The Museum of the African Diaspora, the first of its kind in the world, had its opening on November 26 in the new five star St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco. Embodying the pride of many African Americans, one of the Museum’s missions is to explore the scattering or dispersal of millions of Africans from their homeland through the slave trade. There are over 150 million people of African descent in the Americas and Caribbean. In South America and Central America, African descendants have no idea of who they are for the most part, but do know that they are economically impoverished and politically excluded. A few of these countries in Central and South America, such as Brazil with 80 million African descendants, are searching for ways to implement affirmative action for its citizens of African descent. I have always dreamed of a connectivity of all people of the African diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean and that the African American would be educated to use its $823 billion annual earnings to economically empower themselves and the entire African diaspora. This museum is a small affirmative step toward this goal.

Back to America, where Hurricane Katrina exposed the plight of African Americans in the New Orleans Diaspora to be not much better than that Black village on the Atlantic coast of Columbia where almost the entire village was wiped out through neglect of the Columbian government. This invited the angry response of the US Congressional Black Caucus. With the total disregard of local and minority firms in the Katrina clean-up, $100 million to $1 billion no-bid contracts were handed out to ten multi-national companies, located outside the affected Gulf Coast Region. After much complaint, such as the Congressional coalition led by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, FEMA decided to rebid four of the contracts. Then FEMA changed its mind and said the contracts would be rebidded next year (Most of the contractors will have completed their contracts by that time). Next, FEMA set-a-side 15 contracts, with 8 for small businesses and 7 for minority 8(a) firms. Left out again – as less than 1% of Black firms are 8(a).

The statement, “Northern California is worst than lower Alabama for Black businesses,” is now true. Alabama has the highest Black business growth rate in the South and is proud to be home to eight of the 2005’s Black Enterprise 100 largest Black businesses. The Bay Area has more people than the entire State of Alabama, but is home to only one of the 2005’s Black Enterprise 100.

Many of you remember Sears as Sears, Roebuck & Co., who for many years was the largest retailer in the world. Roebuck was reportedly Black, but it was never made public. Now, Aylwin Lewis, a Black man, has been named CEO of Sears Holding. But one entrepreneur who is not afraid to let the world know that he is Black, is Don Barden, owner of Fitzgerald Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Fitzgerald’s, with Barden’s picture throughout the hotel, is the only convention rated Black owned hotel in the U.S. Barden is currently buying the Trump Casino in Gary, Indiana from Donald Trump. As James Brown would say, “I’m Black, and I’m Proud!”

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