The Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Okla., was so prosperous at the start of the 20th century that Booker T. Washington, the educator and author, called it Negro Wall Street, which later morphed into Black Wall Street. A white mob burned it down in 1921 and killed hundreds of people. Now there’s an effort to revive Black Wall Street, creating opportunities for Black venture capitalists and entrepreneurs not just in Tulsa but also across the United States. I recently interviewed Ashli Sims, a longtime Tulsa resident who is leading the project.
Sims told me that when she was growing up in Tulsa in the 1980s and ’90s, the race massacre of 1921 was spoken of in hushed tones. “There was a lot of focus on the tragedy and not on the excellence that came before, how much wealth there was,” she explained. She said that as the years went by she realized that Greenwood could be not just a warning but also an inspiration to Black people. Her message: “You are destined for greatness because this is where you came from.”
The organization of which she is managing director, Build in Tulsa, staged its first Black Venture Summit last year, on the centennial of the massacre, with Black-led firms looking to invest and Black-led start-ups looking for investors. The second summit, a larger, three-day affair, ends on Friday.
It’s interesting that this year’s summit comes the same week that conservative Supreme Court justices gave signs that they’re ready to declare race-conscious college admissions criteria illegal. While there’s no direct connection between the high court’s deliberations and the world of venture capital, it’s hard not to draw the inference that Black people can’t count on white-dominated institutions for a hand up and need to put more energy into helping one another.
“I would deeply agree with that,” Brian Brackeen, a Black venture capitalist who is co-sponsoring the summit, told me. He said Black venture capitalists have trouble raising money for funds because in many cases they didn’t go to prestigious universities, have limited experience with V.C. investing or don’t have a lot of their own money to invest alongside the limited partners. While none of those criteria is aimed at excluding Black investors, he said, that’s the practical effect.
Brackeen said investors of whatever race should seek out promising V.C. firms and start-ups as diligently as Nick Saban, the University of Alabama football coach, scours the country for talent. Holding the Black Venture Summit in Tulsa rather than Silicon Valley or Manhattan sends that message, he said.
Brackeen worked as a project manager at Apple before founding a facial recognition company called Kairos, whose scientific advisory board he now chairs. He and his wife, Candice Matthews Brackeen, run Lightship Capital, a Black-led venture capital firm based in Cincinnati that invests in companies led by founders of color, L.B.G.T.Q. people, women and innovators with disabilities.
Also attending this year’s summit are representatives from Pivotal Ventures, an investment firm founded by Melinda French Gates in 2015, and Fairview Capital Partners, a Black-led company based out of West Hartford, Conn. and San Francisco that invests in private equity.
The people in Tulsa aren’t the only ones trying to help Black-led investors and entrepreneurs. There’s also a Black Venture Capital Consortium, which places graduates of historically Black colleges and universities in V.C. firms. Steve Ballmer, the former chief executive of Microsoft, recently committed $400 million to Black-owned venture capital and private equity firms, Fairview among them. Plus there’s a list of more than 200 Black-led start-ups that’s open to the public, making it easy for the companies to attract funding and learn from one another.
Edna Martinson was 16 years old in 2009 when she traveled from Ghana to Missouri to study at Park University. She got an M.B.A. and then worked in marketing in commercial real estate and educational technology. In 2018 she and her husband founded Boddle Learning, which teaches children math through colorful online games. It’s growing rapidly. She attended the Tulsa summit last year and returned this year. “Sometimes the lessons you learn from other founders are invaluable,” she said. “They get where you’re at.”
As for Sims, who is running the summit, she worked as a television news reporter, an advocate for vulnerable children and a fund-raiser at Build in Tulsa before becoming managing director of the organization, whose mission is to close the racial wealth gap in America.
“V.C. is about making snap judgments based on where people went to school, how they look, who they know,” Sims said. “There’s a fundamental bias in the world. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. But it just closes the door for people who have a lot of brilliant ideas.” That’s what she’s aiming to change.
The Readers Write
Kevin Hassett, who says people should give out money rather than candy at Halloween, neglects the lessons learned after the candy has been gathered. Bartering with your friends and siblings for your preferred candy is the first buy-and-sell experience for many kids. It’s the basis of capitalism. Can I trade my gummy bears for SweeTarts and thereby use the SweeTarts to buy all my sister’s chocolate?
Tim Hering
Honolulu
Quote of the Day
“The reality is that fighting makes the owners a lot of money via fan interest. Would they go for a ban on fighting if the players suggested it? Probably not.”
— Ross Bernstein, “The Code: The Unwritten Rules of Fighting and Retaliation in the N.H.L.” (2006)
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
