black

Why Black wealth has stayed ‘relatively flat’ since Tulsa massacre

By Tommy Flemm 1 year ago

In the roughly 100 years since the Greenwood massacre and more than 150 years since the official end of slavery on “Juneteenth,” studies show little progress has been made to reduce the racial wealth gap between black and white households. While many economic, legislative, and social proposals have been made to eliminate the gap between white and Black Americans, some say that reparations is the only hope.

By 1921, the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Okla., was a thriving black community. Dubbed the “Black Wall Street,” the district featured restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, grocery stores, two newspapers, and more.

“It was quite extraordinary,” says folklorist and reparations scholar and author Kirsten Mullen. “There were probably few places like it in the southwest. It was held up at the time as a star.”

Though the name lends itself to a comparison with the street and financial center in New York,

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If Target, Whole Foods join 15 Percent Pledge it could lead to $15 billion investment in black communities: campaign founder

By Tommy Flemm 1 year ago

After George Floyd’s death on May 25, Aurora James found herself flooded with questions on how people could help in the fight for racial justice and equality.

As companies issued statements condemning police brutality and announced splashy one-time donations, James, a black designer and entrepreneur crafted a campaign that would focus on implementing long-term actionable change in corporate structures.

So on May 29, James, the creative director of Brooklyn-based Brother Vellies, a high-end shoe and clothing brand, launched the #15percentpledge, with a singular goal of convincing major retailers to dedicate 15% of their shelf space to black-owned businesses. James arrived at the 15% number because black Americans make up close to 15% of the U.S. population (or around 50 million Americans).

“The best way to get money into these black communities is through black-owned businesses,” she said in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance.

Within two weeks, fashion

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How JPMorgan Chase is making banking ‘cool’ for black teenagers

By Tommy Flemm 1 year ago

Eric Williams was a freshman in high school who thought he could play sports forever. He grew up in Chicago and looked up to Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James.

“Honestly, I never really had a positive role model,” Williams told Yahoo Finance. “Someone that looks like me, someone who’s older than me to steer me in the right way other than athletics,” he said, “I feel like people of my generation feel like the only reason, or only way to become famous is through sports or through entertainment and things like that. But I feel like that’s not true.”

Williams, 21, no longer defines success in the same way he did in high school because of the transformative experience he had in JPMorgan Chase’s The Fellowship program. Launched in 2010, the program aims to improve the economic and social outcomes of young black men. 

The six-year graduation rate for

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Redlining has a lingering effect on black homeownership: study

By Tommy Flemm 1 year ago

Before 1968, mortgage lenders used racially-charged language to assess whole neighborhoods for creditworthiness. They then color-coded neighborhoods, which were legally segregated, to determine which residents would be eligible for mortgage loans. 

Greenlined areas received the best credit ratings and the easiest access to loans. While redlined neighborhoods, which had mostly black residents, were deemed “hazardous” credit areas, making homeownership for people who lived in redlined areas almost impossible. Statistics show that other minority groups also faced lending discrimination, but black Americans were particularly negatively impacted by the redlining policy, Redfin found. 

The U.S. may have outlawed redlining more than 50 years ago as a discriminatory policy, but homeowners in formerly redlined areas are still losing money from the racist mortgage lending policy, a new Redfin study shows.

“Redlining policies kept black Americans from homeownership, and that created more segregation in the country, which has been difficult to break and rebuild

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Protests shed light on why ‘black founders matter’ in startups, business

By Tommy Flemm 1 year ago

Widespread protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd have also put a spotlight on a lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the boardroom, a venture capitalist told Yahoo Finance this week, who described the issue as an opportunity for change.

Angel investor Lorine Pendleton, the lead investor for the Rising American Fund with Portfolia, said that the current social upheaval is putting a needed spotlight on issues that pertain to class and wealth. That includes the need to tackle the dearth of minorities on Wall Street, Silicon Valley and in board rooms.

The problem is “really systemic,” Pendleton told Yahoo Finance’s “On the Move” in an interview, adding that the Black Lives Matter movement is “actually shedding a light on income and wealth disparity.”

And so I say, black founders matter, and that’s…what we’re doing and investing in these best of class companies that are out

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