♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Samantha Tweedy, the CEO of the Black Economic Alliance, next on "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by the following.

At Wells Fargo, diverse representation and perspectives, equity, and inclusion is critical to meeting the needs of our colleagues, customers, and communities.

We are focused on our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, both inside our company and in the communities where we live and work.

Together, we want to make a tangible difference in people's lives and in our communities.

Wells Fargo -- the bank of doing.

American Petroleum Institute.

Through API's Energy Excellence Program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry around the world.

Learn more at api.org/apienergyexcellence.

Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

At AARP, we are committed to ensuring your money, health, and happiness live as long as you do.

♪♪ ♪♪ >> We're very honored to have Samantha Tweedy, the CEO of the Black Economic Alliance.

Welcome to "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you, Dr. Chavis, for having me.

It's wonderful to be with you.

>> So, Samantha, first, tell us something about your background.

Are you a native New Yorker?

>> I am.

Brooklyn girl, born and raised.

And if you ask my mom, Dr. Chavis, how I got into this work, she would tell you osmosis.

>> So, let me tell you a little bit about what that means.

I come from a long line of civil rights activists and fighters for economic and racial equity.

My grandfather was leading sit-ins at Walgreens counters you know, two decades before the storied sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement.

My grandmother, at the -- I now think of it -- the tender age of 40, went back to law school after raising five kids, working at the National Urban League, so that she could fight for educational equity for Black and Brown kids in the city of Philadelphia.

And it's really their voices that have been in my ear all along my trajectory and that led me to take on the CEO role at the Black Economic Alliance, where we are laser focused on advancing work, wages, and wealth across the Black community.

>> Well, you are fortunate to be brought up in a family that's been on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement, and certainly one of the places where we need to advance ourselves is in the economic arena, is in the wealth building arena.

So tell us about the Black Economic Alliance.

>> Absolutely.

But before I do, I'm so glad, Dr. Chavis, that you're starting us on wealth.

You know, we just for too long in this society, as Black folks have been taught to, talked at about poverty alleviation, about sustainability, about making it.

And we need to be at a point in time in this country where what we are focused on is wealth and generational wealth for the Black community no longer being the exception, but the rule.

I think so often, when you start talking about wealth, folks immediately start picturing excess.

They start picturing luxury.

And the reality is that wealth, at its simplest but most important terms, is simply owning more than you owe.

And we have to be a place in 2024 where owning more than you owe is our expectation for our community.

So the Black Economic Alliance, we are uniquely a coalition of Black business leaders who came together with one goal in mind.

How do you leverage the business acumen, the resources, the influence of the Black business community to advance work wages and wealth across the entire Black community?

And this really came from an understanding of our founders, Charles Phillips and Tony Coles, that there was not enough progress in the economic advancement of the Black community that is so critical to our overall advancement.

And, so, they and business leaders across the country came together with civic leaders like then-Senator Kamala Harris and Cory Booker and Eric Holder to ask this fundamental question of what is needed.

And the answer, Dr. Chavis, coming out of that gathering was collective action, that we needed an opportunity for the business community to have collective action around this economic opportunity and wealth-building mission.

And, so, that's what set BEA on its course now six years ago.

We work across sectors, so across government, business, and philanthropy to be able to open up doors of opportunity and hold leaders accountable to advancing economic prosperity and wealth building for Black folks.

>> How do people get in connection with you and the Black Economic Alliance?

Is there a website?

Is there a particular portal >> blackeconomicalliance.org is where you can find us.

And we also have a lot of opportunities where we bring together our partners to be able to be in conversation about the leading solutions for Black economic prosperity and wealth building.

So, at BEA, we are focused on identifying the leading solutions that we know are actually going to move the needle in our lifetimes.

And, so, we bring folks together, for example, at the Solutions Summit, where Wells Fargo has been an incredible partner to us, to engage in conversation around identifying, driven by data, led by what we understand the Black community's perspective is on these solutions, what's actually going to work.

So, for example, a big focus of ours there has been on access to capital and on leaning into supporting Black entrepreneurs and business leaders.

We know that, at this point, based on discriminatory finance and underbanking, and that coupled with less wealth in the Black community to start with, we are in a place where Black entrepreneurs are starting out with almost three times less in overall capital compared to White business owners.

And so we have launched programs like the Center for Black Entrepreneurship, which is a partnership with Morehouse College and Spelman College, knowing they are not just history, but legacy of innovation and entrepreneurship, to create a center that is training the next generation of HBCU entrepreneurs and wrapping the business community of the Black Economic Alliance and our partners around them through mentorship, case studies, adjunct faculty, et cetera, so that we are creating both that mind-set of entrepreneurship, but also giving the relationships and connections that we know will bring that next generation of entrepreneurs to the next level of wealth building.

>> You know, right now there's a debate in our society about whether or not equity or whether or not inclusion or whether or not diversity -- In fact, in some places, they're trying to ban DEI.

So give us a sense of your perspective.

And how does the financial services community react to the Black Economic Alliance?

>> That's exactly right.

I mean, to be honest, Dr. Chavis, I think we are in the fight of our lives for Black economic prosperity and opportunity and well-being in this moment.

We are experiencing what we have experienced in history before us, where we're seeing a clawback of the doors to opportunity that have come through such hard-fought wins, to be able to open them just a crack in the first place.

So, to think that we are at a point in time where there is public pushback on, for example, DEI advancement in the corporate sector when we are still looking at only two Black women in the Fortune 500, begs a different question than the one we're so often being asked.

And, so, our push is, when any institution, whether you're in the banking institu-- whether you're in the banking industry -- excuse me -- a corporation, and you're being asked, "Well, why are you still leaning into your DEI initiatives?"

the response to that is, "Why are we still at a place where there are only two Black women in the Fortune 500?"

to shift the conversation.

So, at the Black Economic Alliance, what we are doing to ensure that we're increasing those numbers is that we are actually leaning into a number of different solutions.

So the first is, how do we hold the floor around the continuation of DEI in all of these sectors, right?

So what we want to make sure is that, when companies are coming to us and they are asking how to navigate this moment, that they're not only met with the right data, for example, data out of McKinsey that is telling us that, at this point in time, companies that invest in diversity are 39% more profitable than companies with lower levels of diversity.

So the bottom line is clear, the data is clear, and it doesn't just pertain to individual companies.

At the same time, when you look at the national level, what you see is that data out of McKinsey and out of Citi is telling us that, when we lean into closing racial and economic disparities, that we see a boon of trillions of dollars to the US GDP.

And that's not the Black GDP.

That's not the Black and Brown GDP.

That is the United States GDP.

In fact, data at a Citi tells us that, if we had closed disparities across housing and education and health care, what we would have seen over just the last two decades alone would be $16 trillion of increase to the United States GDP.

And, so, what we're pointing companies to is something that we've built called the Architecture for Action, where we've looked at all of the systems and markets of our economy, and we've asked the question, how do you move those systems and markets so that they are advancing and no longer standing in the way of Black economic prosperity?

And, so, we've actually built out opportunities for companies to invest and to build their own programs so that they are able to continue to not just hold the floor around DEI, but actually advance towards that North Star of being a mover and a shaker and a leader on the investments that will really move the needle and close the racial wealth gap.

>> Why is there a clawback?

Why is there a retrenchment?

Why is there a falling away?

When you're in business, you're supposed to try to make more profit.

So, if diversity, equity, companies be more profitable, why is this withdrawal from it?

>> Yeah.

So, I think that, as a student of history, every time we see advancement, we see a push to stand in the way of that advancement.

And that's really why organizations like BEA were founded, because we have to keep our eye on the prize of knowing that we have an economic imperative here that is meaningful for the Black community full stop and that is important for the entire country full stop.

And, so, to be able to keep folks focused on understanding, as you just said, that there is an economic bottom line rationale for this work is what we think is going to see us through this moment.

I want to make sure that, as we're engaging with companies and engaging with partners in this, that we are also commending those who are staying the course and doubling down on their investments.

Right now, if you just listen to the media, you would think that the majority of companies are backing away from DEI.

You would think that the majority of individuals across this country no longer believe that this is what is right.

We did a Harris Poll where we asked the American public just that question, because we were seeing this misinformation so thoroughly in the media.

We asked, Dr. Chavis, whether Americans believe that companies should be increasing their racial equity, DEI work.

And what we saw was that 78% of Americans -- and I don't know a time when 78% of Americans have agreed on anything as of late -- 78% of Americans said that businesses should be leaning into their racial diversity efforts.

And, so, again, we need to be at a point where we are shouting from the mountaintops about the companies that are doing the right thing, about the American people who are companies' stakeholders, who are companies' board members, who are companies' customers really believing that this is the right thing to do so that the loud, vocal, well-funded minority who are pushing back against this are not then setting the future course for DEI.

>> You know, when I was head of the NAACP some years ago, we used to do a national report card on where corporate America was standing vis-à-vis inclusion, vis-à-vis economic development outreach to our community.

Do you think the Black Economic Alliance should, you know, let everybody know who these companies that are doing the right thing, who those companies are.

But we should also call out those companies who are not doing the right thing.

>> I do think that's important, and we need to be giving companies the way forward, as well, right?

So we're all in this together.

And, so, making sure that we are talking about those that are doing the right thing, that we are showcasing those that need improvement.

And then also saying, here's the way to move forward so that your work in this space is actually having the most impact is incredibly important.

We've done a lot of work with the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Steven Horsford.

We actually released a work wages and wealth policy agenda earlier this spring that, within weeks of it released -- of its release, the Congressional Black Caucus adopted whole cloth.

With Congressman Horsford and then Senator Laphonza Butler introducing joint resolutions in the House and Congress around this wealth-building agenda.

And what we also have seen Congressman Horsford do was to release just what you described, Dr. Chavis, which was requesting data from corporations across the country about their DEI efforts, analyzing that data, and then releasing a report in September that showed where companies are on their DEI efforts.

And, again, what we saw was that the majority of companies have continued to lean into and double down on their diversity efforts, and it was a really important moment for us to celebrate that.

And also to say, as the report does, that there are a set of best practices that we know work and that we need every company to be advancing on those best practices now.

>> If we increase, as a nation, Black wealth, does that subtract from White wealth?

Can you please just clarify, in the arena of wealth, is there enough room for everybody to be on the road to wealth?

Or is it restricted based on race, or based on ethnicity, or based on any demographic?

>> It's such a good question, and I think that this is actually the fallacy that is at the center of so many of the obstacles to our work, including the clawback that we were just discussing.

This fallacy that, at its essence, wealth and economic prosperity is a zero-sum game, which couldn't be further from the truth.

What we see, as I discussed earlier, is that, when you decrease the economic racial disparities, that what you see is the pie grows for everyone.

There's data out of McKinsey that shows us that, by 2028, by closing the racial wealth gap, that we could add $1.5 trillion to the US GDP.

And that's everyone's pie.

What we also see is that there is data, most recently out of the Federal Reserve, showing increases in Black wealth, alongside increases in wealth of other racial groups.

White wealth.

And what that story tells us is that, in real time, when we see progress, we're seeing progress for all.

There's also recent data that Raj Chetty put out.

He looks at census data across the entire country.

So, a big data analysis of what it looks like for kids of different races and different backgrounds growing up in different parts of the country.

When you fast forward to 17 years later and look at how those kids are faring as adults, what does the data tell you?

And in the recently released data, what it showed was exciting points of progress for Black folks in different cities across the country.

And what it also showed so importantly was that the places where Black folks increased their economic mobility, that we saw benefits for White Americans and Americans of all stripes.

So I call that out here because, again, I think it's so important for all of us who are so familiar with the truth here, which is that there is no zero-sum game, that it's actually quite the opposite, to make sure that we are telling the right story around what the data tells us so clearly, so that it is not misinterpreted, because we both know that if folks ever feel like it is us against them, or like we can't all win, then what is going to happen is just the diminishment of the solutions that have given us the kind of access and opportunity that we want to keep building on.

>> So, your work becomes so important because I think that, you know, we don't need hopelessness in our community.

We need to be inspiring and encouraging people to get on that path.

So my question to you is, what are the three steps that you would commend to get on the pathway of wealth building?

>> The first thing is around mind-set, which we've been discussing here.

We have to hold our officials -- and I mean that across the board, whether we're talking about government leaders, whether we're talking about corporate leaders -- to a standard that, when we are talking about the future of economics for the Black community, we're talking about wealth building.

That we need to be focused on what it looks like to have the kind of housing that allows us to pass a little something on to our kids.

We need to be talking about what enables us to build businesses, where we can hire from our community and help our community grow.

We need to be talking about jobs that actually allow for us to have the kind of lifestyles that give us the autonomy and the freedom that our community deserves.

And, so, that's step one, is ensuring that, when we are engaging with anyone who has influence over our community and our lives, that we are starting on a conversation around general weal-- generational -- excuse me -- wealth building.

The second is to pay a lot of attention to the policies that every layer of government have focused on economics and how those impact the Black community.

When we look at solutions that are intended for everyone, unless we see them starting with this first order question of, "How is this going to impact the Black community's economic opportunity and wealth building?"

then what we see is that they leave us behind.

So we can take, for example, the child tax credit, one of the policies that has the most direct impact on the ability for communities to be in a position where they are ready to build wealth.

When the child tax credit was enacted, as written, it left out 50% of Black children and families because their parents did not earn enough to be eligible.

So, when we're looking at policies, if we don't ask, as the first order question, "How is this policy going to impact our community?"

then we are so often going to be engaged with policymakers who are leading on policy that doesn't actually help us thrive.

And then, third, when we are engaging in our own day-to-day lives, that we are looking for opportunities like when we talk about entrepreneurship that are truly going to build wealth for us and for our families.

And, so, that would be the third piece of the advice for the community at large.

>> Can you cite some model examples of how different communities coalesce, not just to have one business, but a range, wide range of businesses in the community where young people can get a sense of becoming an entrepreneur even before they get to college?

>> Anyone who knows Bed-Stuy knows that, like so many Black communities across the country with this rich history for the African-American community, that there has been gentrification, significant amounts of gentrification.

But in Bed-Stuy, if you go to Tompkins Avenue, it is still all Black everything.

You know, you have Black coffee shops and Black bookstores, Black clothing stores, Black hardware stores, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And when the pandemic hit and brought business to its knees, but certainly Black business to its knees, what we saw across Tompkins Avenue, I think, is a lesson for young people in the Black community everywhere.

And, so, while we saw businesses and Black businesses shuttered across the board, what we saw in Tompkins Avenue was businesses thriving.

And what I pointed out to my young people in my home then, and have continued to do so to young people across the board, is don't forget, as you were just alluding to, Dr. Chavis, what we know.

That we know how to do this, that our community has done this since inception, that we have been building businesses because we have been entrepreneurial, we have been working collectively.

We have turned entrepreneurship into this team sport because we've needed to and we know how to.

And what that means is that, as you go off and you learn all of the lessons about how to become a successful entrepreneurship, still hold on to what you know you learned at home and from watching those business leaders right in your community do it so well.

>> Samantha Tweedy is CEO of the Black Economic Alliance.

Thank you for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> It has been a pleasure to be with you.

Thank you so much for having me.

>> For more information about "The Chavis Chronicles" and our guests, visit our website at TheChavisChronicles.com.

Also, follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by the following.

At Wells Fargo, diverse representation and perspectives, equity, and inclusion is critical to meeting the needs of our colleagues, customers, and communities.

We are focused on our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, both inside our company and in the communities where we live and work.

Together, we want to make a tangible difference in people's lives and in our communities.

Wells Fargo -- the bank of doing.

American Petroleum Institute.

Through API's Energy Excellence Program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry around the world.

Learn more at api.org/apienergyexcellence.

Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

At AARP, we are committed to ensuring your money, health, and happiness live as long as you do.

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