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Books by
Steadman Graham
You Can Make It Happen: A Nine Step Plan for Success
/
Who Are You? A Success Process for
Building Your Life’s Foundation
Diversity: Leaders, Not Labels: A New Plan for the 21st
Century /
Build Your Own Life Brand
Teens Can Make It Happen: Nine Steps for
Success
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Stedman Graham's
Steps to Success
An
Interview with
Kam Williams
Stedman Graham was born
on March 6, 1951 in Whitesboro, NJ, a community founded
in 1901 by a group of prominent African Americans which
included Booker T. Washington and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Stedman attended Middle Township High School where the
6’6” phenom starred on the varsity basketball team.
After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from
Hardin-Simmons University, he played professionally in
Europe for a few years before returning to the U.S. to
work on his Master’s in Education from Ball State.
An enduring,
high-profile relationship with Oprah Winfrey has perhaps
overshadowed the long list of business and charitable
accomplishments accumulated over the course of Mr.
Graham’s impressive career as Chairman and CEO of S.
Graham & Associates, a management and marketing
consulting firm specializing in the corporate and
educational fields. A prolific writer, he is also the
author of ten books, two of which became NY Times
bestsellers. And he has taught at several colleges,
including a course on leadership at the University of
Illinois and one on strategic management at
Northwestern.
Most importantly, Mr.
Graham has exhibited a lifelong commitment to community
via Athletes Against Drugs (AAD), a non-profit
organization he founded in 1985 which remains dedicated
to developing leadership in underserved youth through
scholarships and education. Recently, Stedman talked to
me about his work with AAD and other projects.
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Kam Williams:
Hi Stedman, thanks so
much for the time.
Stedman Graham:
It’s my pleasure.
KW:
I have a friend,
Franklin Moore, who claims he’s a cousin of yours. Is
that true or has the brother been making it up all these
years?
SG:
It’s true. He’s my
closest cousin, my favorite cousin. Where do you know
him from?
KW:
His younger son, Joseph,
and my son have been friends since they were in
pre-school together.
SG:
That’s great, Joseph’s
my godson.
KW:
Small world. Tell me
what’s going on with Athletes Against Drugs?
SG:
The focus of the
organization, which is really known now as AAD
Education, Health and Sports is the positive, not the
negative. Being in this business for 25 years has taught
us that it’s not about the drugs but about providing
positive choices, keeping yourself active and keeping
yourself busy with activities, the proper curriculum,
and special events like taking kids to games. That’s how
you keep our youth off drugs.
KW:
Where is the
organization located?
SG:
We’re operating out of
Chicago. That’s our home base. But we do programs all
around the country in coordination with various teams
and various athletes. We provide programming in the
schools, class curriculum, tutoring, and sports field
trips. And we have athletes come speak in the schools.
We’ve done all that for years. So, we’re really strong
in terms of programming.
KW:
Didn’t you have a big
event recently?
SG:
Well, we had our annual
golf tournament where we bring in a lot of athletes.
It’s one of our fundraisers. This year was our 25th
anniversary celebration.
KW:
I told my readers I’d be interviewing you, and they sent
in a lot of questions. FSU grad Laz Lyles says she heard
that you teach at Full Sail University, which she says
is an amazing arts college. She wants to know, what
attracted you to this school, and what you’re teaching
there?
SG:
I teach identity
education and development. I teach people how to find
their passion. I do it using a nine step plan. I also
teach them how to develop a bigger vision once they have
that passion. The thing that attracted me to Full Sail
is that they have their passion already. So, what they
needed was the other eight steps.
The curriculum that I
teach encompasses all that. It’s especially pertinent to
folks who already have an identity in terms of their
job, their future employment or career path. [For more
info, see Stedman’s book,
You Can Make It Happen: A Nine Step Plan for Success.
KW:
Robin
Beckham asks what’s happening with AAD, but you
already answered that. She’s another person who says she
knows you. She’s in public relations in Pittsburgh where
she used to be a TV anchorwoman for one of the
networks.
SG:
Right, absolutely, yeah.
KW:
Attorney Bernadette
Beekman who is vacationing on a vineyard in
Vacqueyras, France as
we speak, says, “I know you
have a background in education. Do you support early
childhood educational programs which help young
African-American males bridge the achievement gap, even
before the first grade?”
SG:
Totally! I have a
ten-week program in the high schools, which we’d like to
push down to the middle and elementary schools. And we
also have a program for parents and teachers. So, we’re
very much proponents of helping kids develop an identity
as early as possible in their lives.
KW:
Ella
Kegler from Lufkin, Texas asks, what is the lifestyle
you see for yourself in ten years?
SG:
I’d like to be able to
travel around the world working with organizations and
institutions to help educate as many people as possible
about how to develop an identity for themselves, about
how to find out who they are. And I’d like to teach them
information making it relevant to their own
development.
KW:
Jersey boy Larry
Greenberg asks, “Do you have any plans to come back to
your hometown, Whitesboro, this summer?"
SG:
I’ve been going back to
Whitesboro, working in the community where I grew up,
for the last 21 years. I haven’t missed a Labor Day
celebration yet. And I don’t expect to this year.
KW:
Filmmaker/author
Hisani Dubose asks,
what is your PR firm’s specialty?
SG:
We have a marketing and
management consulting business. What we do is focus on
is the books that I’ve written and the content that I
have, and other projects and ventures, including
seminars, speaking engagements, online training and
development, and on serving our strong existing client
base to set up win-win situations.
KW:
Children’s book author
Irene Smalls asks, what’s your goal for the future?
SG:
My big goal is to
develop a strong operational structure and alliances
with our partners to build a better distribution network
to deliver our content.
KW:
Batala-Ra McFarlane
asks, what advice do you have for those who’d like to
start their own business in this challenging economic
environment?
SG:
I would say, make sure
you focus on what you love and what you’re passionate
about, so that when times get tough, you can overcome
that obstacle.
KW:
Marcia Evans asks are
you still associated with
Armstrong Williams and do you share his political
perspective?
SG:
I’ve known him for a
number of years. He’s been a friend of mine. I try to
not allow my personal relationship with him as a friend
get mixed up with his political aspirations. Also, I
don’t make judgments about people just because they may
have a different point-of-view from mine.
KW:
Reverend Florine Thonpson asks what is your most
powerful, spiritual source of strength?
KW:
My most powerful,
spiritual source of strength is knowing that God is
love. So, when I focus on love, and put that in my
heart, then I have the power of a strong, spiritual base
and foundation.
KW:
Professor
Mia Mask asks, do you think President Obama has
handled the BP oil disaster well?
SG:
I think Obama has done a
great job, based on what he was handed at the start of
his administration. I also believe that he needs the
support of the whole country. There are so many people
trying to tear him down. America needs to come together
as a country to figure out how we can support him as the
President, including the BP disaster
KW:
Is there any question no one ever asks you, that you
wish someone would?
SG:
No, but that’s the
toughest question I’ve been asked.
KW:
The
Tasha Smith
question: Are you ever afraid?
SG:
I try not to be.
KW:
The Columbus Short
question: Are you happy?
SG:
Happier than I’ve ever
been.
KW:
The Teri Emerson question: When was the last time you
had a good laugh?
SG:
Just today.
KW:
The bookworm Troy
Johnson question: What was the last book you read?
SG:
How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins.
KW:
Heather Covington asks, what are you listening to?
SG:
The last thing I
listened to was a CD that came with
Success Magazine.
KW:
What is your favorite dish to cook?
SG:
Spaghetti!
KW:
When you look in the
mirror, what do you see?
SG:
I see hope!
KW:
If you could have one
wish instantly granted, what would that be for?
SG:
For all the people who
have dropped out of school and who don’t think they’re
good enough to understand who they really are and that
the process for success is the same for everybody, if
you understand it.
KW:
The Ling-Ju Yen question: What is your earliest
childhood memory?
SG:
I was running in the
backyard and scraped my leg against a sharp edge of a
rusty chair that severed a big piece of meat out of it.
KW:
The
Tavis Smiley questions. First, how introspective are
you?
SG:
I’m a Pisces, so I’m all
internal.
KW:
Second, what do you want
your legacy to be?
SG:
That I succeeded in
teaching people how to maximize their potential as human
beings.
KW:
Well, thanks again for
the interview, Stedman.
SG:
Thank you. This was fun.
Man, you’re good!
KW:
I get a lot of help. If
you notice, most of my questions come from my readers
and from celebrities.
SG: Well,
you’re the conduit, so you gotta be good to organize it
all. Take care.
posted 19 July 2010
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Lynchsong
By Lorraine Hansberry
I can hear Rosalee
See the eyes of Willie McGee
My mother told me about
Lynchings
My mother told me about
The dark nights
And dirt roads
And torch lights
And lynch robes
The
faces of men
Laughing white
Faces of men
Dead in the night
sorrow night
and a
sorrow night
1951
Source:
AmericanLynching |
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Writer Lorraine Hansberry's
sober eulogy of the death of Willie McGee weighed heavy on the
hearts and minds of the American Left. On May 8, 1951, a crowd of
five hundred lingered outside the courthouse of Laurel, Mississippi,
to witness the execution of yet another black man convicted for
allegedly raping a white woman. His 1945 lightning trial resulted in
a guilty conviction delivered in less than two and a half minutes by
an all-white, male jury, setting off a heated five-year legal
struggle that drew national headlines. Despite an aggressive appeals
defense team who attempted every legal maneuver in the book, the US
Supreme Court ultimately chose not to intervene. With the legal
lynching of the Martinsville Seven in February, Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg's conviction in March, followed by the execution of McGee
in May, 1951 was a bad year for Left-leaning lawyers (Parrish 1979;
Rise 1995). Most discouraging, national news sources like the New
York Times and Life magazine red-baited the "Save Willie
McGee" campaign and—as Life reported—its "imported" lawyers (Popham
1951a; Life 1951). Few felt McGee's passing with as heavy a heart as
his chief counsel, thirty-one-year-old Bella Abzug. |
Before Abzug became a representative in
Congress and a leader in the peace and women's movements, she confronted the
Southern political and legal system at the height of the early Cold War.
Retained in 1948 by the Civil Rights Congress (CRC)—a New York-headquartered
Popular Front legal defense organization—the novice labor lawyer honed her civil
rights . . .
Source:
https://Litigation-Essentials.LexisNexis
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Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
By Isabel Wilkerson
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a sharecropper's
wife, left Mississippi for Milwaukee in
1937, after her cousin was falsely accused
of stealing a white man's turkeys and was
almost beaten to death. In 1945, George
Swanson Starling, a citrus picker, fled
Florida for Harlem after learning of the
grove owners' plans to give him a "necktie
party" (a lynching). Robert Joseph Pershing
Foster made his trek from Louisiana to
California in 1953, embittered by "the
absurdity that he was doing surgery for the
United States Army and couldn't operate in
his own home town." Anchored to these three
stories is Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist
Wilkerson's magnificent, extensively
researched study of the "great migration,"
the exodus of six million black Southerners
out of the terror of Jim Crow to an
"uncertain existence" in the North and
Midwest. Wilkerson deftly incorporates
sociological and historical studies into the
novelistic narratives of Gladney, Starling,
and Pershing settling in new lands, building
anew, and often finding that they have not
left racism behind. The drama, poignancy,
and romance of a classic immigrant saga
pervade this book, hold the reader in its
grasp, and resonate long after the reading
is done. |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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