[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 57 (Thursday, March 31, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     HONORING EARL G. GRAVES, FOUNDER OF BLACK ENTERPRISE MAGAZINE

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. KWEISI MFUME

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 31, 2022

  Mr. MFUME. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor an icon in the civil 
rights movement, business world, and political landscape, Mr. Earl G. 
Graves, who passed away on April 6, 2020.
  Mr. Graves founded Black Enterprise magazine in 1970, a publishing 
company dedicated to lifting up and recognizing Black entrepreneurship. 
Over the next 50 years, Mr. Graves took Black Enterprise from a single-
magazine publishing company to a diversified multi-media business that 
spread the message of financial empowerment to more than 6 million 
African Americans through print, digital, broadcast, and live-event 
platforms. He wrote a New York Times bestselling book in 1997, titled 
``How to Succeed in Business Without Being White,'' that discussed the 
strategies he used to achieve such success, and was selected as a 
finalist for the 1997 Financial Times/Booz-Allen & Hamilton Global 
Business Book Award.
  As a champion for Black excellence, Mr. Graves received numerous 
awards. Two years after launching Black Enterprise, he received the 
National Award of Excellence and was named one of the 10 most 
outstanding minority businessmen in the country by President Richard 
Nixon. He was named by Time magazine as one of 200 future leaders of 
the country in 1974 and became part of the National Black College Hall 
of Fame in 1987. Mr. Graves has lectured at Yale University as a 
Poynter Fellow and received honorary degrees from more than 65 colleges 
and universities, including his alma mater, Morgan State University. In 
recognition of Mr. Graves's staunch advocacy for higher education and 
equal opportunity, Morgan State renamed its school of business and 
management the Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management in 
1995. In 2002, Fortune magazine named Mr. Graves one of the 50 most 
powerful and influential African Americans in corporate America.
  Mr. Graves threw himself into causes and projects that supported and 
empowered his communities in New York and the Black community at large. 
He held a seat on the board of selectors of the American Institute for 
Public Service, the Advisory Council of the Character Education 
Partnership, the board of the Steadman-Hawkins Sports Medicine 
Foundation, the board of The Schomburg Center for Research in Black 
Culture, and the national advisory board of the National Underground 
Railroad Freedom Center. He was also a trustee of Howard University, 
the Committee for Economic Development, the Special Contributions Fund 
of the NAACP, and the New York Economic Club. He was appointed to serve 
on the presidential commission for the National Museum of African 
American History and Culture by the George W. Bush Administration and 
was a vice president on the national executive board and a member of 
the marketing committee for the national office of the Boy Scouts of 
America.
  Mr. Graves's wife of 51 years, Mrs. Barbara Graves, was his closest 
companion. You didn't see one without the other. She lived for him, he 
lived for her, and they both lived for their three children. All three 
sons, Earl ``Butch'' Jr., Johnny, and Michael, worked at Black 
Enterprise throughout their lives, developing their business acumen 
under the watchful eye of Mrs. Graves, who served as a mentor and guide 
to several generations of employees. Butch took over as CEO of Black 
Enterprise in 2006, after spending decades growing the company together 
with his father.
  Earl G. Graves was raised in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of 
New York, where he learned hard work and perseverance from his parents, 
Earl Godwin and Winifred Sealy Graves. After receiving a B.A. in 
economics from Morgan State University, he served two years in the 
Army, followed by a three-year stint as Senator Robert F. Kennedy's 
administrative assistant. After Kennedy's assassination, Graves entered 
the business arena, where he realized his unprecedented success as a 
public servant, intellectual, and businessman.
  It is my honor to stand today, Madam Speaker, in recognition of Earl 
G. Graves, a successful entrepreneur, caring father, dedicated 
philanthropist, and friend.

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