If you’ve watched a YouTube video or a TV show in the last few months then you have certainly seen an ad for one Mike Bloomberg. He’s the other billionaire trying to buy the presidency. His campaign has been beleaguered with him having to answer for his racist policies as mayor of New York City, racist comments he…
They’ve survived a prolonged feud with Def Jam Records, rampant substance abuse and alcoholism, accusations of antisemitism and that whole Flavor of Love phenomenon, but it would appear that the straw that finally broke Public Enemy’s back is...Bernie Sanders?
The turn of the twentieth century saw almost 90 percent of Black people —six million total— migrating North from southern cities across America because of racist laws and limited opportunities. Today, they are headed back South.
Young, Black professionals like Tristan Walker, a technologist who previously worked for Twitter and FourSquare before starting his own company, Walker & Company, wanted to see more diversity and more people who were like him. Walker & Company was created “to make health and beauty simple for people of color,” according to his website.
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“It was important for us to be in a place that’s more diverse than the places that we were,” Walker told NBC News.
Two years ago, his company merged with Procter & Gamble in 2018 and although Walker remained CEO, he thought the timing was ripe to move his family to the ATL like many young Black people are doing.
“I realized, particularly with my having two sons, what kind of world I wanted them to grow up in,” Walker told NBC. “And when I thought about cities in this country that were thriving, Atlanta won and there was no second place.”
Jessica Lynn Stewart, an assistant professor of African-American Studies at Emory University, said southern cities have become more attractive in recent years and that this trend is in part because of lack of economic opportunities and an increase in crime from northern cities, NBC News reported. For example, thousands of Black families have been fleeing Chicago, according to The New York Times.
“The need for labor during World War I, the need for people to actually work in some factories …people were actually recruiting African-Americans in the South,” explained Stewart to NBC News. “You had people who were upwardly mobile saying: We want to go somewhere else. We want to go somewhere where we don’t see the neighborhoods being constantly disinvested in. I think we see a connection between loss of economic opportunity and crime. You see in a lot of these major cities in the Northeast and the Midwest increases in crime. And that can directly be related to the fact that there aren’t a lot of jobs.”
Nicole Chandler, a Walker & Company employee, has also moved to Atlanta, the city where she was raised. Chandler told NBC she never envisioned herself moving back, but she wanted out from California.
“There’s so many innovators in this space that look like me, that are making products for me,” Chandler said. “I’m seeing people that look and move like me, and I think that is very attractive to people, especially coming from Silicon Valley.”
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Walker says he’s excited that his sons will get to see successful Black people thriving.
“I was really chasing an opportunity that would help my sons thrive in the future,” he said to NBC News. “It’s been really important for me to show that it is possible to thrive with people who look like you and see other people thriving at the same time in the environment you happen to be in.”
The post Young, Black professionals move in droves down South hoping for success appeared first on TheGrio.
Featuring a broad cross-section of women who have distinguished themselves across a rich variety of careers, our Portraits of Power series is a celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Black Enterprise, and of black women. It’s a place for today’s businesswomen to share their own favorite images and their own stories, in their own words. Today’s portrait is diversity and inclusion thought leader, strategist, and consultant Michele Meyer-Shipp.
Michele C. Meyer-Shipp
Partner, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, KPMG
Nickname Momma Shipp
My first job was working as a private investigator for a security firm. I was undercover at an electronics store trying to sniff out a thief. Didn’t last long. I made friends with everyone and had trouble sticking to my fake identity details.
My big break came when I was called into a meeting one day and asked to consider leaving my job as an in-house employment attorney to take a new role leading the global diversity and inclusion efforts at my then employer.
I’ve had to work the hardest at learning to say “no” and learning not to take everything personally.
I never imagined I would be a “partner” and C-suite leader who has had the privilege of traveling all over the world and meeting all types of amazing people.
I wish I had learned sooner how to navigate corporate politics and build strategic relationships. I learned the hard way, and fumbled some along the way.
The risk I regret not taking is passing on an awesome job opportunity that would have required me to pick up my family and move across the country.
If I could design my fantasy self-care day, it would be spent at a spa situated on the ocean with lots of windows, boat views, and open air areas. I would begin the day having a light brunch with my mom and two sisters. We would head off to yoga on a breezy terrace, then to have a 90-minute body massage, a back facial, and traditional facial. Finally, some sauna time, followed by an early dinner and relax time at the spa pool overlooking the ocean. Aaaahhh! That’s the life.
Very little keeps me up at night. I generally sleep like a baby but when I am up at night, it is because I am worrying about one of my three young adult sons.
When I’m struggling, I say to myself, leave it in God’s hands. He has a plan and He will show us the way.
I am unapologetically about family time and my personal quiet time! If both are not first priority, I am no good to anybody.
Portraits of Power is a yearlong series of candid insights from exceptional women leaders. It is brought to you by ADP.
Michele Meyer-Shipp will be a speaker at the 2020 Women of Power Summit, March 5-8 at The Mirage in Las Vegas. Register here to join us!
