The point of the story is that until the man or woman who owns the railroad is there, they are just talking trash. Until those with the power to change the system and the distribution of wealth are at the table, no substantive progress will be made. 

To that end, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition launched its Wall Street Project on Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday in 1997 to engage Wall Street firms and make the case that it simply does not make good business sense to exclude a whole segment of the population from the investment industry. 

If I was composing a Freedom Symphony, the theme of the first movement would evoke images of the end of slavery, a very 
traumatic period in our nation's history during which Africa subsidized America's development. 

We won the battle against slavery. It was no gift. It took a Dred Scott to change his mind. It took a Harriet Tubman to change 
her mind. We fought and won. 

The theme of the second movement would be the public franchise to end legal segregation founded in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson. It took a Thurgood Marshall to convince the Supreme Court that separate is unequal. It took a Rosa Parks to rather walk in dignity than ride in shame. We had to fight for the Public Accommodations Bill. And we won. 

The theme of the third movement would be the political franchise, the right to vote. Just 33 years ago, it took a young preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead us from Selma to Montgomery. It took the blood of the martyrs Medgar Evers shot in the back in his driveway; Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney (two Jews and a Black) registering Blacks to vote in Mississippi to win the right to vote. We had to fight. And we won. 

The theme of the fourth movement would be the economic franchise, to open opportunities  for African Americans to be investors and partners as well as workers and consumers. 

It can be fairly said that we have won everything we have fought for, but we do not yet have what we need. We fought to end slavery and won. We fought for public accommodations and won. We fought for the right to vote and won. We fought for the right to be workers paid for our work. We fought for our money to spend. 

But even with all of these victories and all of the scars, the playing field can never be even until African Americans fight for the right of ownership. We must fight to be a part of the finance culture. We must fight for our share of the equity, ownership and wealth. 

Why is it so important that we fight this fight? If there was ever any doubt of the importance of ownership, look at what happened in the NBA last summer. The owners felt that Michael and Shaq and the rest of the players were making too much money. So the owners all 28 of them sat in a room and decided not to let the players play. 

Now, I know that not many people are shedding tears for men who can make $10 million a year or more. However, this NBA lockout does make an important point. No matter how large your salary is, no matter how popular you are, no matter how many endorsement deals you have, and no matter how talented you are, until you have equity, you will always be just another employee. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with being an employee. But there is something devastating about an entire segment of the population having its life and career options limited to only being employees. 

This fourth movement of the symphony, the most mature stage of the struggle, depends on African Americans growing vertically as well as horizontally. And essential to that growth is African Americans establishing an increased presence on Wall Street.

For far too long, African Americans, other people of color and women have been denied opportunities to work and advance in the investment industry. Many of the firms that are collectively known as Wall Street had  their origins in the pre-Civil War South trading textiles and people. And unfortunately, the employment practices of many of these firms have retained the spirit of their slavery-driven beginnings. 

Today, about nine percent of the 284,000 securities industry employees in the United States are African American. However, among the roughly 90,000 persons classified as stockbrokers, fewer than 1,000 are African American. The number of minority 
portfolio managers has declined in recent years. Fewer than 40 African Americans have discretion over portfolios at majority-owned asset management funds or major pension funds. Out of more than 7,000 mutual funds, only about a dozen are owned and operated by African Americans. 

This is wrong. But more importantly, it is not smart. According to a recent study rating S&P 500 companies on factors related to the hiring and promotion of minorities and women, the top 100 companies enjoyed rates of return more than twice as great as the companies ranked in the bottom 100. 

To change a corporate culture that has existed as long as this nation has, there must be mass education on a number of fronts. 

Rainbow/PUSH Coalition has bought stock in more than 100 major public corporations. Our mission is to expand the marketplace, to engage corporations through enlightened self-interest, and grow. We make the case that to exclude whole segments of the population leads to a double negative. 

First, restraint of trade limits growth. Second, you pay for underdevelopment and antisocial behavior. If you do not invest in South Korea, Indonesia or Eastern Europe, you may miss growth and opening a new market, but you do not pay for not investing in the market. However, if you do not invest in under-served America, you pay the double burden of missed growth and the consequences of economic and social marginalization. 

The fact is that African Americans and Latino Americans control more than $700 billion per year in income nearly equivalent to all of China. But in spite of this tremendous amount of income, Blacks and browns do not participate in the stock market at a representative level. 

For businesses constantly searching for the next emerging market, they ought to look no further than this country. No third world market is as close, secure, lucrative or loyal as the under-served markets in this country. 

Since Rainbow/PUSH launched the Wall Street Project in 1997, we have found that more and more companies are recognizing not only the moral imperative to include, but also the economic imperative to include. 

The African-American community has the income to build wealth, but exclusion from the stock market has taken away the means to create wealth. A very talented, hard-working carpenter with a nail and no hammer will struggle to build a house. Talented, hard-working, well-intentioned people with money but no mechanism to invest it will struggle to build wealth. 

I could name a dozen churches in Chicago or New York or Los Angeles or Atlanta or any number of cities that raise between $25,000 and 100,000 every Sunday. And almost without fail, that money goes into a lock box on Sunday night and straight to the bank Monday morning. Because the money never sees the market, both the churches and the market miss the opportunity to grow. 

The impact of this exclusion has been profound. Today, the average African-American family's net worth is one-tenth that of the average white family. If one is searching for explanations for African Americans' lack of investment, one need look no further than the absence of African-American investment industry professionals. 

Most business relationships are predicated on personal relationships. People naturally, instinctively gravitate toward people they know, like, and trust. People wind up doing business with neighbors, family members, fraternity brothers and sorority sisters. That's the way of the world. 

Without African-American stockbrokers, who would naturally do business with African Americans, it only stands to reason that African-American families would not invest. The cultural barriers between African Americans and the investment industry can only be torn down through education and inclusion. 

We must change the way we view the stock market. It is not something to be feared and avoided. It should be studied and understood. There is a science of investing. 

The next time someone tells you that money does not grow on trees, tell them that they are wrong. If the tree is planted in money mud, the money will grow. If the tree is planted on Wall Street in New York, LaSalle Street in Chicago, Montgomery Street in San Francisco, Peachtree Street in Atlanta or in any other of this country's other financial centers, money can grow on trees. 

Last year, Ted Turner gave away $1 billion to the United Nations. His generosity shocked a lot of people including the press. They asked him, "Why did you do it?" Turner said he did it because it was the right thing to do, and because he had made more than $1 billion in less than a year without doing any more work. His money grew on a stock tree. 

Finally, John Rogers' story is instructive. When John was eight years old, his grandfather, instead of giving him a bicycle or a new toy, gave John a piece of stock for Christmas. His grandfather taught John how to follow his stock in the business section of the newspaper every morning. While his friends were reading the sports pages, John was reading the business pages. Today, John Rogers is president of Ariel Capital the largest publicly-traded family of mutual funds managed by African Americans. There is no better preparation for a career in the investment industry than to make investments.