Cutting edge manufacturing is the route to re-election for the Biden-Harris campaign
Down to Business 30th anniversary By John William Templeton, first African-American to edit a business newspaper
WASHINGTON–One of the values of 52 years as a journalist is perspective. I don’t just remember the people and events I covered beginning in 1972, but I paid attention to the impacts.
As my granddaughter nears two years old, my sole focus is shaping policy so that her life is better.
In 1972, Roy L. Clay Sr. left Hewlett-Packard to form East Palo Alto Electronics, later Rod-L Technology. He hired his workers from Rev. Leon Sullivan’s Opportunities Industrialization Centers.
When we invited Shaleya Morissette, chief of minority business and workforce for the U.S. Department of Energy and Mary Fuller, Western regional director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to the Wade Institute of Technology in Palo Alto last week for the Roy Clay Series, our goal is to repeat that history.
Clay’s development of high potential testers made consumer electronics possible by eliminating the risk of electrical shorts and fires, dominating the test market for the next four decades.
But his impetus was the recognition that manufacturing must be the center for Black communities.
We’re joining business and civic leaders from seven states in Washington this week to underscore that point for decision-makers at ten federal agencies.
In short, Black people can count. During the Journal of Black Innovation National Black Business Month since 2004, we’ve been educating the importance of Clay’s vision, a consensus since the time of Paul Cuffe in the 1700s.
We’ll discuss the Southern Black Business Heritage Trail I’m developing to restore the manufacturing excellence that emerged in the 1880s after the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment and the tenth anniversary of the California African-American Freedom Trail, named among the five best Black history trails by EBONY and USA Today.
In order to get the 90 percent turnout of Black voters from 1866, 1867 and 1868, the Biden-Harris administration will need to leverage its Justice 40 initiative to seed and contract with African-American cutting edge manufacturers, the heart of what we call “The New Black Urbanism.”
The President has been touring the country announcing new semiconductor and renewable energy plants. We notice that none of those announcements are happening in Black communities, which made the legislation and administration possible.
As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, we are tired of waiting for the check.