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However, one Black woman in Tennessee managed to beat the odds and reformed her life after serving a four-year prison sentence for a marijuana-felony. If she wins, she would become the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress and the first Black person since the 1990s. I am running because looking around I can see that people that look like me, that have the same issues I have, we were not being represented in this district,” said Haynes in an interview with Huffington Post. It’s important to have someone in Congress that can view the policy from the lens of being formerly incarcerated, as a woman, an African American, saddled with student loan debt, from a working-class family.

Missouri-based information technology giant World Wide Technology Inc. (No. 1 on the BE Top 100 list with $11.3 billion in revenues) and John Thompson, the 40-year tech veteran who serves as chairman of Microsoft Corp. During the fundraiser for the Brooklyn-based nonprofit that provides no-cost training for veterans and youth to launch digital careers, the event also served as the venue for an exclusive fireside chat in which Thompson and Steward discussed, among other topics, how diversity can save the American tech industry. Thompson, a venture partner for Lightspeed Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley firm that invests in early-stage enterprise technology and consumer products companies, says he’s had more black female founders reach out to him than ever before. ProjectDiane, named for 1960s civil rights leader Diane Nash, found that a mere 34 startups led by black women had raised more than $1 million in financing, according to a USA Today article published earlier this year. When he retired from the company in 2009, NetworkWorld reported that his 10-year leadership was marked by taking “the firm beyond its base strength as a consumer-focused antivirus company through a broader enterprise-security strategy that entailed aggressively acquiring storage, management and security firms to expand Symantec’s portfolio and customer base.

Creating shockwaves throughout the African American community, Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Co., the once-iconic publishing company that for years had been one of the nation’s largest black-owned business, filed for bankruptcy yesterday. Under Johnson’s stewardship, JPC’s publications touched the lives of millions of African Americans in every facet of life, sharing with the world their talents and potential, exposing injustice and racism, and shattering social and commercial barriers. As an eager young man, Johnson got his start when his mother used her furniture as collateral for a $500 loan to start his first publication, Negro Digest, in 1942, which served as the launching pad for him to create the largest African American publishing company in the world. And to share the impact his publications had, one can point to a powerful example that predates his inclusion on the BE 100s by roughly two decades that BE shared in our October 2005 tribute on this legendary force: In September 1955, Johnson made a decision that forever shook the world.

Whether you’ve written your pitch or are overcoming the writer’s block that can waste valuable time, here’s the good and the bad. Doing this can be as simple as including specific points that can ramp up the emotional impact of your pitch and hopefully, a potential investor’s interest. Investors aren’t just looking for a great idea—they’re looking for a great idea in a booming market. Close your business plan with a bite-sized explanation of what your product is, where you’ll sell it, and why it’s great, even if you opened your business plan with this information.