Black History Month Presentation Slide Dr. Joel P Martin

This Asante proverb was an inspiration to me as I wrote the text of my recent keynote speech for a global corporation’s African American Professional Forum’s Black History month celebration. I asked my audience to be mindful that the demographics and psychographics of the African American and Black populations have been defined by history and asked them to take a journey with me. Even though none of our generations can even begin to imagine what it would be like to live in the part of Black history that I would open with, I asked that they do their best to empathetically understand – to feel – what a true reason we have for honoring the journey of the African American and Black people to the 1.2 trillion dollar spending power they have today. I had one hour to make this difference with my audience. Here are a few of the highlights. I welcome your comments.

The denial of freedom through Slavery accounted for the transportation of a staggering 20 million Africans brought by force and unable to retain a link with family, homeland or language; brought to the Caribbean and Brazil for the big money in sugar and to North America for tobacco and cotton. Half didn’t complete the journey from the African coast dying along the way. Ex-slaves and Black freed people joined by White Abolitionists protested slavery and assisted slaves to freedom using safe houses and the Underground Railroad: Harriet Tubman, an ex-slave and humanitarian, Fredrick Douglas, also an ex-slave, a great speaker and writer, a living rebuttal to slaveholders’ arguments that slaves did not have great intellectual capacity and William Lloyd Garrison, a good friend of Fredrick Douglas. We are the legacy of those who survived the journey over, the illness, the cruelty, the loss of family, status, and position. the loss of life. How would you feel, what would you do it this happened to you?

The denial of the right to Access through the Jim Crow laws passed in 1908. These laws mandated that Black people use separate facilities for travel, lodging, eating and drinking, schooling, worship, housing, and other aspects of social and economic life. However, while after World War I, the Supreme Court declared the Jim Crow laws unconstitutional, the practices too often continued. There was advertising not to Black people; but about them with harsh, negative and stereotypical Black characterizations. YET, despite insults to their humanity. Despite being socially, culturally and environmentally displaced. Despite the physical and mental forms of enslavement, lives lost around them, their cultural patterns persisted– some were reinterpreted, others adapted to fit the new environment. What adaptations would you/do you find necessary to survive, to exist, to heal?

Frederick Douglas said, “Men are not valued in this country, or in any country, for what they are, they are valued for what they do.” And BECAUSE THEY HAD TO THEY DID. Not being allowed access, Black people created Black industries for example, Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican publisher, speaker and advocate of the Black Nationalist and Pan African movements and Madam C.J. Walker, the first female millionaire, who invented and produced Black hair care products and a school. Black Churches were founded and they created Historically Black Colleges and universities. Black media was established. In time Black-owned ad agencies and PR firms were created to present the Black image in a positive portrayal. In Greenwood, Oklahoma there was Black Wall Street ultimately destroyed by vigilante racist white mobs. Other products, artists, and Black-oriented enterprises flourished. Because they were driven, the legacy of these Black entrepreneurs continues today. Dr. Maya Angleou said, “We did what we could with what we knew — and when we knew better we did better.”

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  Black History Month Celebration - Entrepreneurs

The Assertion of Rights in response to segregation came with World War II when Black male and female soldiers returned to America. What would you do? They demanded an end to discrimination. Willa Beatrice Brown was the first African-American woman to hold a commercial pilot’s license in the United States and the first African-American female officer in the Civil Air Patrol. She was responsible for Congress’ forming the renowned Tuskegee Airmen squadron, leading to the integration of the U.S. military service in 1948. (See Red Tail.) After A. Philip Randolph threatened a March on Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the Executive Order stating that there should be “no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or Government because of race, creed, color, or national origin.” In 1941. EEO for the military was born.

The passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. This document was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. Rosa Parks, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and people of all nationalities, cultures and races made this possible. The world hasn’t been the same since.

We had to go there to get here.

There are 23.9 million active African American internet users. They are early adopters and more likely to watch video online and to access online content via smart phones and other alternative platforms. Some of the brilliant African Americans I’ve come to find out about are Aprille Ericsson-Jackson — the first Black woman to receive a PhD in Engineering at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Philip Emeagwali who developed the fastest supercomputer software in the world. His IQ is too high to be measured by conventional standards, and he’s won a Gordon Bell Prize, which is like the Nobel Prize for computer science. Mark Dean without whom there may not have been a PC. He holds three of IBM’s original nine PC patents and led the teams that developed the first one-gigahertz chip. And Baratunde Thurston, Director of Digital, The Onion.

African American and Black people are aware of their racial identity. This is evident in their sense of pride and their awareness of discrimination issues – a majority say that discrimination is still a part of most African Americans’ day-to-day lives. Black and African American people are more than likely to say they know how to stand up for themselves…because most have had to. We all know what it is to feel unwelcome in a store regardless of how much or how little one earns. How do you feel when you are stereotyped and discriminated against. Would you stand up for yourself?

This is the pause for the cause of celebration…we all also know what it feels like to have an organization and brand show support and appreciate of African American and Black peoples’ contributions and to celebrate with them their history.

In his book “Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority “ Tom Burrell reminded us

“One of the greatest propaganda campaigns of all time was the masterful marketing of the myth of Black inferiority to justify slavery within a democracy.” The last several centuries still haunt us, and hinder our advancement and achievement.”

We’ve still got a long way to go. Meritocracy is a dream. Stereotypes those fearful of the growing majority minority coexists with champions of diversity and change agents who are visionary leaders. We’re moving in the direction of diversity with inclusion and the measurement of different evidences of power along with the purchasing power of other people of color. But that’s a blog post for another day.

We do because we have to. I am because we are…  Powerful. The ability to create the future without being limited by the past. To make the seemingly impossible possible through action. Power is knowing with all certainty that our success is dependent on our ability to create meaningful relationships in our lives. Like those connections our African and Black fore-fathers and fore-mothers have made possible for us. Power is having faith that “A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” (Proverbs 11: 25) And with that it transforms into empowerment. There is consumer power, love power, community power and green power.

We have many faces. We are many things. We come from many places. We contribute. We spend. We love. We influence. And… We are not all the same.

Note: The Selig Center for Economic Growth annually produces a comprehensive The Multicultural Economy of consumer buying power in the United States. Buying power is defined as disposable income that is available for spending after taxes.

Related articles

• Should We Cancel Black History Month? (bigthink.com)
• Museums highlight Black History Month (thegrio.com)

Skrillex in Concert - Photo by Vincent Mo

One of the diversity challenges many people are dealing with today are the four or five generations we have in the workplace. (If you don’t have different generations in your organization you might be missing out on a competitive advantage.) I’m one of the Baby Boomers who fit the research findings in refusing to retire quietly and ride into the sunset. I delight in learning about trends, music, art, people, cultures and the like so when I happened upon this article in the NYT I was totally engaged and listened in. Perhaps you will be too.

Manic Peter Pan Rules Dance Clubs. Consider the numbers: He’s a DJ (a title that minimizes his creativity as far as I’m concerned), nominated for five 2012 Grammy Awards. “In 18 months he has gone from being an obscure D.J. in the Los Angeles club world who played parties for 500 people to selling out 5,000-seat clubs across the country. At a show in Puerto Rico this month he drew 12,000 people.“ He’s gone viral with more than 59 million people listening to his most popular single, “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites,” on YouTube.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He is a Gen Y Millennial, a generation that for the most part is tech savvy, diverse, demanding equal treatment for those who are different and unique, possessing great multitasking abilities, confident and hopeful. (Source: Global Consortium LLC).

He is Skrillex, an artist who is fantastic in producing electronic tracks. Listen for his lyric, “You don’t need to hide my friend ‘cause I’m just like you.” If that’s not a comment endorsing diversity and inclusiveness, I don’t know what is. Let’s learn more, listen to each other, appreciate our differences and dance to the music.

If you have a comment on the differences between generations. Please post. And if you would more information or I can assist you in crossing the generational divide, let me know.

Related articles

• [NEWS] Skrillex wins three Grammys (electrifymag.com)

1. “All the News that’s Fit to Print” , (New York Times)
2. “ It takes a licking and keeps on ticking” (Timex)
3. “Where vision gets built”. (Lehman Brothers)

Wait! Time and time again? Times have changed. You can now read the NY Times online, “print” hmmm not. Our watches are digital or on our phone. “Ticking” if you have the app. And Lehman Brothers is gone having declared bankruptcy.

If a company has an entrenched hierarchy, an HR director without vision and a passion for their people (Only “20% of workers are passionate about their jobs”… The Deloitte Center for the Edge: The Shift Index”), you can bet in time they’ll be experiencing  high turnover of good management talent, a loss of intellectual capital  a loss in consumer/client trust and a brand image that is passe.

In the past it took fifty years or more to get to this point in an organization’s life cycle, now it is taking less then ten years for companies to find out that they are no longer relevant, that their products or services are not answering the needs of the public, and that their brand slogans no longer create the progressive images intended.

Somewhere along the road to becoming a less innovative customer adverse organization, companies stuck with their top down directives rather than adapt “interactive communication” as pointed out by Stephen Denning in “Radical Management. Often the answer to how an organization can manage the future and changing times is an employee “sitting in the room”, not being listen to and asked about what they see. Why? Generational differences, non-inclusive staid corporate culture, lack of engagement, lack of leadership and vision. And maybe the complaint “I just don’t have the time.”

In today’s environment buying in to the plan falls well short of owning plan. Owning the plan can only occur when there is totally openness and everyone has the opportunity to contribute.

The opportunities I advocate to and with leaders include creating an aligned, engaged and empowered workforce for current and future generations, welcoming diversity and inclusion, mastering new technologies, being a mentor and accepting reverse-mentoring.

On diversity – all leaders know The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A newer rule that I include in trainings is The Platinum Rule, “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them”. With cultural competency, communication assessments and plain old “mother wit”  comes the recognition that everyone does not think alike. Older companies that aren’t diverse and if they are diverse aren’t inclusive, stand to lose some valuable opportunities. Like failing to attract the best of the best candidates who are women and people of color. And if they attract them as employees, have the challenge of retaining them.

Top-down and bottom-up communication and strategic thinking on the future. Assure a continuance of the company. Protect your assets and intellectual capital. Use technology to face the challenges. We either meet the challenges or are beaten by them.

Most conflicts originate out of  misunderstandings escalated to an extreme.   We all hear and understand differently. A way for us to get on the same page is to listen and expand the conversation so that the meaning and intent of what is being said is clear. Prepare New York / Intersections International continues their effort to expand the conversation and to rebuild the world community.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, June 14) at noon, there will be such an opportunity as Prepare New York holds its first on-line Lunchtime Chat with special guests Maria Ebrahimji and Zahra Suratwala, editors and contributors of the book, I Speak for Myself which profiles 40 American Muslim women under 40. In the rich diversity of these stories, stereotypes are shattered and new understandings emerge.

Click here to learn more about Intersections International.

Dr. George Fraser

Thousands of people over the last ten years have gathered together for knowledge sharing by or for African American and Black people. The luminaries are the who’s who of speakers, academicians and community leaders nationally and internationally. They are dedicated to one cause and brought together by one man – Dr. George Fraser.

There are many key people on the FraserNet team that you won’t see on stage like Alexandria Boone (Conference Manager), Bernadette Mayfield, Charmaine Ward (Volunteer Manager) and the Fraser family members especially Jean. There are behind the scene team members that you will see on stage like Greg Williams – George’s partner, Dr. Kwa David Whittaker, Veronica Conway (Conference Coach) and me Dr. Joel Martin (Director of Education)…and then there are the multitudes of  sponsors, faculty members and guests who are so vitally important. This is a birthday card of sorts to everyone, to an organization and importantly to the man who dreamt it into existence. Many many more Dr. Fraser. Keep making your magnificent difference creating a stellar PowerNetworking environment “where people gather together to get ahead” for wealth building, health, entrepreneurship, spirituality, corporate contribution, connection, education for youth and fun.

“It takes teamwork to make the dream work!” George Fraser

“This is not an issues conference, it is an education and training conference…” George Fraser

For more information and to join us for this year’s celebration, click here.

PNC Conference Preview

This original piece of art is a creative expression by a person living in an ABHOW Grove.

No matter how much we may think that we are prepared and no matter how carefully we attempt to anticipate the future, “nothing ever goes as planned.” This is not just a saying but the truth. Rarely do plans ever go uninterrupted.We can always count on the unexpected. The only thing that stays the same is change – whether it is the cost of health care, the raising or lowering taxes, or importantly, the “elephant in the room” that we would rather ignore as though this would make it disappear - the disease of Alzheimer.

How do we deal with aging and our declining mental capacity to think, to dream, to relate? We would like to believe that our brain power is within our “sphere of control” forever the same. However, we must face it: There is scarce attention being focused on Alzheimer, it is something we are not planning for. It has been largely ignored. Dementia, memory loss or Alzheimer will likely interrupt your plans.

While there is a movement to create homes and memory support programs for those with Alzheimer, ABHOW’s Grove for example, more is needed. Everyone of us would like to count on a cure, a therapeutic environment, creative activities, and well-trained staff who will help us feel safe, secure and valued. However at this moment, today, we must consider these facts from the Alzheimer’s Association:

• While thankfully the death rates for cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS is going down, Alzheimer’s remains the only cause of death among the top 10 in America without a way to prevent, cure or even slow its progression.An estimated 10 million baby boomers will develop it.
• If you don’t know anyone with Alzheimer you will.
• If you don’t know of anyone who has had to care for some one with Alzheimer, you will.
• Alzheimer is a disease that will impact us all.
• In addition to the human toll, over the next 40 years Alzheimer’s will cost the nation $20 trillion, enough to pay off the national debt and still send a $20,000 check to every man, woman and child in America.
• The first baby boomers are turning 65 this year. And while Alzheimer’s is not normal aging, age is the greatest risk factor for the disease.

There is a free report that conveys the growing burden of Alzheimer’s and dementia on individuals, families, government and the nation’s healthcare system. To learn more about Alzheimer visit the Alzheimer Association’s website. And please learn more about ABHOW’s leadership in the concept of continuing care, the ABHOW Foundation and their recent innovations in memory support.

Rev. Dr. Cathy Clardy Patterson, Pastor, Fountain of Life Church will receive the first Positively Powerful Woman Award for Spiritual Leadership for her vision as expressed through the founding of Fountain of Life Church and her global ministry; for  serving on the ministerial staff at Tanner Chapel AME Church in Phoenix; for her academic credentials and contributions; for her success in the world of business as only the second African American woman in U. S. history to be named a Managing Director of a major investment bank; and for being a role-model as a community leader.

Rev. Dr. Cathy Clardy Patterson founded the Fountain of Life Church (“FOL”) in 2006 with 12 individuals “like the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 Disciples they set forth in obedience to the Word of God.”  Rev. Patterson believes that the church, following in the footsteps of Jesus, must meet people where they are and minister to their needs.

Rev. Patterson entered the ministry in 1999 and was granted a license to preach by the Presiding Elder of the Phoenix-Albuquerque District of the Desert Mountain Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (“AMEC”).  Rev. Patterson was ordained by the AMEC in 2002 as an Itinerate Deacon and upon her successful completion of the denomination’s 5-year course of study she was ordained as an Itinerate Elder in 2004.  Rev. Patterson earned her Master of Divinity degree at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Rev. Patterson’s academic credentials also include: a Juris Doctorate from The Harvard Law School; a Master of Business Administration from The George Washington University (where she was designated a University Fellow by the faculty); a Bachelor of Science in Management and Industrial Relations from Minnesota State University at Mankato where she was the first graduate of the University’s Honors Program.

Rev. Patterson has had a wide-ranging career in law and finance.  She practiced law at major firms in both Washington D.C. and New York.  Rev. Patterson eventually was lured to Wall Street where she held a series of progressively responsible positions at two of the largest investment banks in the world. During her tenure on Wall Street she closed more than $16 billion in complex structured securities transactions.  Ultimately she became only the second African American woman in U. S. history to be named a Managing Director of a major investment bank.

Rev. Patterson moved to Arizona to accept a position as a Sr. Vice President of ING /Pilgrim Securities.  Currently, in addition to her pastoral duties she is the CEO of a consulting firm. 

Rev. Cathy has always given back to the community.  Since her arrival in Arizona she has served on the ministerial staff at Tanner Chapel AME Church in Phoenix where in addition to having the opportunity to preach and teach the Word of God she served as the Vice Chair of Tanner Community Development Corporation.

Rev. Patterson has also been active in a number of civic organizations, having served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Scottsdale Cultural Council, a member of the Advisory Board for the University of Phoenix and a member of the Board of Trustees and Executive Committee for Arizona Opera.  She is currently the Chair of the Board for Arizona Cares, Inc, and a member of the African American Christian Clergy Coalition. 

Rev. Patterson has been happily married to Mr. Ross Patterson, Jr. for 21 years. Mr. Patterson has a heart for mission work whenever there is a need he is the first to respond.  His recent missionary endeavors have included extensive work with the Lost Boys of the Sudan, survivors of Hurricane Katrina and developing an outreach ministry for men.

About the Awards Program. The Positively Powerful Woman Award is given to servant leaders who have founded or lead legacy organizations that have stood the test of time. On May 20th, 11:30am to 2pm, at the Ritz-Carlton, Phoenix we will honor women as royalty for their hard work, resourcefulness and diligence. Following the Luncheon will be networking and “Conversations On Leadership” for professional & business development. Positively Powerful Guest Speakers include Diana Gregory, Susan Ratliff and Dr. Kay Lovelace-Taylor. You will leave inspired to go for your vision with new friends and information that will assist you in getting where you want to be…faster. The public is invited to attend. Dr. Joel P. Martin Triad West, Inc. president is the producer. Click here to become a sponsor and to attend the Awards and Seminar which follows.