America was founded on a social contract.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men
are created equal."
At the time of the writing of those words, they were untrue.
It would take another 89 years after that
to where slavery was ended, and since then it's
been 155 years of recovery.
155 years to see the reckoning of those words
to ring true because those words have ringed hollow for so long,
Despite those facts, you guys have become successful,
and that's something I believe that we can all use.
I think Black Lives Matter, I love the fact
that the movement has started, that we're
actually gaining ears.
I've been contributing in my own way during this movement.
I think my fight is economic.
This is going to be like a group discussion, all right.
I'll raise a topic, question and answer, back and forth.
I want you guys to feel comfortable.
We're amongst family.
I came up with the idea of the Black Business Town Hall
meeting because I know a lot of very,
very brilliant individuals.
They believe in the whole American dream,
but because they're African-American
they've had it harder.
I wanted to bring successful individuals that have navigated
through these different challenges
to share some of their success with the next generation
of up-and-comers.
The very first question that I would like to raise
and the topic that I would like to raise is economic justice.
We're already so far behind.
How do we catch up, and how we move forward?
Like I ain't get my life straight till I was in my 40's.
We got to start teaching people so they'll know what to do.
Keep your credit straight, you know,
have the relationships with the banks.
Black America built America.
If we chose to build up our communities,
those would be the communities that were coveted,
and that's how we can level the playing field.
And at that point, right there, now
you can challenge a world that's competing
with you economically.
Even at the levels that we are now in business,
we're still having issues with, to get finances
and things to do certain deals.
So you start partnering with people.
Otherwise, we'll never get to that next level.
It's not always about money.
It's how you structure your deal.
We're not invited to the table a lot of times
to even understand how those things work.
Hiring people is leverage in business,
the more people you hire, the more powerful you are.
Exactly.
I agree with that 100%.
I think Maurice putting together this town hall meeting
was a great idea.
It gives you that energy, makes you feel good about it,
makes you kind of say, hey, man, you know what, we're, we're
all kind of doing the same things, you know,
pushing each other.
I like that.
I think that there's been certain things that we've
heard over and over again.
And we've heard it in different ways, relationship, mentoring,
tenacity, education, hard work.
All right.
And I think that there's something there to it,
that we can develop like a framework.
Something that we can put together for Huntsville,
and then we can work on it a little bit,
and then we can actually take this model
out to the rest of the nation.
Thank every one of you guys again for coming, sharing.
We got, you know, some snacks and everything
over there for you guys.
Exchange information because there's
going to be some people that are going to need your services
and/or your wisdom.
Thanks once again.
All right.
Right now, I'm really excited about how everything
turned out with this event.
These are the business leaders of Huntsville.
We've started a good foundation as far
as what we're going to do moving forward,
and I can only see it growing from here.
I'm super proud.
You did a great job bringing everybody together.
Thank you, babe.
And many more to come.