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The Black Wall Street-Chicago group along with the Chicago Chapter of NAN hosts a follow up meeting to Measuring the Movement forum with over 100 people attending on May 22nd

They kicked off a voter registration drive amongst member groups; got public commitments from two elected officials to support Black Wall Street Business development districts in Chicago on the South and westside; got public commitment from State Treasurer’s office to adopt stronger CRA policies for State Deposits in local banks in Black communities; got commitment from the new Regional Director for U.S. Department of Labor to partner with Black Wall Street-Chicago and local community groups to strengthen the local resources through local community based organizations to put local residents to work in local businesses; That was the political agenda kick-off, now we are moving to the ECONOMIC

They are hosting a 2nd follow-up meeting on Economics and Access to Capital for Black communities. On Wednesday, June 9th, coalition members are hosting a face-to-face meeting with Robin Kelly, Chief of Staff to The State Treasurer and Democratic nominee for State Treasurer and are doing a report card on local banks and their CRA policies and adopting new rules that strengthen the Banks commitments to using more State deposits in local banks for Black business developments. The current state Treasurer and Kelly have publicly committed to adopting our new recommendations where the State will withdraw their State deposits from local banks in Black communities that do not sign this new pledge form committing to increasing access to underserved Black communities with the new State Deposits and from this meeting Wednesday they will publish the list of Banks who get the “Needs To Improve” Rating to publicly challenge to get up to the “Approval” status. This was the major items mentioned at The Town Hall meeting by Warren Ballentine and Ben Jealous on making local banks more accountable in providing more access to capital for underserved communities and Rev. Sharpton’s focus on getting State Government funds deposited in the local Banks in Black communities, including Black banks.

In August, they will host the first convention of Black Wall Street organizations.

Chicago has stepped up and kicked off the 12 Month Action plan!