(Akiit.com) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was direct, forceful and blunt when he said that the USDA does not tolerate racial discrimination. This was Vilsack’s widely circulated public explanation for firing Shirley Sherrod. There are two problems with this. One, the world now knows that Sherrod did not do or say anything to merit being branded a bigot and sacked. Vilsack and President Obama subsequently apologized to Sherrod and offered her her job back.

The second problem is more troubling. Vilsack should have been talking about the shameful and disgraceful treatment of black farmers by his agency, and the equally shameful and disgraceful treatment of the farmers by Congress. The day after Vilsack issued his lofty pronouncement about zero tolerance for racial discrimination, Gary Grant, President of the 20,000 member Black Farmer & Agriculturalists Association, flatly called Vilsack’s statement “a complete lie.” He had good reason. During the past quarter century, tens of thousands of black farmers have lost their land, homes, and livestock, due to the blatant refusal by the USDA to make or guarantee loans to them.

The farmers have filed individual and class lawsuits, staged sit-ins, held protests marches and rallies challenging the naked discriminatory lending practices of the USDA. Shirley Sherrod was one of them. She and her husband and a cooperative of black farmers were refused loans and their farms were foreclosed on in 1985. They filed a suit. It took more than two decades of legal wrangling but finally Sherrod and her husband and the other farmers won their suit and were awarded damages $13 million in damages.

The USDA has revamped its operations, has an active civil rights division, and says it carefully scrutinizes its lending program to prevent bias. This doesn’t mean that the USDA has totally righted its past racial wrongs. In a statement, the black farmer’s association notes that the USDA has not punished any of its agents or officials that encouraged or turned a blind eye to discriminatory lending. A decade ago the USDA shelled out $2.3 billion to the farmers to settle the discrimination suits. But that didn’t end the injustice. Thousands of black farmers that lost their land did not get a nickel. They were excluded from the settlement through bureaucratic bungling, technicalities, and challenges by Bush Justice Department officials.

A decade later, with the approval of President Obama, Vilsack, agreed to a second settlement of $1.25 billion. This again didn’t end the injustice. Congress had to approve release of the funds. It set a deadline of March 31 for approval. The deadline came and went. Congress went on spring vacation without approving the money. It set another deadline of May 31 for approval. That date also came and went with no action.

GOP conservatives and the right-wing talking heads then went to work. They railed that the settlement was a deficit buster, was unjustified, and a political giveaway by the Obama administration to appease black Democrats. The presumption being that all the black farmers are Democrats and dutiful Obama voters.
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(Akiit.com) Coming from a family with a tradition in medicine it was only natural for Chantale Trouillot to want to heal sick people. Her father was a Doctor when Chantale was growing up in Port Au Prince, Haiti. Chantale wanted to be the hands-on, day and night, care and comfort for patients so she became a nurse. The family remained in Haiti while Chantale moved to the United States in 1985 and continued in nursing, gaining expertise in Critical Care.

In 2004, 13 years of marriage and 3 children later, her husband Erickson had a heart attack. He was admitted to the hospital and underwent triple bypass surgery. Years of patient care experience in the Intensive Care Unit had prepared Chantale for the clinical eventualities during Erickson’s slow recovery.

One thing she was not expecting was for her patient to complain so much about the embarrassing hospital gown he had to wear. During her career Chantale had seen advances in all types of medical products, but as she listened to her husband she realized the patient gown had changed little from the time she had first become a nurse. Her husband’s plight inspired her, and she developed a prototype of a new patient gown that would address her husband’s concerns.

She believed patients and their caregivers deserved a more dignified garment, and she put features into the design to help make nursing tasks easier as well. Having limited time and resources, Chantale teamed up with one of her nurse co-workers. Together they formed the ECT Solutions company, and filed for a U.S. Patent on their new gown.

In 2005, the company had a product and a vision, but no practical experience in going to market. Chantale’s husband Erickson had fully recovered from surgery and was working as a real estate agent. With the housing market wallowing in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, Erickson became the fledgling company’s marketing director. Caring for an extended family, working full time, and trying to launch a new company all at the same time were taking their toll. The Trouillots were blessed to find many advocates within diversity programs offered by suppliers and healthcare facilities in the medical industry, and these people encouraged them to keep going forward in spite of these many challenges.

Through 2006 and 2007 Chantale and Erickson searched for a manufacturer that would take on their vision and produce the ECT Gown. Traveling extensively, they made a few false starts in partnering with large, established manufacturers in the healthcare textiles industry. All the while they continued to be enthusiastic about the potential for their product, and presented the ECT Gown to Chantale’s network of clinical nurse contacts. Ericson’s sister, a healthcare purchasing manager, added some contacts of her own, but throughout 2008 none were truly interested in moving forward as the company had no solid relationship with a manufacturer that could deliver the gown in the large quantities a hospital would require. They were running out of options, but they never lost hope.

Finally in 2009 their persistence brought opportunity and ECT Solutions signed an exclusive licensing agreement with American Dawn Inc. The company shared Chantale’s desire to bring a truly innovative gown to the market, and they were willing to commit resources to promote the product.

In 2010 ECT Gown sales are experiencing rapid growth. Chantale’s vision has been endorsed by a former Surgeon General of the United States, and patients are starting to benefit from the comfortable and clinically designed product she was inspired to create over six years ago.

I’m hoping you will be open to taking a look at a new reusable U.S. patented patient gown. I have no doubt the gown will sell itself. I know you are very busy, I am asking for 5 minutes of your time.
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(Akiit.com) Michael Jordan’s takeover of the Bobcats makes him the only black majority owner of a major U.S. sports franchise…

Michael Jordan, pro basketball’s greatest player, and a lackluster executive for two franchises, once said in a Nike commercial, “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

He got another chance when his bid for the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats was accepted. Although, how much he paid is in dispute. Forbes magazine set the Bobcats’ value at $175 million: a steep plunge from the $300 million Robert L. Johnson paid for the team in 2003.

The NBA won’t provide details, but a spokesman’s e-mail to The Root stated, “we expect the transaction will value the Bobcats at between $275-$290 million and that Michael Jordan is acquiring an 80 percent stake.”

The deal between Johnson, the first black majority owner of a major U.S. pro sports team, and NBA legend Michael Jordan, who earned hundreds of millions highlights why no other blacks own controlling shares in pro basketball, football or baseball teams.

During segregation, when fan interest was high, start-up costs were low, and there was scant competition, blacks started, bought and sold leagues and teams. Today’s pro sports owners–often billionaires–have access to enormous capital, influential associates and can manage the timing of a deal.

Since the 1980s, African Americans have controlled one or two of those ingredients, but the trio needed to be a majority owner eluded everyone except Johnson and Jordan. Blacks are, and have been, pro team limited partners. This is a look at some of those would-be owners, as well as individuals who decided to invest in teams in less expensive pro sports.

Taking and Making Their Shots Against the NBA

The first blacks to become managing general partners of a major pro sports franchise, if briefly, were Bertram Lee and Peter Bynoe. In 1989, the pair, with partners tennis pro Arthur Ashe and then-Democratic National Chairman Ron Brown, signed a deal to buy the Denver Nuggets for $65 million. After the financing became a problem, the duo’s investment partner, Comsat Corp., bought the team.

Between 1999 and 2002, Bob Johnson made three offers for the Bobcats’ predecessor, the Charlotte Hornets and was rebuffed by the owner, George Shinn. In 1999, Shinn also rejected Michael Jordan’s bid for a controlling interest in the Hornets.

In 2000, Jordan paid between $20 million and $30 million for a 10 percent stake in the Washington Wizards and became president of basketball operations. The deal also gave him a share of the National Hockey League Washington Capitals.

But Bob Johnson, the man who sold Black Entertainment Television to Viacom for $3 billion, is persistent. In 2003, after Shinn decamped to New Orleans with the Hornets, Johnson became the majority owner of the expansion NBA Charlotte Bobcats, and later the Charlotte Sting of the WNBA. African-American members of the multi-ethnic investment team included former Boston Celtic, ML Carr, rapper Nelly, as well as two prominent African Americans from the area.

In 2006, Jordan purchased equity in the Bobcats. As the Bobcats’ owner, he may recruit black limited partners.

In the 1980s, Edward Gardner and his wife, Bettian, co-founder of Soft Sheen, the black hair company, became part owners of the Chicago Bulls. Magic Johnson purchased part of the Los Angeles Lakers in 1994, and the next year Isiah Thomas bought 10 percent of the Toronto Raptors. Jay-Z and Bill Cosby have made investments in the New Jersey Nets. David Robinson has a piece of the San Antonio Spurs, and singer Usher owsn part of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Other teams that have had or have black co-owners include the Memphis Grizzlies and the Atlanta Hawks.

Since 2005, Sheila Johnson, the co-founder of BET and ex-wife of Robert Johnson, has owned interests in several teams. She is the team president, managing partner and governor of the WNBA Washington Mystics, and she co-owns the NHL Washington Capitals and the NBA’s Washington Wizards. In 2009, Forbes reported the average value (equity plus debt) of an NBA team to be $367 million.
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(Akiit.com) How a Cleveland entrepreneur lost everything and bounced back after tangling with an infamous con man…

How a Cleveland entrepreneur lost everything and bounced back after tangling with an infamous con man.

Entrepreneur Phil Davis has experienced his share of ups and downs in his business life, including shuttering his first Cleveland-based venture after losing his biggest client.

But nothing could have prepared him for the day he was forced to close his award-winning chicken-and-waffle restaurant chain–Phil the Fire–amid a swirl of financial fraud accusations, lawsuits and a damaged reputation.

“I couldn’t see the bottom,” said Davis, 50. “A con man is only as good as you are greedy.”

The con man Davis is referring to is Kirk Wright, who in 2008 was convicted for swindling just over $150 million out of 500 investors, including former NFL stars Steve Atwater and Blaine Bishop. Wright ran a classic Ponzi scheme, and to this day Davis calls him the black Bernie Madoff. Davis became a victim of the deceitful web after entering into a partnership with Wright to open a second restaurant in downtown Cleveland. Wright turned the tables on him, says Davis, by attempting to accuse him of fraud and forcing him out of his own business. Unable to get a job in the restaurant industry, Davis had to take an $8.50-an-hour job loading boxes for UPS.

It has taken the entrepreneur six years to rise from the ashes. This time around, Davis is pinning his hopes on iCubed International, through which he has designed one of the world’s smallest microwave ovens, the iWavecube. Measuring less than 12 cubic inches, the mini-microwave oven has caught on slowly during the economic downturn, but he has found an outlet through online retailing. He now has his eyes set on building a $1 billion company in five years.

“We’re on the cusp of doing something big,” says Davis, who declined to give revenue figures but expects to sell up to 100,000 units over the next 18 months. “There’s nothing I can’t get done.”

Davis–born and raised in Cleveland–tasted entrepreneurial life as a senior at Stanford University, when he revived the college’s yearbook for African-American students. After earning an economics degree at Stanford and an MBA at University of Virginia in 1985, he landed a position at Ocean Spray in Boston.

Within three years, he was pursuing his next project, BertSherm Products, Inc., which developed the children’s deodorant Fun ‘N Fresh. The health and beauty item took off, making it to the shelves of Target Corp., Kmart Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

“He has the ultimate belief in his ability to think like a customer,” says Boake Sells, former CEO of Revco, which also sold the deodorant.

Wal-Mart–the largest purchaser–stopped carrying the products as part of a reorganization of its merchandising. That spelled the end of BertSherm, and Davis went back to doing some consulting work.
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(Akiit.com) Miami, FL – The Pepsom Group, Inc., a minority certified company, is pleased to announce its selection as a Key exhibitor by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) www.uspto.gov to be one of sixteen exhibitors at the 2009 National Trademark Expo to be held May 8-9th. The event will take place at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. The Pepsom Group was the surprise selection, as it is a relatively new company in contrast to the other elite exhibitors such as Burberry, Bridgestone, Hershey Company, UPS, U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Department of Energy – all collectively chosen to educate the public about the role of trademarks in our society.

The Pepsom Group founded by John E. Brown III, an African American, and Miyako Haag, an Asian American, has transformed an age-old remedy, Epsom salt, into Pepsom - “New Generation of Epsom Salt™” www.pepsom.com. The USPTO chose the Pepsom Group because of the innovative way branding was used for this retail product. The product is now available in over 15,000 retail locations including Walgreens, Kroger, Bed Bath & Beyond and Piggly-Wiggly just to name a few. The unique brand name “Pepsom”, and dynamic bright packaging jump out at the consumers next to regular Epsom salt in a normally staid first aid section in both food and drug stores. By changing the way people think about Epsom salt, Pepsom products now provide people of all ages with an excellent way to not only soothe away aches and pain, but also to relieve stress. Currently, used by several professional sports teams, now baby boomers, Weekend Warriors, as well as the general public will experience the benefits that Pepsom Sports® and Pepsom Salt® brands provide. Pepsom www.pepsom.com is an American-made product with 100% natural ingredients, a “green” blend (safe for the environment).

Several of our trademarks include:

Pepsom Sports®, the Original Sports Soak™ (formulated for relief of muscle soreness and joint pain commonly associated with sports related activities). Proudly endorsed by the National Basketball Athletic Trainers Association (NBATA™), the wintergreen and spearmint blends add soothing properties to an already known remedy.
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