In Black America

On this episode of In Black America, producer and host John L. Hanson, Jr. presents a tribute to the late Earl Graves, Sr., entrepreneur, publisher, philanthropist and advocate of African American businesses, who founded Black Enterprise Magazine in 1970. He died April 8, 2020, at the age of 85.

The full transcript of this episode of In Black America is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:00:00] The following program is a tribute to Earl G. Graves, Sr., founder of Black Enterprise Magazine. In Black America, spoke with Graves in November of 2001. Graves died on April 6, 2020. He was 85.

KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:31] From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is In Black America.

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:00:39] People kept saying to me, how’d you do what you did? And I’d say, well, you know, one day I’ll write it. And then somebody said to me you know if you wrote it, you could make some money, you’d get some publicity and it would work out. Well, it was tough because you know I’m not disciplined enough to want to sit down and start thinking back to what I did and looking at it and we’re talking about doing this over oh, it’s really working at the heart to get a book banged out even with somebody who’s working with you And I did have someone work with me. That person fopped at me and made some nice talking out loud and that person’s sitting there piping away in a computer. Laptop as we talked and taking notes at the same time, then coming back and cutting it in and putting it back together. And people who are going to publish a book for you expect to make money, and I must say to you that I got my first royalty check at the beginning of this year. So it means I got paid in advance for the book. They did it what I think was a very reasonable sense of… Marketing of the man of the book in terms of when it was added and I guess it’s been about three years ago I did this thing We did a book tour all over the country which turned out to be very successful We made the New York Times bestseller business that she made the Wall Street Journal bestsellers this

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:01:49] Earl G. Graves Sr., Founder and Publisher, Black Enterprise Magazine. Black Enterprise magazine is the premier business news publication for African-American entrepreneurs, corporate executives, professionals and decision makers. Graves has been a tremendous force in leading the black business community to new heights and a nationally recognized authority on black business development. In 1972, he was named one of the ten most outstanding minority businessmen in the country. By President Nixon. In 1974, he was named one of Time Magazine’s 200 future leaders of the country. In 1970, with a $175,000 loan, he started his publication. I’m Johnny O. Hanson Jr. And welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week’s program, Black Enterprise Magazine with founder and publisher Earl G. Graves Sr. In Black America

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:02:44] At the end of the day, I urge your listeners to aspire to all the things I’ve talked about and go even further than I’ve gone, but in addition to that, look back and not forget to help those who are less fortunate along the way, because if you were fortunate, you got to reach back and do it. In addition, don’t forget to take care of yourself, male or female, getting up three or four days a week if you only walk three miles. I was just off in the Caribbean getting on a re-degree last week and I walked six miles a day before breakfast. And i urge people to do that because taking care of yourself is very very important to read it in your life talking tonight at least we have to change it a couple of times because i would have an annual physical at howard university but they’re outstanding doctors here and and it’s a place where i’m also a trustee and so i believe in also doing business with the i do business with himself when it comes even my medical here i believe that i should find qualified african-american doctors and African-American lawyers and whether they’re he or she. They can do the job I want to do business with them.

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:03:40] Errol Graves has served as publisher of Black Enterprise for 30 years. He is continually sought after as a keynote speaker by small and large corporations alike and is the author of the book entitled How to Succeed in Business Without Being White. Graves had shown himself to be more than just a successful businessman. He is a role model for all African Americans. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Morgan State University in 1957 with a BA in economics. The business school there bears his name. Until recently, he served as chairman and CEO of Pepsi Cola of Washington DC, the largest minority controlled Pepsi Cola franchise in the country. During the span of his business and professional career, he has received numerous awards and honors for his outstanding business leadership and community service. Recently in Black America, spoke with Earl G. Graves, senior.

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:04:33] I grew up in a household where my mother and father were very much there father and mother in particular father and a house with a democracy with a very small d uh… Democracy and turn what it was uh… He demanded that my sister my two sisters and my brother and i all do well in school being co-cated and and have it home that we have to be somebody that we have to own something that we had to do well and when i was growing up in what was then beckford stuyvesant there was a consent of community meaning that uh… If we did something wrong and mrs williams who was only up the street about three or four dollars would first come down and give me a whacking if i wouldn’t do it right and then go back up to sit in the winter when she saw my father coming down the street from work very tired from the job that he had probably she would come down all called to the from the witness that i had acted up to that matter if i get a double-dealing one from his wings had already taken care of it and then my father to make sure that i got the message I don’t think that made me a bad person. I don’t mean to make this response as long as it is, but I grew up, and I also had my first deal with my entrepreneurial yearnings, if you will.

Speaker 4 [00:05:35] Okay.

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:05:36] I was selling christmas cards at eight seven in my i route if you will on my sales area the square block i lived on i have to keep making right turn for that was not allowed to cross three so when i got to the corner made a right turn went down the other side of the block and uh… Covered a whole square and it within that square when they were several thousand people uh… In terms of uh… The area that grew up in

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:05:59] How did you happen to select Morgan State?

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:06:01] I worked in a library is one of the many jobs that i had to run up uh… Through all the way to high school was working in i’ve been in fact getting paid fifty seven cents an hour and it was a general working there with a name of sam young who i have many many times have hoped i would have found him i don’t even know if he’s still alive and if you were even hearing this broadcast and said that i’m the same sam young used to work in library delighted to know when he still alive adjust and notes because he took me down to Morgan on a visit. I listen to him talk about morgan over the course of a couple years he was a graduate of morgan stated in went on to and why you i think it wasn’t that is passes degree in library science and uh… He talked about this morgan state all the time i went down and up on just one trip and fell in love i thought i’d never been on a real college campus before went down in the and i thought it was it was baccalaureate day which is mean to stay the uh… Religious ceremonies having to do with the graduation which was going to be the next day and here all of these young men who were Well, the tenants are ready. And they were going to be sworn in as officially as a Tennyson next day, and they would walk around and here was a campus with a track and a football field, and I was just dazzled, and I came home and made up my mind that I want to go away to school. Well, the rest of it is history. Forty-five years later, I graduated at Morgan State. I have a business school at Morgan State University, which is our largest school on the campus in terms of the number of students in it, and the name of the school is the Earl G. Gray School of Business and management. And so what let’s just say that morgan gave me something in terms of an education and over the last forty years or forty five years i’ve given back to morgan and i think in a very meaningful way in terms that what i got from that school and what i think i have an obligation to get back but of course if you and i both know john and we discussed this before this is something that uh… We both believe in and that is to giving back with the n a c p or whether or not it’s operation place for Jesse Jackson or the Urban League or the southern christian leadership conference or and the program that mrs king London in memory of dr king all the colleges that we attend uh… I i’ve now spoken probably though sixty different college graduations in that i’ll be almost as many honorary degrees and i and i look forward to doing it all the time because i think that and the young people need to know what the challenges are they need to now what it is to to accumulate wealth and build wealth because i believe today that if we’re Yeah. Have the position we sure to need to have and and and this country then we have to do it by wealth accumulation we’re not going to do by this and and itself owning a house we have have something we’re going to pass on the future generation

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:08:41] Why and when did you become an administrative assistant to the late U.S. Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy?

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:08:47] You’ve done your research very well job but i don’t surprise that’s why you’re successful as you are i work for robert kennedy full-time from nineteen sixty five to sixty eight uh… I joined his staff uh… I first had worked during his president and when his brother was president as a federal agent and uh… With the tragedy of of his death and and that’s robert kennedy not at the at stepping down to be an attorney general and on all of this came under him as attorney general and i went into back into real estate where I had. Done some sales before and have been quite successful at it when senator kennedy ran for the senate nineteen sixty-four i had the opportunity to some volunteer work for him and and that’s by the way the reason that this campaign that’s coming up is so important to me i i assume that by the time this is the election will be over uh… But it and i said it elections have a very special meaning for me because i really had the tragedy robert kennedy staff at not happen, he would have been President of the United States. Our country would be a much better place in a much different place and we would not still be arguing about equality at least not to the extent that we are today uh… But i work for killing two sixty eight with the tragedy of his death assassination uh… I went into business myself in nineteen sixty eight in it nineteen sixty ninety i didn’t contemplate black enterprise magazine came along in august of nineteen seventy its first issue came out and and this august we just celebrated thirty years of black enterprise in circulation as of january first will have a guarantee of over four hundred thousand there are four million readers of black and a price magazine and we have three sons that work in the first business is that we have to offer work directly within doing things with the magazine and uh… You know you get a return on your best effort and all this tuition john we were talked about before if you if you stay with it long enough

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:10:33] Having an idea is one thing, but putting that idea into practice and actually seeing it come to fruition. Give us a backstage look at once the idea that formulated in your brain of making that idea a reality.

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:10:46] I had worked in economic development for robert kennedy that we have to work for that i was doing this full-time tried to think i’m going to do a real estate development and think that we do a health care delivery and i did something that i think i have to do with uh… Other areas of urban planning to happen to do it cities of of new york state he was a senator from the junior senator from new yorke and senator javits the republican senior senator very liberal and also a good man and in any event With the tragedy of his death it really doesn’t matter what we’re going to do i think uh… I didn’t cover the front repeating myself stop me uh… And so looking at what the opportunities might be i first thought of an idea of a newsletter and then somebody suggested to me if i can do a newsletter why not do a magazine what since i didn’t know very much about a newsletter probably even less about a magazine in the media to make some sense i wouldn’t ask for some advice from people like you what kind of stuff i i thought they did something about a bag of a big office and help particularly people in the advertising industry. And drove home the importance of what advertising was going to mean because certainly i know full well one having been in the radio business and done so fairly successfully and two days and knowing for the success and what it took for you to get where you are with your programming and your stations because we are both in the communication business in my case in print and your case in broadcast but both of us have to go out and get those almighty advertising dollars and therefore i have to have a vehicle meaning that magazine that was going to warrant people Why need to advertise? Well… We get a couple of dollars shy of doing forty million dollars a year now with the magazine alone and so i would see when you reach that level uh… We are we are number sixty five in growth out of the thousands of magazine you have in this country this year in terms of uh… The increases in sales that we have enjoyed i have to give a lot of credit to uh… Two of our sons who are directly involved with the magazine and i think we have to get credit to the fact that we haven’t outstanding editorial staff we have an outstanding group of young people work for it not as my two sons, although I’m very proud of them. And uh… And and and more more people recognize the importance of what we’re saying and where how to book with saying the people we we mean to show the way in and and we say talking about the importance of wealth saving and and wealth accumulation and we’re talking about importance of planning for the future and i think what gave me more of a more of the area push in the right direction with setting goals for myself i’ve done that I can think all the way back when I was eight or nine years old. When I have a bicycle, I went out and saved money by selling Christmas cards to do that, and I couldn’t have been any more than eight years old. I wanted to be a lifeguard. I made up my mind that I was going to swim, because I knew at the beach, that’s where all the young girls were, and they were paying $10.05 a day, and that was a lot of money when I was in college, and so I went down and kept on practicing swimming and became that lifeguard, and knew I wanted be an officer in the Army, went to the ROTC, did that, and was fairly successful at that, although I didn’t stay in the service. When I got out, I was like… Captain in the Special Forces, which is, you remember, it’s the Green Berets.

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:13:46] Right, right, right.

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:13:49] And if you ask me a metal what a wonderful woman who i met and we have now been married forty years and i met her first of all i thought you had it that’s what the leg that everything about that you wouldn’t just pretty she was but you know you you got a look all over the court my mother was mortified because she decided she had a warm person out there but i think that mom i can’t go on pretty now that i got a ride the subway with this lady so she’s got a book certainly so i i i found a lady who i very much about And we become more and more partners and friends as our marriage continues. We have three sons, I said, three daughter-in-laws and seven grandchildren. And so I think I’m very blessed. And I don’t think I do what I do by myself. By the way, I have a belief in the God that says that you’ve got to set those same goals and then on occasion get down on your knees and remember that you got to give something back and that it all doesn’t come to you just because you’re smart.

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:14:39] You’re listening to In Black America with Johnny L. Hansen Jr. We’ll be back with more of our conversation in just a moment. And now back to this episode of In Black American. Mr. Grayson, we spoke about 15 years ago, you had mentioned that it was difficult in convincing advertisers to advertise in your magazine for the simple fact that they didn’t believe African Americans was interested in business or interested in investing. I went through my stockpile of Black Enterprise magazine, found the January 83 edition, 64 pages. Curring edition that I located, September 2000, which is an anniversary edition, 216 pages. What has changed since then?

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:15:26] Well, first of all, and most importantly, I have this here on top of my head.

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:15:30] Okay, you in it!

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:15:32] From trying to make this thing fly uh… But we have a week we had a a strategy we had planned we had to go uh… We knew that we wanted to be we wanted this a how-to who i say my people all the time we’re not saying how to and i do in the top because i like it he really is talking to people i would take the in agent thirty nine if they’re about but i mean it is it is for the person getting out of college it is where the person in college if we there’s something there for everyone it’s the person was looking at another career they retired from the army at age thirty nine every time from being a police woman and they want to do something else every time but what we in terms of what we wanted the magazine to do and now that and thirty years later job quite frankly with people the advertisers believe it we have some of the most upscale advertising a file in the country correct a second area of advertising if they are financial service companies. What are you talking about, Merrill Lynch? It on the dean whether you’re talking about the bank of america you come at jay’s manhattan bank you talk about american express which is huge advertisement it’s on the job swap where we know the bullshit mr swabin and uh… They potrack o’sheep the code in a co-CEO of that company but a very few entity to a top but in that area we don’t do business we do a a a ton of business with the auto industry and a very upscale cause with all the big three iota Mercedes Benz, now Nicole Daimler-Benz. We do business with across the board with bmw polvo uh… Jaga jaga war uh… And that is to mention those uh… If you look at the upscale look of brands we we certainly do an area of business with those uh… When the colleges who are looking in and people recruiting we have the number one magazine in the country for recruitment advertising because the people to read our magazine in a people that that businesses are looking for. And the other thing you need to understand, we’re not, we are. Twenty-percent of the people read our magazine of people actually a business people put the key in the door themselves owning that business eighty-two eighty-five percent of the keyboard people work in corporate america people work at radio station the people and you know at a radio station is one owner to own it unless it’s a partnership or this is a corporation of some kind of uh… Public cooperation and then the other people work there they are very very good at what they do for me for example one of the best broadcasted in the country is probably you and i would agree It’s time to join it. He works for a bc it does a hell of a job and he’s a good friend but the fact that he we may own stock in a b c but he doesn’t own that company right he’s an owner by ship by virtue on its own of the stock and yet he he’s and outstanding executive one of the premier personalities in this country whether you come up broadcast you just talking about another area where a person develops himself herself into being a first-past personality uh… And so i am talking to the people who work at i p m i’m talking of the people who work at Lucent, what used to be Lucent. I talk i’m talking to people who work in a tn tm tone of people that work at airlines and talking to keep it working uh… Major multinational corporations and and i’m cost talking to those people who worked at black businesses whether or not that the radio station this black program black dollar i’m talking about a company such as my own talk about the people that since i’m talking with the people at at auto dealerships with someone who’s african-american owns a dealership And so we have a broad range, the reason that we enjoy the. Popularity i think we do today is because we have well we have promised our readers and subscribers to do we have done as an entity

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:18:58] Why is it important for black enterprise to publish the B.E. 100S?

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:19:03] We had looked at um… Measuring businesses in this country and and uh… That made up our mind in nineteen seventy three you know i i read it is an hour and hour at a close step there was time to have a uh… Compilation of what the leading black-owned businesses were in the country in the first time we did it within i think the total revenues will form a seventy three million dollars and it and the number one company in nineteen seventeen with the motown records for Motown Industries, which was Barry Gordy’s company. Today the number one company by itself is in excess of forty seventy three million dollars so you can show you the progress we have made and it is and that it is almost nineteen seventy three so we’re talking twenty something years uh… That we’ve been doing this list we have now divided the business of one half of the list if you will one half of a b one hundred which is actually two other companies are the auto dealership separate this and then what we call the industrial service companies my own company, we’ve had historically two companies that I just sold. I’ve had to call the business in washington dc and stay invested with pepsi call this one of the outstanding corporations in this country if not in the world uh… From a brand important if you want to come to do business with uh… But back enterprise in the other entities we have a still a part of it and now that we own a private equity company with today which is another thing we do uh… Our corporation lends money not to start up to not to real estate deals but to companies that are mid-size african-american other minority owned businesses or looking for money to expand to go to the next trying to growing at an entity so we’re talking about people that do in a ready twenty five thirty million dollars a year business and looking for an investor who’s going to put money in but also wants to own a part of the company that’s what we do and then down the road he’d be or she will sell the company with and we will both make money if we have everything with and work out the way We mean it too. So we’ve gotten from what was a very modest listing of the companies in this country back in 1973 to now. We have a list of the banks and financial institutions. We have the list of investment banking firms. We have list of, excuse me, of the, what have I left out, let me see, I mentioned the banks. I mentioned the- Insurance companies? Excuse me? Insurance companies. Insurance companies, thank you, and the advertising companies, which are now a part of, if you will. The uh… To be one hundred so that it’s a admit that is much research out people finish one year start doing the research for the next year that something you wait until january start doing i mean by january we’ve got a number of good part of the numbers for them for what will be a next year’s list and so it’s very exciting part of what we do it and people that you ask the once but i want i want to retire the edges i think that they’d be out feet for it and i feel like that great put in a good life and i think we’re taking a right to the cemetery right to You don’t know, but, uh, might, might. I’d i’d enjoy what i do too much i want to spend more more time with my wife would do a trip around the world next year and that’s something that we want to do together remember john if you and i don’t spend it our kids will

Speaker 4 [00:22:06] Right? Exactly. Exactly.

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:22:08] Uh… And i’m i thought that i enjoy working together must say where we have a very unique situation ever very close family vacation together the summertime we vacation together in the wintertime and uh… So i i i feel very blessed in terms of uh… What what my family if you ask me what i’d measure my success i put my i say my family person and then i think whatever i could keep it after

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:22:31] When did you come to the realization that you needed to write a book? And you did. How to succeed in business without being white.

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:22:36] I think people, I think what was two reasons that happened. One is people kept saying to me, how’d you do what you did? And I’d say, well, you know, one day I’ll write it. And and and then somebody said to me you know if you wrote it you you could make some money. You know, you’d get some publicity and it would work out. Well, it was tough because you know I’m not disciplined enough to want to sit down and start thinking back to what I did and and and looking at it and and we’re talking about doing this over Oh, it’s really working at the heart. To get a book banged out even with the somebody who’s working with you and i did have to work with me that person found to be a meat but might like talking about that person sitting there typing away in a computer laptop as we talked and taking notes at the same time and coming back and cutting input back together and people who are going to publish a book for respect to make money and i must say to you that i got my first royalty check the beginning of this year so it means i got paid in advance for the book They did it, I think, with a very reasonable sense of… Marketing out the book in terms of when it was added and i guess it’s this is been about three years ago i did this correct we did a book tour all over the country which turned out to be very successful we made the new york times bestseller business that she made the wall street journal bestsellers

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:23:49] Did you ever get tired of writing your name?

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:23:52] I think i think that’s part of what i do i mean i love going on and on that college campuses talking to students all the time i love gone to use graduation i did for them this year to grab the initiative for our day and then they shared it north california and i did my route and it’s about that matter what when did that one also and and it cost me money but money is time for me and so doing a business is in the one way giving back in another way to sacrifice but i mean it i just get energized Visiting these campuses seeing these young people have the aspirations to redoing it and to have any one thing i regret it i look at it that it was racism is still abound in this country it doesn’t mean we can’t get to where we need to but it’s just one more thing we have to overcome and not a modest thing and that’s why i think this election is so important that we will put in place a person by the time this broadcast comes to if the person who will do the right thing and and i spent a message i think that person Hopefully it will turn out to be our goal.

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:24:48] Why was it important for BE to have these economic summits? You have the tennis and golf.

 Earl G. Graves, Sr [00:24:54] Well, our audience has to meet each other, we have to network, you have to know people, we have find each other and so we started our conferences, first we started a golf and tennis event, which has become the premier event for up skilled African Americans meeting each other every Labor Day over a four day holiday and it’s turned out to be very successful from the point of view, it is the largest program or the largest entity happening. In terms of uh… The coming together of the kind of people who read our magazine and it gives every media talk about five hundred office anybody who took out from black and white into the job and i have it people tell you that it then and i really got released and i think i will really want to compete and beaten read other african-americans and then people play tennis can do their tennis thing and then did the rally with had this for the last seven years of the as a premier first-class spa. Where people have been known to go in at seven in the morning and not come out till seven at night. And so it is a fun time. People bring their kids and so there’s now after seven years kids who have met each other and they start to grow up and some even gone off the college together. We’ve had a couple of marriages that have come out of our event. I haven’t heard about any divorces. I’m hoping those don’t happen. And now we have and then the other thing we have, and we’re doing now for five years, is our Entrepreneurs Conference. That’s really focused on strictly on business we do have some golf in the afternoon but for the most part it is a coming together if you have an interest in how you’re going to grow your business are you going to start a business how you gonna uh… Consider the idea of a different career uh… It is the place you’d want to come if you want to if you need money for your business we have financial institutions who are there too invested business and make loans to businesses both a private sector point of view and public companies as well as governmental agencies so it’s something which is extremely successful. We anticipate having a technology conference sometime early next year we’re also moving our entrepreneurs conference to nashville tennessee next year so the first week in may the first ten days and they forget exactly location of the four-day event i don’t know but i think it’s somewhere around seven eight nine my son will probably shoot me for not knowing today but it’s something that you we would we look forward to it now we have a key challenges right and they’ll colorado now all of these things are not just done for fun and on the part of Am I wrong? One, they’re done because we think it’s important for our readership and the people who are our subscribers. But two, we do it because there are money-making events and things where people do pay and pay because it’s something they want to enjoy, it’s a participation which we think we’ve been very fortunate to have taken a hold and run with this thing.

John L. Hanson Jr. [00:27:29] This has been a tribute to the late Earl G. Graves Sr., founder of Black Enterprise Magazine. Graves died on April 6, 2020. He was 85. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions as to future In Black America programs, email us at inblackamerica.kut.org. Also let us know what radio station you heard is over. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Facebook and X. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Also, you can listen to a special collection of In Black America programs at American Archive of Public Broadcasting. That’s americanarchives.org The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. In Black American is a listener-supported production of KUT and KUTX in Austin, Texas. You can support our work by donating at supportthispodcast.org. Until we have the opportunity again for technical producer, David Alvarez, I’m Johnny O’Hanlon, Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week.

KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:28:43] CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing In Black America CDs, KUT Radio, 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard, Austin, Texas, 78712. That’s In Black American CDs, kut radio, 300 west Dean Keeton Boulevard. Austin, texas, 7 8712. This has been a production of KUT radio.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.