by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors

June 21, 2020

First Black-Owned Supermarket to Sell Products From Mostly Black Farmers Raises $430K

The founders of WeBuyBlack and the developers of the first ever Black-owned supermarket that will primarily sell products from Black farmers and other food manufacturers have reached their first financial goal of $425,000 to purchase the property! 13,881 people have contributed to the campaign so far, and the Atlanta-based store will be called Soul Food Market, and will be the first grocery store of it’s kind.

“We are super proud of our unity, and our team is even more inspired by our collective efforts to see this project come to fruition,” said CEO Shareef Abdul-Malik in an email to their supporters and contributors.


The company will continuing to raise funds for the renovation of the 20,000 square feet building, and then for the operations. Renovation requires another $350,000 and operating the building requires another $420,000 for a grand total of $1.2 million to fully complete the project.

Just what the community needs

After sampling 500 hundred families in the local Atlanta area where they plan to open the first grocery store, Shareef’s data showed that the average household spent $650 dollars a month for groceries. He comments, “With just 500 families, that’s over $3 million leaving our community each year. This campaign is not only to help keep our dollars in our community, but it’s also to provide our people with jobs.”

As previously reported, it will also help Black entrepreneurs because the selection of naturally grown vegetables and fruits will be sourced from Black farmers in Georgia. Other products produced by Black-owned brands, ranging from everyday necessities such as diapers and detergent to all natural household cleaning products, will stock the shelves! The goal ultimately is to become a nationwide chain.

To learn more about the project and/or to make a donation, visit https://wefundblack.com/projects/soul-food-market/

This article was originally written by BlackBusiness.com.

by Dana Givens

June 21, 2020

This 17-Year-Old Received 24 College Offers While Creating A Company Dedicated To Stopping Gun Violence

The spread of COVID-19, or the novel coronavirus, may have led to the cancellation a lot of major milestones like graduation or prom for young people but the viral outbreak isn’t stopping them from still excelling academically. In the case of 17-year-old RuQuan “Ru” Brown, his mission was always clear—excel in school and get into college. Not only was he able to accomplish both, but he also managed to do it all while running his own company to help stop gun violence.

A high school senior, Brown currently has 24 college acceptances, seven of which are Ivy League institutions, and he earned 16 full-ride scholarships. His acceptances include Howard University, Georgetown University, Yale University, and Harvard University. In addition to holding a 3.9 GPA, he is also the student body president and a gifted athlete. Outside of academics, he runs Love1, a clothing company he uses to raise awareness about gun violence after losing teammates, friends, and family members to guns.


“My company is called Love1. I started it to honor the lives of my teammate and stepdad, who were murdered a year apart. I wanted to beat gun violence to the punch so that our families don’t have to continuously fall victim to tragic losses,” Brown told Because of Them We Can.

His company donates 20% of its proceeds to an organization in New Jersey called One Gun Gone, which buys guns from New Jersey communities and turns them into art. “We’re eliminating a small fragment of the problem in order to reduce the amount of our loved ones being taken from us,” he said. Brown credits his stepfather for instilling his values of hard work when he was younger.

My stepdad took me to my first ever football practice. He would have me do 100 pushups a night starting at age 7,” he said. “I never understood the importance of this until middle school when my body was physically mature compared to my male peers. He taught me the importance of working when nobody is watching. That is how you come out on top; doing the hard work in the dark.”

by Alisa Gumbs

June 20, 2020

American Express Makes History With the First Black Woman on its Executive Committee

American Express named President of Strategic Partnerships Glenda McNeal to its Executive Committee this week, making the veteran executive the first Black woman to sit on the Committee.

“Having Glenda’s expertise and experience on the Executive Committee will be a huge asset for us,” American Express Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Stephen J. Squeri said in a memo.

During her more 30 years at American Express, McNeal has served in a number of roles across sales and client management, business development, and marketing and strategy. In her current role, she leads strategy and negotiations for key partnerships with the largest e-commerce, travel, technology, and retail companies. Squire added that McNeal has “overseen the growth of our relationships with our largest and most critical partners, including Delta, Marriott, Hilton, PayPal and Amazon.”

Most recently, McNeal co-led the company’s Stand for Small coalition, assembling more than 70 companies across various industries to support small businesses as they work to recover from the impact of COVID-19.

The CEO noted that current challenges to the global economy, including the coronavirus pandemic, are “making it even more important to adapt our leadership structure to the challenges we face so that we can emerge in a stronger position” and that during these unprecedented times, “we must ensure we have the right expertise at the table.”

McNeal was added to the Executive Committee along with Andrés Espinosa, Executive Vice President of Enterprise Credit and Fraud Risk Management and Chief Credit Officer for American Express, and Pierric Beckert, President of Global Network Services.

The executives will “bring to the Executive Committee invaluable knowledge and experience which are particularly relevant for the times we are in,” Squeri said. “We will benefit from their diverse perspectives as we navigate through the challenges we face and position our company to win going forward.”

McNeal, a member of the B.E. Registry of Corporate Directors, serves on the board of Nordstrom Inc. as well as the boards of RLJ Lodging Trust, the World Travel and Tourism Council, and the United Negro College Fund. A graduate of Dillard University who received her M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, she is also a member of the Executive Leadership Council.

$6 Billion Construction Contract Awarded to Build Akon City in Senegal
by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 20, 2020

$6 Billion Construction Contract Awarded to Build Akon City in Senegal

It has been announced that a $6 billion construction contract has been awarded to build Akon City in Senegal, Africa.

Senegalese-American singer, businessman, and philanthropist Akon is building a futuristic-cryptocurrency themed city, named after himself. Akon City has awarded the contract for building and executing the city to KE International, which is a United States-based consulting and engineering firm.

The city’s Phase 1 is expected to be completed before the end of 2023, and they should be starting the construction of roads, along with a Hamptons Hospital campus, a Hamptons Mall, residences, hotels, a police station, a school, a waste facility, and a solar power plant.

Phase 2 will run from 2024 to 2029 and will end with a complete cryptocurrency city running exclusively on AKOIN cryptocurrency.

Akon City is located on 2,000 acres near the ocean, less than an hour’s drive south of the new international airport in Dakar.

The St. Louis native plans on running the whole city he is planning on renewable energy sources. Akon says he will use his cryptocurrency, ‘AKoin” to build the city’s economy. The Grammy-nominated singer originally announced his plans for a futuristic city that would be built on the land that was gifted to him by Senegal’s President Macky Sall, last year.

“It’s Akon city. It’s all renewable, the Akon-tainment solar city. It’s all renewable. A real physical place, it’s going to have a real airport. It’s a 10-year building block so we’re doing it in stages,’ the singer told Nick Cannon during a radio interview last year.

Akon also has his own company, Akon Lighting Africa, a project he started along with Samba Bathily and Thione Niang in 2014 that aims to provide electricity by solar energy in Africa. Since launching, Akon’s group has operations in 14 nations, including Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Benin, and Sierra Leone.

British Insurance Giant Lloyd’s of London Apologizes for Its Role in the Slave Market
by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 19, 2020

British Insurance Giant Lloyd’s of London Apologizes for Its Role in the Slave Market

With the worldwide uproar over the racial prejudices that have been taking place for centuries, British insurance market Lloyd’s of London has come forward to apologize for its role in the slave market and share a few of its initiatives going forward according to a written statement by the company.

Lloyd’s has admitted that recent world events have brought light on the “inequality that black people have experienced over many years as a result of systematic and structural racism.”

“At Lloyd’s we understand that we cannot always be proud of our past. In particular, we are sorry for the role played by the Lloyd’s market in the eighteenth and nineteenth century slave trade—an appalling and shameful period of English history, as well as our own,” the company says in a statement.

Lloyd’s, which is more than 300 years old, was a dominant provider of insurance for both slave ships and the slaves themselves in the 1700s and 1800s, according to the New York Post.

“In acknowledging our own history, we also remain committed to focusing on the actions we can take today to shape our future into one that we can truly be proud to stand by.

“Over the last week we have listened carefully to our Black and Ethnic Minority colleagues in the Lloyd’s market. We have heard their frustrations, and it is clear that we must commit now as a market to take meaningful and measurable action.

“Building an inclusive culture is essential to the market’s future success and that is why culture sits alongside performance and strategy as one of the Corporation’s three strategic priorities.

Lloyd’s has announced a set of initiatives to help improve the experience of Black and Minority Ethnic talent in the Lloyd’s market:

1. Invest in positive programmes to attract, retain and develop Black and Minority Ethnic talent in the Lloyd’s market, including launching our ‘Accelerate’ Programme—a modular programme to develop Ethnic Minority Future Leaders across the market. 

2. Review our employee and partner policies, as well as our organisational artefacts, to ensure that they are explicitly non-racist. 

3. Commit to education and research. We will educate our colleagues and continue our research into the experiences of Black and Ethnic Minority professionals working in insurance, and share what we learn with the market. 

4. Provide financial support to charities and organisations promoting opportunity and inclusion for Black and Ethnic minority groups. 

5. Develop a long-term action plan in collaboration with our Culture Advisory Group, Black and Minority Ethnic colleagues and white allies who will inform our journey and hold us to account.

“There is a long way to go but we are determined that we can and will create a culture in the Lloyd’s market in which everybody can flourish.”

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 19, 2020

One of the Highest-Ranking Black Women in the Trump Administration Resigns Over Trump’s Response to Racial Injustice

One of the highest-ranking black women in the Trump administration has announced that she is resigning due to President Donald Trump’s handling of the recent racial injustice and police brutality protests, according to Business Insider.

Mary Elizabeth Taylor, who at 30 was the youngest person and first Black woman to serve as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in the State Department, has been with the Trump administration from the first day of his presidency. She stated she was resigning over President Trump’s handling of anti-racism protests in a letter of resignation she submitted to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.


“Moments of upheaval can change you, shift the trajectory of your life, and mold your character. The President’s comments and actions surrounding racial injustice and Black Americans cut sharply against my core values and convictions,” Taylor wrote in her resignation letter to Pompeo according to The Washington Post. “I must follow the dictates of my conscience and resign as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs.”

“I am deeply grateful to you, Mr. Secretary, for empowering me to lead this team and strategically advise you over these last two years. You have shown grace and respect in listening to my opinions, and your remarkable leadership has made me a better leader and team member. I appreciate that you understand my strong loyalty to my personal convictions and values, particularly in light of recent events.”

The Republican, who once worked with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, had penned a letter earlier this month to her team of roughly 60 State Department employees acknowledging that in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death that her heart “is broken, in a way from which I’ve had to heal it countless times.”

“George Floyd’s horrific murder and the recent deaths of other Black Americans have shaken our nation at its core. Every time we witness these heinous, murderous events, we are reminded that our country’s wounds run deep and remain untreated,” Taylor wrote in her note, also obtained by The Post. “For our team members who are hurting right now, please know you are not alone. You are seen, recognized, heard, and supported. I am right here with you.”

Usher: Juneteenth Should Be Observed by All Americans
by Alisa Gumbs

June 19, 2020

Usher: Juneteenth Should Be Observed by All Americans

Usher Raymond wants all of America to celebrate Juneteenth as a national holiday, and not just for the culture but for the economic impact and the “many contributions” Blacks have made to this country.

The entertainer and entrepreneur wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling it “our authentic day of self-determination.” He continues: “It is ours to honor the legacy of our ancestors, ours to celebrate and ours to remember where we once were as a people.”

As he writes in the Post:

Recognizing Juneteenth as a national holiday would be a small gesture compared with the greater social needs of black people in America. But it can remind us of our journey toward freedom, and the work America still has to do. We could observe it, as many black Americans already do, by celebrating both our first step toward freedom as black people in America and also the many contributions to this land: the construction of Black Wall Street; the invention of jazz, rock n’ roll, hip-hop and R&B; and all the entrepreneurship and business brilliance, extraordinary cuisine, sports excellence, political power and global cultural influence black Americans have given the world. And rather than observing Juneteenth as we do other holidays, by taking it off, we can make it a day when black culture, black entrepreneurship and black business get our support. A national Juneteenth observance can affirm that Black Lives Matter!

Raymond gives credit to those who have been campaigning for years to make it a recognized holiday, including 93-year-old Texan Opal Lee. And he advocates for the passage of legislation announced yesterday by Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to make it a federal holiday.

by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

June 19, 2020

Rep. Cedric Richmond: ‘It Is About Black Males, Black People in the Streets That Are Getting Killed’

Earlier this week, during the gathering of the House Judiciary Committee, Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond had a few choice words for his Republican colleague, Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, during a hearing on the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act according to The Hill.

The main issue in the police reform bill deals with amending policies and laws that tend to favor police officers in addition to giving them unmitigated powers, specifically against people of color. The main focus of the bill is on police brutality against black people specifically.

The law, which is sponsored by California Congresswoman Karen Bass, would ban police chokeholds, mandate body cameras, make lynching a federal crime, prohibit no-knock warrants in drug cases, and establish a federal registry of officers accused of misconduct.

Richmond took offense to amendments that the Republicans were trying to push that took away from the heart of the legislation. Those items included laws to investigate Antifa, calls for a study of no-knock warrants, and a measure requiring federal law enforcement to record interviews with suspects. 

In a sharp rebuke, Richmond said, “As a black male who went to the fifth-best public high school in the country, who was a victim of excessive force, who has a black son, who has worries that you all don’t, and to my colleagues, especially the ones that keep introducing amendments that are a tangent and a distraction from what we’re talking about, you all are white males.”

“You’ve never lived in my shoes, and you do not know what it’s like to be an African American male,” he continued, “and all I’m saying is if you are opposed to this legislation, let’s just have the vote, but please do not come in this committee room and make a mockery of the pain that exists in my community.”

“I’m not even interested in studying the Klan or sovereign citizens right now, because that is not the imminent threat that black men face on a daily basis, and right now, too often, it is law enforcement—those who were sworn to protect and to serve,” Richmond said. “And so all we’re asking today is to deal with that.”

“I don’t want you all to leave here saying, ‘Well we didn’t know. We didn’t know that’s how you felt, Cedric.’ I want it to be crystal clear, and I will give you the benefit of the doubt that it is unconscious bias that I’m hearing because at worse, it’s conscious bias,” he continued, “and that I would hate to assume from any of the people on the other side.”

Gaetz responded with this statement: “I appreciate your passion. Are you suggesting that you’re certain that none of us have non-white children? Because you reflect on your black son, and you said none of us could understand.”

“Matt, Matt. Stop,” Richmond says as he stops Gaetz from continuing. “I’m not about to get sidetracked about the color of our children. … It is not about the color of your kids. It is about black males, black people in the streets that are getting killed, and if one of them happens to be your kid, I’m concerned about him, too, and clearly, I’m more concerned about him than you are.”

“You’re claiming you have more concern for my family than I do?” Gaetz shot back. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”

Richmond replied: “If the shoe fits.”

“You should take those words down. I know you care about your family and love your family, so do we, damn it,” Gaetz stated.

To which Richmond responds, “Was that a nerve?”

After a marathon 11-hour markup, the committee voted along party lines.

by Selena Hill

June 19, 2020

Black Entrepreneurs Challenge Protesters to Buy Black and Share Their Receipts From Juneteenth to July 4

In addition to demanding police reform and an end to systemic racism, Kezia M. Williams is challenging Black Lives Matter supporters to protest with their purchases by buying black and sharing their receipts from Juneteenth through Independence Day.

Williams, the founder of The Black upStart, teamed up with black techies to launch the #MyBlackReceipt campaign, which encourages shoppers to support black-owned businesses and then post a copy of their receipt or invoice on social media using the hashtag #MyBlackReceipt. The goal of the campaign is to generate $5 million in revenue within the black community from June 19 through July 4.

“The #MyBlackReceipt Movement is the first, digital initiative to challenge black consumers and allies to buy from a Black business and upload their receipt into a platform that publicly displays how individual purchases can make a collective impact,” said Williams in a press release. The act of sharing receipts, she says, shows that supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement are committed to helping the black community create economic independence.

Protest With Your Purchase

#MyBlackReceipt kicks off on Juneteenth, a holiday that recognizes the plight, freedom, and resilience of African Americans. It also starts on the 23rd day of ongoing national protests following the death of George Floyd and other Black men and women at the hands of police. However, according to Williams, protesting is just the first step to creating change. The next step requires people of color and allies to build black economic empowerment. “Black businesses have multiplier effects, just like it did in Black Wall Streets across the country. Black businesses hire Black, create Black products, give to Black causes and pass down assets to Black families,” she says.

She went on to note that black entrepreneurs have historically struggled to gain access to the capital they need to start companies and scale. “Black businesses have been denied loans from big banks and resources from the federal government — most recently from the Paycheck Protection Program,” reads the statement.

To launch the campaign, Williams partnered with other black-owned organizations, including Broccoli City, HBCU Wall Street, Knox St. Studios, and 19 Keys. Yelp also signed on as a strategic partner, announcing that black entrepreneurs now have the option to self-identify their company as Black-owned to help people easily find Black businesses to support on its website.

“For far too long, for far too many people, patronizing Black-owned businesses has been a point-in-time response to a crisis, mostly when mainstream, white-owned brands have let us down,” said Talib Graves-Manns, the founder and executive director of Knox St. Studios. “We want to normalize everyday spending with Black-owned businesses for everyone — not just consumers, and not just Black people.”

 

Editors’ Note: This article was revised on June 22, 2020, because it originally listed We Buy Black as an official partner in the #MyBlackReciept campaign, which is incorrect. 19 Keys is one of the partners in the campaign.

×