I think the biggest impact that National Black MBA has had is always the creation of jobs.

There is no better way to give back.

There is no better way to change someone's life than to give them a job.

So when I think about the years and years of the career expos that we have had all across this country, and I think about how many jobs people have gotten, including myself as a result of the career expos, I can't imagine what that dollar number might look like, or how many individuals we have transformed their life, or we have changed the trajectory of their career because of a job.

And so there's lots of things that National Black MBA has done well, but to me, the biggest impact is creating jobs and the access for people to get jobs.

I think the greatest legacy any organization can, can have believe is to have a history of helping generations now and generations to come to have a pathway to success.

My name is Jason Dirden, and as an actor, I've been featured in the variety of television shows and movies.

But today, my assignment is to take you on a journey to an organization where careers have been started and navigated families built and lifelong friendships established the National Black MBA association has been connected with moving the economic and cultural legacy of African Americans since its beginnings.

So sit back and enjoy as the race continues.

I'm Steve Lewis.

I'm a retired, executive from Ford Motor Company.

Uh, I spent over 39 years there.

I spent a lot of time during those 39 years with the National Black MBA association.

They helped me grow in my role before, the term diversity, equity and inclusion was coined.

The Black MBA was there.

I joined the National Black MBA Association in 1978.

And during that time in 1978, again, I had learned about business practices in business school, but I knew nothing about corporate politics, corporate practices.

And in 1978, I remember, uh, meeting in the basement of various folks' houses talking about how to maneuver corporate politics.

The first conference was here in 1979 because at that time, Bill Brooks was leading the Black MBA.

He has suggested that we have a career fair and leadership development conference here.

Um, and Bill Brooks at that time was the director of General Motors, and he helped, fund the first national conference.

And then along the way, Ford and GM started participating in national conference, but I lend that to Bill Brooks.

I'll never forget sitting there collecting membership, uh, applications on the spot.

A lot of paper during that time, you know, we didn't have technology, but I was sitting at the front door collecting, uh, membership information for those that, wanted to participate in the conference.

I think we had about 300 participants during the first conference.

The conferences during my tenure were very successful because when I brought that $500,000 of funding to the National Black MBA Association, I also brought concerts to the National Black MBA Association.

And why concerts?

People always say, well, Ford was known for having concerts at the National Black MBA association.

That wasn't because Steve Lewis went out and signed concerts.

Steve Lewis worked his corporate politics, and you found the areas found focus in the areas of sales and marketing where sales and marketing were underwriting acts across the country.

And strategically, all I did was make sure if they had 10 stops, the Black MBA was one of them.

So it was easy for me to get Frankie Beverly and Mays.

It was easy for me to get Chaka Khan.

It was easy for me to get other acts of comparable statues that, uh, and I'll never forget having the new edition in Atlanta, it was just sold out 'cause it was free.

But what did that provide?

The National Black MBA association that provided a National Black MBA Association with a another lever to market the Black MBA In 1980, my generation of colleagues were amongst the first black folk to penetrate corporate America.

And, uh, the organization had been started 10 years earlier out out of the University of Chicago when there was, for the first time a critical mass of black folk that had MBAs.

And so this first group of black folk in the seventies and the eighties, uh, were the ones who I say took on the last bastion of segregation in this country, which was corporate America, American business, whether it was entrepreneurship or corporate, uh, corporations.

I think the National Black MBA was the premier organization that stood toe to toe to make sure that the corporations understood the talent that the black community had.

Uh, if you think about the timing of when, uh, National Black MBA became really popular, uh, it was about the time where a lot of blacks were getting master's degrees.

We were going into the corporate world, um, but we were ones and twosies.

Um, and so we were kind of something new and corporations didn't really know what to do with this new person that they had hired.

And in a lot of respects, we, on the other end, didn't know a whole lot about how to navigate the corporate world.

And so Black MBA kind of stood in between to help us as members understand what our responsibilities in roles were, but also to make sure the corporate partners knew that they had an obligation as well, to make sure that the playing field was level.

That they weren't just playing a numbers game, where they would just hire a bunch of of blacks into their organization.

They may not retain them, but if you're just cycling through, your numbers are gonna look good on the front end.

If no one ever looks on the back end, they would never know how many are going out the back door.

I saw many organizations start to grow and have some, um, longevity.

It's a real staying hour in the early eighties.

And a lot of it had to do with the larger numbers of African American students coming out of business schools.

And the increased in interest in the organization from other cities, The fact that I was fortunate enough to, to be with, to helping to found the Atlanta Chapter of the National Black, MBA Association, that was tremendous experience for me.

The reason that, uh, it was important for us to build a chapter in Atlanta was because number one, Atlanta was a fast growing, uh, locale for Black MBAs' period.

Because Atlanta's attraction to black people, particularly professionals, particularly at that time, was so important.

So, it was so important that, within two to three years of our existence, our existence being the Atlanta Chapter, we were awarded the opportunity to conduct the national conference for the National Black MBA Association.

And that was something we were very, very proud of.

I used to go out and raise money for the organization.

I'd fly to California, raise money all day, take the red eye back to Chicago and go to work.

It mattered to me that we could put ourselves in position to talk to companies that didn't know us, had no reason to, you know, to invest.

But we would sell them on the idea that if you invest in this community, either you wanted talent or you wanted feedback on products, whatever it might be, that that was insight you wouldn't get from anywhere else.

It was my group, what we call the legacy leaders who picked it up from the founders who were primarily active in the seventies.

And we are the ones that grew it.

Uh, and its importance to us was as a source of leadership, because, many of us had not been elevated yet into positions of leadership in the corporations where we worked.

But we ran the National Black MBA Association.

We came up with all of the ideas.

We implemented all of the major programs that still exist.

We had a commitment to community and everything we did was to support the black community and support young black business people coming behind us.

So that's just some of its importance and why it has stood the test of time.

Why did we establish the National Black MBA Association?

Well, the truth of the matter is, when I came into the University of Chicago in 1968, there was already things happening.

In fact, you had the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that year, and all of the drama associated surrounding that.

There were whole blocks burning down after King died, and so we, a lot of people, were scared.

We were scared.

I was scared.

There were fires everywhere.

Uh, there was a lot of vandalism going on and keep in mind, that the University of Chicago was right in the midst of it.

But we would call the big three at that time, who actually spearheaded the conference.

So with Tony Jackson, Alexander Gabbin, and George Bradshaw, they're the ones that really made things happen.

So the way I look at it is '68, '69 is when we started in heavy discussions about needing to bring MBAs together to talk about the special position that we're in and the possibilities that we have for us and our personal careers, but also for our communities.

'cause we were not stupid.

We understood that we were in these positions because of what was going on nationwide.

Because we were sort of, you know, isolated from the student body at large.

Us being there in large numbers was, you know, kind of new to them.

And also new to us.

So, you know, us black students, we just, like Clyde said, we just sort of gathered together and, uh, supported each other, And that we were just someone who benefiting from monies that are now being available again, and opportunities opening up that for giving black folks opportunities we did not have have before.

That was '68, '69.

'69, '70 is when we actually did it.

Bradshaw and Tony said, "Come on, Gab, let's go ahead and see what we can do and pull together later."

Got Dean Metcalf involved, pulled together a letter, sending out letters to other deans at the other 20 some odd, you know, MBA programs around the country, telling them what we wanted to do, and getting Dean Metcalf on our behalf, soliciting their support and identifying two MBAs from those different schools that we could invite to a conference in 1970.

And it snowed the night before.

And that it was, you know, it didn't last that long, but it was, that was that snowy day.

And, uh, basically there were people that had been lined up to make presentations about, uh, different issues that was, that were out there in the working world.

When I arrived in September of '70, um, I had heard about the spring conference of Black MBAs that took place at the Center for Continuing Education on campus.

And one gentleman in particular, uh, who I got to know reasonably well was William Preston.

And he evidently was very involved in putting together the student conference.

It turned out though, that no one, um, really was taking the ball in terms of following up.

So William and I began to talk, and he shared with me the information and documents from that conference.

And that's when I began to think that we needed the follow up to see whether or not putting together an organization was feasible.

We went back to the university to support that for support of having people from the various meetings coming together.

And they did that in, uh, the spring of '71.

And at that time, the leader of the function then was Carl Fields, and then he was the one that really went on in the future and got the Black MBA organization organized.

When the Nine Member Delegate Follow-Up Conference was held in the spring of '71, I was the national coordinator, so I was responsible for communicating with the, the, the eight other individuals who came from schools such as Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Dartmouth, uh, and making sure that they were able to get here to the campus to participate in this follow up, convention.

Upon graduation in 1972, I went back to New York and there several of the individuals who were at that delegate convention also were in New York.

So we began to put together the framework for putting a national organization in place.

It was a natural flow of events once we found, when I say we, four of the nine delegates, found ourselves in New York.

And so that's where we started it, and that's where we began to put together the rudiments of what it would take to be a chapter, what you needed to be a chapter, uh, and then to start communicating with other cities around the country, engaging their interest in putting together a chapter.

I called the seventies, the Golden Age of Being Black.

You saw the NAAC growing.

You had Essence Magazine, Black Enterprise Magazine, the Congressional Black Caucus, all coming to existence and flourishing in the seventies.

So I've always referred to that as the Golden Age of being black.

Essentially, some of those organizations are still here with us.

So that's a testament to the people and the motivation at that time.

As with any organization of highly trained people who have good hearts and good intentions, nothing but good things can happen as a result of it.

That's how good things happen in any country or any community, is if you have a group of talented people with goodwill and, and energy, that can make a difference.

No matter where.

My first National Black conference, I got a scholarship for eight grand, and it might as well have been a million dollars.

And so I, uh, I honestly, I, I'm forever indebted.

I'm forever indebted to National Black because of that, that incredible gift they gave me many years ago.

And, uh, and at that conference, I saw these beautiful black people, and, and I saw these corporations that seemed to recognize the value of all these folks who were there.

One of the most memorable experiences in term of my involvement, uh, with the National Black MBA Association, was not only did I get an MBA from Clark Atlanta University with a scholarship that I didn't have to pay any money for, but I also got an MRS that being, I met my wife when I, uh, matriculated at Clark Atlanta University, and I met her at a conference as well.

And it was a beautiful thing.

We are happily married.

It will be 29 years in November of this year.

Well, First of all, most people don't realize it is the largest conference in the country for a job fair.

We have hundreds of corporations, and we have thousands of people who come, not only from America, but from around the world to come to the conference.

My conference experiences have been always been wonderful.

The, I'll start with the serious side of my conference experience, because I am a person that likes school.

And so, um, I ended up attending many of the sessions.

I always kind of had a program, uh, in mind that I wanted to follow it, and it was an opportunity to learn some things.

And the same time, there was a lot of really good parties and you did not want to miss the parties or the social aspect.

So I had to, we had to operate on, if you are going to hoot with the owls at the night, you need to be able to soar with the eagles in the morning.

My first experience at 2014 conference here in Atlanta was, uh, I was very impressed because I've been to other conferences.

In fact, um, I think about it at that point, I'd used to been going to job fairs, so I've been to job fairs before and been to conferences, but I had a underestimation of what this one brought.

So I had every job fair I could, but it was always a handshake and move on.

So that's why my expectations in '05 versus 2014 was so low.

But once I got there and people said, Hey, let's meet you, let's meet tomorrow.

And, and people started to call me, that was super impactful.

And then fast forward, as I got the job with Coca-Cola and stayed involved with the organization, uh, the networking piece, very big, National Black MBA Association has accomplished so much in its 51 years.

One of the things that continued to ring loud in my ears is when I go to conference and I see all of these emerging leaders, the inspiration on these faces to say that I am now embarking on my career.

And you balance that with going into these companies and these corporations, and you speak to individuals and they say, 'you know what?

I got my job here from the conference.'

Those are things that continue to ring loud.

And those are the things that continue to build on that fire to know that we are purposeful in what we do as an organization.

I had a best friend who passed away at the age of 16, and this is at the time where I'm looking to senior year in high school.

And I couldn't really focus on what I wanted to do in my life.

At that specific time, I wasn't thinking about going to school, I wasn't thinking about my career.

I wasn't thinking about learning.

I was just in a deep, dark place.

And there was a gentleman by the name of William Mills, I referred to him as Mr. Mills and I will continue to refer to him as Mr. Mills, who is a lifetime member of the National Black MBA.

I met him in the Bronx at Bronx Science.

And, uh, as I was there, visiting a friend, and he introduced me to a program called the Cash Program, which is a mentorship program for high school students.

Uh, through my experience with him and further conversations, I decided that I wanted to be part of this cash program, which is now called Leaders for Tomorrow Program.

He actually, recommended that I be mentored by him.

That experience changed my life.

Now, you have to understand, at 16 years old, being able to go to a national college tour and visit HBCU universities and colleges was a dynamic experience.

However, it was something that at the time didn't know how it would have a lasting impact on my life.

I was able to visit 16 institutions, visit schools, people that I've never met before coming out of Brooklyn.

It was a huge experience for me and that helped me transform what, what is now to be my career.

Uh, now, as I became a seasoned professional, I always knew that I was going to be a member of the National Black MBA and I wanted to also serve as well.

The Blue Coat Celebration is one of those things that are right up there as a part of the highlights of my life.

So when I started with that organization, I believe my big boy may have been five, and he used to attend conferences and, um, and workshops in the Memphis area.

So he understood what the National Black was all about, but he could not have imagined that Blue Code Celebration.

When he attended the Leadership of Tomorrow Conference as a part of the, uh, National Black MBA large conference, Luke went through that program and decided he was gonna attend a national conference on behalf of Leaders of Tomorrow.

The children go up there and they are given a blue coat by the president of that chapter.

And Luke was crowned actually by one of my best friends, who who was president of the Memphis Chapter at the time.

So it was a celebration.

I cried the whole time because when I imagined him getting on stage, I saw this for many years, this Blue Coat process, and I said to myself when he was five, I want my son to go through something like that.

I really want him to experience that.

He put that blue coat on.

And I can tell you that it is one of the highlights of my career.

I still cry about it.

Did you not know that women in this country for the longest time could not play violin?

They only been playing violin a few years now.

I don't know if you knew about it.

They really couldn't play violin.

I mean, they couldn't play it well, because there were no women on any concerts.

You know, were no women on any national symphonies around the nation.

At least they weren't for a while until one day somebody tried an experiment.

Experiment was to put some carpet on the floor, and they put a curtain across the stage.

And the person who was listening and doing the screening, the individuals who were taking a look at the event, for the women to go ahead and audition at the audition, they could not see who came in.

Uh, they could not see who could play.

The only thing they could do was hear the music.

And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, once they put the carpet on the floor, you couldn't see anybody couldn't hear, no walking in.

They put a curtain across the screen start stage, and all the interviewers could hear, or all the interviewers could do, was listen to the music.

All of a sudden, women started passing auditions, and they started becoming members, and they started joining all these, you know, concerts.

You know, they started being on these national symphonies, and, uh, yeah.

Isn't that something?

They suddenly learn how to play music?

Yeah.

Well, I tell you what, you can start worrying about being black when there's a carpet on the floor.

There's a screen across, there's a curtain across the stage, and they don't necessarily have to see your color or what you're doing.

I was the first of the seven to go to college.

And when it came time to, select a college, I had wanted to go to Howard University from, you know, from my youngest days.

But I had this wonderful guidance counselor, and schools were segregated then.

I grew up on the segregation.

That's how young I am.

And, um, and so my guidance counselor said at the time that the major white universities in the South, I grew up in North Carolina, were beginning to integrate.

And she thought that I could get in, and she thought that I should apply to Duke and University of North Carolina and I said, well, you know, I want to apply to Howard and to Hampton and I got in all four.

And it was so unusual for black people to get accepted into Duke University at that time.

That of course, that's where everybody wanted me to go.

And, you know, and during that era, there was something that we called responsibility to the race.

And that's where you made a decision to do things because it helped in the evolution and the progress of the black community.

And so I went to Duke.

I became a revolutionary at Duke because I grew up during the era of the Black Power Movement.

I have been an active and engaged member of the National Black MBA Association for 42 plus years.

And I'm considered a legacy member and a legacy leader primarily because of all of the different positions that I've held with the association through the years.

My first leadership role was as an officer of the Atlanta Chapter, and I was, I think, the fourth president of the Atlanta Chapter.

It was like having a full-time job.

And I was working at Scientific Atlanta, here in Atlanta, as well as serving as president and had two babies.

So, I'm telling you, it was more than a full-time job, but it was something that all of us were so passionate about.

I mean, we loved this organization as if it was another baby, you know, and we were watching it grow full time, uh, because more and more, um, black students were going into business.

And right here in Atlanta, we had the oldest black business program in the country at Clark Atlanta, because Clark Atlanta University started to produce MBAs in I think, 1945.

Uh, one of the, uh, most memorable experiences of becoming an MBA and also involved in the National Black MBA Association, is the mentorship that the National Black MBA Association also provides.

I want to talk about this mentor that has just impacted my life in such positive ways.

That being Mrs. Catherine Leblanc, she has just mentored me from the time I first stepped foot in a Chicago conference in 1989 until this very day, she advises me, she corrects me, she elevates me, she challenges me, and she makes me a better me.

And for that, I'm always grateful to the National Black MBA Association and Ms. Catherine Leblanc.

One of my most significant professional opportunities, came through one of my National Black MBA Association colleagues.

Um--it was 1992 October, and, uh, this person, Alvin Brown, was a part of the executive team, but he was also, uh, very, very involved with the Clinton, campaign.

And he was able to bring Mr. Ron Brown to the conference.

Mr. Brown met with the leadership team of the organization at that time, and he centrally said Mr. Clinton was going to win, and he was going to be looking for folk who had the kinds of backgrounds that we did.

And he hoped that we would consider, um, you know, pursuing joining the organization.

And, uh, Alvin, stayed on my case, you know, uh, get your resume ready, I want you to send it in, we really--you know, this president really has a focus on diversity, we want to bring in very, very talented people.

And-- and so I did.

And so I sent it in, and of course, Alvin is the one who walked it through for me, got offered the opportunity to run the White House Initiative on historically black colleges and universities.

So I give all credit to Alvin because I wasn't thinking about even, uh, considering working in government.

And my mother raised five kids, worked two jobs and I was raised by my grandmother.

And so, back then, I can remember when we got, running water.

I mean, it was rural.

We were literally on the island.

I think black NB is so important.

That's why I'm so proud of our legacy leaders.

They paved the way for me, and I know 'em all.

I mean, they took the time-- now I, I bugged them to death-- they're like, "Alvin Brown, can you give us a minute or two?"

You know, uh, full of energy but I just believe that we have to do the same thing.

It is, we need to exist.

We need to grow, uh, because we can have an impact on our community.

Yeah, I was exposed to the national Black MBA Association when I was in college, when I was an undergrad, where I get information about black MBAs and I go to my first conference and connect with different people.

It changed my life.

My perspective was an eyeopener, 'cause growing up in rural America, you know, I was raised by two strong black women, my mother, my grandmother, and instilled the sense of faith and hard work in me.

So I'm all excited I see all these African American, uh, entrepreneurs, business leaders working in corporate America, academia.

It really opened my eyes.

The National Black MBA Association.

They were doing a photo shoot and somewhere in downtown and I was invited, and I thought it would be just a great opportunity to go along more of the lines of what I wanted to do.

And--the funny background story is the day before I asked before I asked to be a volunteer, and I brought my son and my grandson with me and that was a no-no.

I would say one of the most profound experiences that I've had is, uh, was at--took place at a conference in Orlando.

A woman came to the conference and she came to volunteer and she came to volunteer, so at that time, I was with volunteer operation coordinating the volunteers.

And she came to volunteer and she was just a bit distraught.

Um, she, we could tell she wanted to volunteer, but a bit distraught.

She had two kids with her, and the kids were running around and everything, we were just trying to, you know, be patient, because we tell everyone it's an opportunity to connect with the organization on the volunteers.

I had gotten an initial call that said, "Hey, the kids are the kids are here, they're in the volunteer office Um, and, um, they're kind of running around and we need to do something."

And I said, "Well, where's, um, the mom?"

They said, "We had sent her out on an opportunity."

I said, "Okay," so what I'd like for you guys to do is to identify someone is to identify someone that can stay with the kids."

'cause again, um, my thing has always been how do we do inclusion?

You know, our our folks in our community of people have always been excluded, whether it's in the classroom, whether it's in the work environment.

Um, so how do we maintain and, and provide a supportive environment for this mom?

'cause there's something's going on.

The next day she came and she showed up and she put on a volunteer shirt, which we dressed professionally, but she put on a volunteer shirt and just put it over her dress.

And she went to take care of her session.

And we got a call saying, uh, you know, basically that they, felt like she needed to be removed.

Uh, she was in the back and she was relaxed and had taken her shoes off.

So, Kim, Kim Hayes, who, uh, who is the head of the volunteer operations, uh, she went to do her part.

I hear where you want to be, and I, and I get that, but I would be doing you a disservice to put you in a position that you're not ready to maximize.

So if you will allow me, I wanna first connect you with somebody who is very dear who I trust, um, that can lead you on this journey of where you need to go and where you want to go.

Um, so I called Naomi 'cause I always walk with my cell phone, and I said to Naomi, "I'm gonna send back Arlene.

This is what we're going to do for her.

All right?

She is not to be sent home.

You know, we're not turning her away.

We're going to use her in the volunteer office.

I want you to start this process of life coaching with her.

Um, I know that you do this, you do this well, that's what you do when you're not working with us here at conference."

And we got to talking and she just broke down.

And 'cause I wanted to know what was going on.

And we found out that she had, uh, she had basically took everything she had to come to the conference.

Uh, she had slept in a car, which was why the kids were unruly.

Um, she didn't have money for a hotel.

She just was on her last hope and someone had told her that she needed to be at the conference.

So she came to the conference and, uh, we couldn't let her go because that's not what the Black MBA stood for.

It's all about empowering and empowerment.

The National Black MBA Association has helped me with the accountability, um, through volunteering even though it may have looked like a setback, it was like a hand up because it would allowed me to connect with Naomi.

It allowed me to connect with Kim and Latrice and to see women who still wanted my success, and to see that there was some greatness in me, even though I was broken at the time.

I'm just thankful and appreciative that I didn't quit.

You know, it's funny.

Uh, the Talented 10th Theory usually, uh, suggests that only one 10th of us are, uh, capable, uh, or, uh, can have the capacity to contribute.

I often cite that as the, the sarcasm of the exceptional Negro.

I think that more of us, when given the opportunity, the right levels of experience, the right levels of exposure can contribute at, uh, at levels that most of us can't even imagine.

I always tell people that I live a life now that when I was growing up and you asked me earlier about my circumstances, a life that I could not have even imagined based on my circumstances, my experience, uh, I, I was a first generation college student, parents could not coach me through it but they were extremely supportive and providing opportunities to me to be better.

So, in many instances, because I was out in front of the pack, I might have been considered to be the talented 10th, but I am not naive enough to believe that others given same, similar opportunities could not have been equally successful.

Well, I am from a little town called Jackson, Tennessee.

Um, it's my, my, my upbringing is very different than, than most of the people who will actually listen to what we're talking about.

I grew up as a sharecropper in West Tennessee.

We picked cotton, we chopped cotton, and harvested cotton.

We lived on a white family's farm.

In exchange for that living, we had to harvest their crops.

Seven of us lived in a fire room house, no running water, no ac, and the wood burning cooking stove also served to heat the house.

So my day, it started at six o'clock on Monday morning, where I would get up, get some firewood to heat the house because our, our house was heated, by wood.

Then we would go to the cotton field and at six o'clock in the afternoon, we'd come home.

That would go from Monday through Friday all day.

And on Saturdays we would work in the fields from sun up to noontime.

If you've never been a sharecropper, you don't really have a good sense of-- feel of what it is.

I mean, it--it's, basically one step removed from slavery.

I didn't spasm over it 'cause I knew the day was gonna come where I was gonna get over the wall and never look back, uh, other than to go back, uh, whenever there's an opportunity to reach back and, and share with others what that path has been so they can kind of follow the same route that I did or a similar route that I did.

My name is Jamie Pleasant.

I am Dean of Graduate education at Clark Atlanta University.

I'm also founder and full-time pastor of New Zion Christian Church in Suwanee, Georgia.

My mother and father never graduated from a regular school.

My daddy could not even read when I was growing up.

I taught him how to read when I was in second grade.

I also remember that when I was young, there was always an aspiration and an inspiration to become a business person.

I always practiced, uh, sitting at behind a desk and making decisions and dressing in a suit and a tie and sounding real regal and confident.

And so I knew that I was going to be the epitome I was going to be Uber, MBA.

I remember when I took my SATs, when I took my SATs, uh, I scored 1400 out of 1600 at the time, and they thought that I cheated and so they put a panel together, called me back.

I sat down and took the exam again.

And I scored a 1500 the second time with all of them watching me.

And they wondered how this kid from the, the impoverished area of something South Carolina could do something like that.

And it was because I literally read and taught myself out of poverty.

I am also a Mensa.

And for those who don't know what Mensa is, Mensa is the high IQ genius, society.

And every time I would take standardized tests, I always scored 98th, 99th percentile, et cetera, et cetera.

And then finally, I was invited to take the MENSA exam and it was the Stanford Benet test.

And I scored in the genius level on that.

And that's how I became a Mensa.

I was getting older.

I had done everything academically I wanted to do and knew I wanted to do at that time, And I said, you know what?

I think I'll try and walk on the football team just to see if I can make it.

And sure enough, I was a walk-on, and I'll never forget it, I was practicing in the daytime, but sleeping in my car at night.

And I said, I am tired of sleeping in this hot car in South Carolina in ninety to one hundred degree weather at night.

And so one day during, uh, practice, uh, I was a cornerback and they called a nickel blitz and I was the nickelback.

And I went in and, and hit the quarterback and knocked him out.

And my coach said, who was that that knocked out my quarterback?

And they said, that was pleasant.

He said, good, we finally got someone who wanna play football.

Give that guy a scholarship.

Mind blowing.

That's mind blowing to be a MENSA member to walk on to Clemson Yeah, man.

Stop.

Y'all gotta stop.

I know, Man.

God has been so good to me.

When I went to college, I remember as if it was yesterday, I couldn't pay my tuition.

And so the comptroller wanted me to drop out for two years.

He said, you come back and, um, you know, get reorganized, get some funding and you can come back.

And can you imagine, that someone telling you to drop out?

So I was devastated.

I thought the world was coming to an end.

I went home, and, put together a business plan, asked to see the president of university, her name is Fran Kenny.

And I said, Fran, I want be somebody I don't wanna drop out.

And she said, what are you talking about?

I said, the controller wanted me to drop out.

I got a business plan.

I'll pay you in 60 days.

Fran Kenny looked at me, she didn't really know me that well, she said, you know, I was working for Winn-Dixie, I was working 40, 50 hours a week, worked in every department, going to school full-time.

And so she said, you know what?

I want you to go downstairs and register.

You don't owe us a dime.

Now, didn't cost me any money to finish college, because she made that investment.

And so I see my job as not only being Chair of Black MBAs, but being back on the board now as continue to make that investment in other people, because others made it an investment in me.

Um, so I take it very seriously.

I think, it's so important for the National Black MBA Association to be very successful reaching back and investing in our young people.

I think there were, two things that I really tried to do after I came on board as the president and CEO.

One was to take a look at whether or not our programs were robust enough to really attract new members.

We started off primarily as a networking organization, but that was in the 80's, today and in the last few years, I felt we had to be more than just a networking organization.

So we tried to take a step back, look at our programming to make sure that the programming was providing our members more than just what they needed to do to be effective as a networker, but it had to focus more on professional development, to make sure they were ready when they came outta school to go into the workforce, but also ongoing programming to make sure that we provided them updates in terms of what they had to do to remain competitive in their respective companies.

The other one, somewhat controversial, was we were in Chicago as a headquarters at the time, as a non-profit, sitting in the city of Chicago is a fairly expensive proposition.

So I felt we had to find a way to take some costs out of our business.

And the best way to do that was to find a low cost geography for us to exist in.

Well, I, I won't say that my legacy is totally wrapped up in being Chairman of the Board.

I look at the nine years that I served on the board and the total span of that.

Uh, if I had to pick one thing that I'm most proud of, it was the role I played as the Chair of the Real Estate Committee, during the period of time where we made the decision to relocate headquarters from downtown Chicago to Atlanta, Georgia.

We were in Chicago and we were in a beautiful office space on, uh, Wacker and Michigan Avenue Prime Real Estate, looking on the Chicago River.

But we were paying rent.

And, you know, if you put in the context of what most black folks experience, we pay rent most of our life.

And we all aspire to a point in where we could own our property.

So we transitioned during that time from paying rent, leasing property, to a move to Atlanta home of our largest chapter.

And we bought property, prime property, in Downtown Atlanta.

And I'm extremely proud of the role that I played along with other members of the Real Estate Committee and the CEO at that time, to transition us to, what we call in the black community to the first real signs of wealth owning property.

When I think about passing the baton, you know, I think about the different decades that this organization has been in existence.

It started with the founders, then to the legacy members, lifetime members.

So you have your regular members, you have board members.

The baton has been passed for years.

It has been passed through different decades of, you know, when you think about Reaganomics, when you think about the mortgage crisis, when you think about 9/11, we have been able to sustain ourselves through all the decades, through all the crisis that this country has faced, because we had people that were passionate.

So there were so many different people who had the baton in their hand and who were able to rise to the occasion with that baton and pass it on to the next person to be able to sustain this organization.

This whole, uh, carrying the weight of the previous generations on our shoulders or future generations on our shoulders is really something that is unique to our culture.

You know, we talk about generational wealth and many of us don't step into generational wealth.

So, what is our obligation to create, a whole new paradigm for the next generation?

And that's what I think about constantly.

You talk about the dash and what is that dash going to mean.

The Black MBA helps us to be that dash.