Deal

2 mins read

In the over crowded race for Disney’s 21 regional sports channels, Byron Allen and Sinclair Broadcast Group have come out on top. As a minority investor in Sinclair, Allen will benefit from the $10.6 billion acquisition as he looks to expand his media entertainment empire. For Disney, will this sale be enough to start paying down the massive debt they’re carrying due to its $71.3 billion 21st Century Fox deal?

The Breakdown You Need to Know

So far Disney has reduced its debt amount from $26.09 billion in 2017 to $20.66 billion last year. The mouse house sold its 39% stake in London based Sky to Comcast for $15.3 billion in September, and temporarily suspended its share repurchase program, all of which how to lower it debt load. Now with the sale of these networks to Sinclair, they should be able to cut down their debt even further.

Regional sports networks, or RSNs, which own the rights to broadcast professional sports games across the country fit perfectly into Allen’s formulaic approach to spurring the growth of his Entertainment Studios media properties. He is already the owner of The Weather Channel and as part of the agreement will provide content to the sports networks.

“These are very valuable assets, and they are hard to come by,” Allen said to Bloomberg. “No one would sell them if they didn’t have to. And this is a situation where they had to.”

Allen’s Media Slam Dunk: Disney had to get rid of the RSNs by mid-June to avoid antitrust concerns raised by its $71.3 billion merger with Fox. Regulators argued that since Disney owned ESPN they would effectively have a monopoly on sports networks. The deal doesn’t include the New York Yankees team’s regional sports network “Yes,” this network will remain under Disney’s umbrella.

Source: FORBES

First Black-Owned Urgent Care Center opens in Chicago

4 mins read

Premier Health Urgent Care, the only urgent care facility in the Southside’s Hyde Park neighborhood, and the only Black-owned urgent care possibly in the city of Chicago has opened for business.

Black-Owned Urgent Care
Pictured above from (L to R): Dr. Mike McGee; Germaine Henderson, APN; Renita White, PA-C; Jennifer Kirk, AP; Dr. Airron Richardson and Dr. Reuben Rutland. (Chicago Crusader)

With a commitment to providing affordable, convenient community care a portion of profits from the center will be donated to the Project Outreach and Prevention (POP) organization, which aims to prevent youth violence in surrounding neighborhoods by providing resources, services and education to assist teens in making better life-long choices.

Premier’s founders include board certified emergency medicine physicians Airron Richardson, MD, MBA, FACEP and Michael A. McGee, MD, MPH, FACEP and board-certified trauma surgeon and United States Navy veteran Reuben C. Rutland MD, MBA. The facility was launched in partnership with Dr. Gregory Primus, former Chicago Bears wide receiver and the first African American trained in orthopedic surgery at the University of Chicago.

“We are happy to open an urgent care in Hyde Park because the community needs it. I see so many urban professionals who either delay or go without care because of time constraints. No one has 8 hours to wait in the emergency department for a minor illness or the flexibility to wait 3 weeks because their primary care doctor is booked solid. We are here to help fill that gap,” says Dr. Rutland. “We are not in competition with the doctors’ offices or the emergency department. We are a supplement to them both, to help relieve the stress on those two facilities.”

The center, located at 1301 E. 47th Street Building #2 Chicago, IL, will care for people of all ages, providing urgent care, occupational health, basic wellness and prevention services. Walk-in treatment is available for various conditions including: abrasions (scrapes), abscesses (boils), bites (dog or human), broken bones (fractures), minor burns, colds, coughs, conjunctivitis (“pink eye”), contusions (bruises), cuts (lacerations) that may require stitches, dislocations, ear infections, eye and ear injuries, hand injuries, foreign object and splinter removal, foot injuries, influenza (the flu), ingrown toenails, joint injuries (sprains), muscle injuries (strains), minor nosebleeds, rashes (ringworm, poison ivy, etc.), sexually transmitted diseases, sinus infections, sore and strep throat, stings (insects and bees) and UTI’s (urinary tract infections).

The office is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., and offers multiple exam and procedure rooms to give patients quick and easy access to care they can count on. Once a patient is seen, they are typically treated in less than an hour, making Premier’s walk-in clinic an ideal provider of the immediate care when it’s needed the most. Premier accepts many major types of insurance and offers services at a fraction of the cost of hospital-affiliated urgent care or emergency rooms.

To learn more about Premier Health Urgent Care and its services visit their website. 

 

Source: Chicago Defender

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