There is a plaque in my office that contains a quote by the great John B. Russwurm, editor of Freedom’s Journal, the first African American-owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. In the first issue, published in 1827, Russwurm wrote: “Too long others have spoken for us. We wish to plead our own cause.” Ever since, we as African Americans have endeavored to “plead our own cause”–to define our own identities, our own aspirations, our own paths to economic success and independence.
I, too, felt the calling to “plead our cause” when I founded BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine in August of 1970. In the beginning, I felt that the time had come for a magazine for African Americans serious about the business of making money that would act as a catalyst for wealth building, entrepreneurship, and financial independence. But with the publishing of our first Top 100 list of the nation’s largest black-owned businesses, in our June 1973 issue, we expanded our mission to include an even greater calling: to celebrate our excellence. The magazine you hold in your hand, our landmark 35th anniversary issue of the BE 100S, continues to champion this calling as we recognize the best and brightest of American industry.
Our 2007 BE Companies of the Year are representative of the excellence and innovation that has characterized the best of the black entrepreneurial tradition for decades. McLean, Virginia-based RS Information Systems, our Industrial/Service Company of the Year, has become a vendor of choice among government agencies. Through his successful pursuit of groundbreaking joint ventures for the $328 million information technology company, CEO Rodney Hunt has created a model of competitive business growth that other black entrepreneurs would do well to observe and replicate. Our 2007 Auto Dealer of the Year, BMW of Sterling/MINI of Sterling, based in Sterling, Virginia, is a state-of-the-art automobile sales and customer service operation. Led by CEO Thomas Moorehead, this business generated sales of $122 million last year, while establishing itself as a model for the 21st century auto dealer. And our 2007 Financial Services Company of the Year, Advent Capital Management in New York, manages some $3.1 billion in assets for institutional clients. CEO Tracy Maitland is not resting on his laurels, however. He has set his sights on the global marketplace, opening an office in London and entering into a $100 million joint venture with a private bank in the Netherlands.
Here at BE, the celebration of a tradition of excellence among African Americans is part of our culture, our corporate DNA. Sadly, the same cannot be said of our broader culture today. We must dedicate ourselves to reclaiming our excellence. The time has come to take back our race.
Let’s be real. The language Don Imus used to denigrate the outstanding young women of the Rutgers University Scarlet Knights basketball team saturates our own culture. It’s in the hip-hop music we produce and consume, the TV shows and movies that we participate in creating, and the so-called “comedy” and “reality shows” that modern-day Amoses and Andys specialize in. The only difference is that no one has to put on the blackface anymore–we come with our own.
After so many battles won, we have chosen to lower the standards of decency in our own communities, particularly over the past 15 years. One of the consequences of this constant barrage of obscenity and self-hatred has been the utter corruption of how we speak to one another and about one another. And no, I’m not making any excuses for Imus. He’s old enough and smart enough to be held accountable for what he says. I’m saying that it’s long past time we held accountable all those–regardless of their race or ethnicity–who trade in the degradation of our people. Yes, the time has come to take back our race.
Consider what this degradation has already cost us.
How many young African Americans have already given up–surrendered to the apathy and diminished expectations that have engulfed our culture? How many of our children risk ridicule, ostracization, and even violence from their peers for daring to excel academically and to aspire to a life beyond “the street?” The price we are paying for all this is incalculable in many ways, but consider just a few figures: After narrowing the gap in high school dropout rates between blacks and whites during the ’70s and ’80s, blacks have gained little ground since 1990. The disparity is even more egregious in our urban public schools–in New York City, less than 50% of black students complete
high school in four years, compared to more than 70% of white students. Not surprisingly, this culture of low expectations is a particularly damaging contributor to the crisis of young black males. According to the nonprofit Justice Policy Institute, in 1980 black men enrolled in higher education outnumbered those incarcerated by a quarter million. Two decades later, black men behind bars exceeded those on campus by 188,000. That this would negatively impact the stability of black families and communities is obvious. Nearly 43% of black families were headed by single women in 2002, compared to just 13% of white families, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.How can our young people excel if they are mired in a culture that expects the worst of them; a culture that celebrates criminality; a culture in which the most egregious slurs have replaced terms of love and respect; a culture that entraps them in the depths of society’s margins just as surely as any Jim Crow law ever devised? How can we as a people thrive in a culture that denigrates excellence, education, and achievement while glorifying ignorance and mediocrity as authentically black?
The answer is, we can’t. We must do something about it. We must take back our race. But where we suffer the greatest need for leadership is within our own community. Those of us in positions of power and influence, including the very CEOs and companies celebrated in this and every issue of BE, must step up. African Americans across the country see
our success in business, in politics, in education, in community building. Once again, Black America looks to us for leadership.How will we answer? I suggest you start by listening to the voices of those who came before us. They fought the hard battles. They stood against the very worst of America’s legacy of racism so that we could be here to build our multibillion-dollar companies, to rise to the upper echelons of corporate America and Wall Street, to enable our children to live and dream and achieve. And yet the spirits of our predecessors are troubled and dismayed that we’ve lost touch with the core values that won us the opportunities so many have chosen to squander.
And so, we must take back our race. If not, where will the next generation of excellence come from? Who will lead the BE 100S for the next 35 years? When our children and their children consider us in the bright light of history, what will they think of their inheritance?
I remain committed to upholding our legacy of exellence. I intend to do everything in my power to fulfill my responsibility to take back our race from the diminished expectations and backward mind-set that have taken root in our community. The future of our people, and perhaps our very survival, is on the line. And in 2007, even as we celebrate the 35th anniversary of the BE 100S, I am counting on you to join me in this fight.