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.
From the University of Texas
at Austin, KUT Radio,
this is In Black America.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Okay.
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
How did you happen to select Morgan
State?
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
Why and when did you become
an administrative assistant to the
late U.S.
Attorney General and Senator Robert
F. Kennedy?
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
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.
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.
Right, right, right.
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.
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?
Well, first of all, and most
importantly, I have this here on
top of my head.
Okay, you in it!
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
Why is it important for black
enterprise to publish the
B.E. 100S?
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
Right? Exactly.
Exactly.
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
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.
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
Did you ever get tired of writing
your name?
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.
Why was it important for BE to
have these economic summits?
You have the tennis and golf.
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.
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
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Until we have the opportunity again
for technical producer, David
Alvarez, I'm Johnny O'Hanlon,
Jr.
Thank you for joining us today.
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