BUSINESS FOCUS Briefs Prospective downtown business operators invited to meeting The Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership will hold a seminar called "Downtown 101" on Tuesday, May 22, in its offices at 500 West Fourth Street in the Loewy Building. It will begin at 8 ajn. and end at 11 ajn. Downtown 101 is for anyone interested in opening a business in downtown Winston- Salem or knowing more about the downtown market Presenters include represen tatives of the Inspections Division and Development Office of the City of Winston-Salem; the Forsyth County Health Department; Fire Marshall's Office; a real estate professional and a general contractor. There is no charge to attend the seminar which is held bi-monthly. To regis ter or receive more information, call 336. 354-1500 or e mail admin@dwsp.otg. Judge grants class status to truckers suing Wal-Mart LITTLE ROCK (AP) - A judge has granted class status in a federal lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in which the company is accused of discriminating against black applicants for jobs driving Wal-Mart tracks. In his ruling in Little Rock, U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson Jr. said drivers at Wal-Mart were recruited largely through word-of-mouth and applicants would be screened by a committee of drivers. Tlie judge noted none of the committees at Wal-Mart's various hir ing sites had a majority of African Americans and some had no blacks, despite a company rule that the panels be 50 percent diverse. The ruling opens the class to all black applicants in the continental U.S. who were turned down for Wal Mart trucking jobs since Sept. 22, 2001, and all blacks who contend they were prevented from applying due to Wal-Mart practices . Any plaintiffs seeking punitive damages would have to do so in a separate law suit after the class action is tried, the ruling Mid. Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley said the company may fight Wilson's ruling and says the allegation of dis crimination is wrong. Bentonville-based Wal-Mart has about 8,000 over the-road truck drivers. According to Wilson's ruling, the American Trucking Association found that 15 percent of truckers were black from Jan. 1 , 2000, through Sept. 29, 2005. In the same period, 4 percent to 6 percent of Wal-Mart trackers were black. TCQ food, beverage director hired Noble Investment Grouphas announced that Glenn A. Roemer has been named Director of Food and Beverage for the Twin City Quarter (TCQ.) The TCQ consists of the ^ Embassy Suites and Marriott Hotels and the Benton Convention Center. With 20 years experience in hotel, restaurant, banquet and con vention services, Roemer most recently held the position of director of food and beverage for the Omni Charlottesville Hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia. Prior to that, he held management positions "" " in North Carolina at Longhom Steakhouse and Bennigan's Grille and Tavem where he was an area director. He also has food and beverage experience work ing at upscale Florida resorts such as Grosvenor Resort at Walt Disney World and Orlando Marriott International in Orlando. "Glenn brings a great deal of experience to the Twin City Quarter. ' said Ron Stephens, director of marketing. Twin City Quarter. "His diverse background in restaurants and upscale hotels will be an asset as we continue provid ing a high level of service and expertise to our Winston Saiem guests." Horn & Stronach wins awards Horn & Stronach Advertising in Winston-Salem has received five national awards for excellence in the Health Care Marketing Report's 2007 National Advertising Competition. The annual competition is the oldest and most recognized awards program for the- health care industry. This is the 17th consecutive year Horn & Stronach has received awards in this competition. A record 4300 entries were received in this year's compe tition. making the awards the largest healthcare advertis ing competition in the nation. This year Horn & Stronach won a Gold Award for its Forsyth Medical Center Life Directions Health pro motion program; a Gold Award/or its total public rela tions program for Forsyth Medical Center Kernersville; a Gold Award for its Forsyth Medical Center Sara Lee Center for Women's Health newsletter; a Silver Award for its Forsyth Medical Center Kernersville Web site; and a Bronze Award for its Forsyth Medical Center Whitaker Rehabilitation Center newspaper insert Healthcare Marketing Report is the healthcare indus try's. leading marketing publication and covers the latest news on market strategies, concepts and trends in the healthcare industry. G-8 calls for African support WERDER-HAVEL, Germany (AP) - The Group of Eight called Saturday for more aid, increased debt relief and responsible lending to Africa, vowing the world's wealthy nations would not forget their pledgei'to the poverty-strickcn conti nent Wrapping up two days of talks by finance offi cials under tight security at a resort on Lake Schwielowsee, officials from Germany, Italy, Britain. Japan. Canada. Russia, the United States and France called for improved financial oversight and said Africa would be a central point of next month's wider G-8 summit in Heiligendamm. Babcock School looks to attract more minorities SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management announced last week that it is serious about answering a challenge that faces graduate business schools across the country - increasing minori ty enrollment. "Minority recruitment is not just a minority issue," says Associate Director of Admissions Kellie Sauls. "It's a business issue." The Babcock School hosted a Management Leadership for Tomorrow MBA Prep Lab May 10-11. The seminar was the lat est of several strategic initiatives the school has undertaken to encourage individuals from under-represented populations to pursue graduate business educa tion. Sauls was also a catalyst for the recent start-up of a National Black MBA Collegiate Chapter on campus. She works closely with Assistant Dean Nat Irvin, who leads the initiative for It's All About Business which is a two-week program that teaches college students from under-rep resented groups business funda mentals, including accounting, finance, statistical skills, market ing, economics and organiza tional behavior. Kellie Sauls "These initiatives demon strate that the Babcock School doesn't just give lip service to diversifying our student body," adds Sauls, a minority herself with a special interest in recruit ing men and women from under represented groups. "In addition to these programs, we have class leaders who refuse to marginal ize themselves when it comes to minority recruitment. We'll need all of these components to suc ceed." Nationally, blacks and Hispanics account for approxi mately 23 percent of undergrad uate enrollment. However, at the top MBA schools, blacks and Hispanics represent only seven percent of the student body. The Babcock School hopes to increase its minority enrollment to 20 percent by 2010. During the MLT seminar, the school hosted a wine tasting and dinner at Childress Vineyards to expose the participants to the North Carolina business culture. Participants learned how the state's agricultural environment is transitioning from tobacco fields to vineyards. The follow ing day, participants attended workshops to help them under stand the MBA application process, present a strong resume and define their motivation. Irvin worked with the participants. "You're talking about change agents? every last one of them," says Irvin, founder of Future Focus 2020, a nonprofit organi zation that examines social, political, economic, technologi cal and environmental issues expected to have the greatest effects on urban communities by the year 2020. "These young people are not only going to shape the business world of tomorrow but the world of tomorrow. They asked tough and engaging questions. Many of them had read the "Arrival of the Thrivals" and identified with the concept. Every MBA school in the country will be after these kids." Lawrence leaves behind many business milestones SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE Winston-Salem based Segmented Marketing Services, Inc. (SMSi) lost its executive vice president, Joseph Rodney Lawrence, last week. Lawrence, who also served as associate pub lisher of UrbamCall, a publication put out by SMSi, died May 10 after a brief illness at his home "Tn Kemersville. He was Lawremce 59. "For the past 30 years Joseph Rodney Lawrence and I worked as a team, in the entrepre neurial and corporate sectors, and his busi ness acumen and nat ural ability to work with others was invaluable" noted Lafayette Jones, president of Segmented Marketing Services, Inc. (SMSi) and the publisher of Urban Call. Lawrence, a native of Chicago, became a partner in SMSi in 1990. ? "Joseph, was a beloved busi ness partner and company leader, a kind, thoughtful and gentle soul, a friend to all. We will miss him greatly," said Sandra Miller Jones the founding chair of the company. He studied business administra tion at the University of Illinois's Chicago Circle campus and Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. Before joining SMSi; See Lawrence on A5 Jobless black youths plentiful BY ARIA WHITE NNPA CORRESPONDENT WASHINGTON - The unemployment rate for young African- Americans age 16-19 is more than double that of , Whites t h e same age and appears to be increas ing as sum mer nears , Spriggs accord ing to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Because the labor force participation for African Americans is low, the unem ployment rate is a difficult number to interpret," says Dr. Bill Spriggs, chair of econom ics at Howard University. According to the BLS, African- Americans 16-19 have an unemployment rate of 30.6 percent, the highest it has been in the past 9 months. The rate for Whites 16-19 is 13.3 percent. "A big problem is that the labor market is a lot of word of-mouth and job networking, and Black teenagers tend to have very ineffective job net works," Spriggs says. The overall unemploy ment rate for African Americans also remains twice that of White Americans. The rate for African-Americans is 8.2 percent, while the White rate is 3.9 percent. The highest unemploy ment rate is for African American men, at 8.4 percent. The rate for African- American men 20 years and older is 2.4 percent higher than that of African-American women 20 years and older at 6.0 percent. Unemployment rates for White males and females 20 years and older are equal at 3.5 percent and the same for White women in the same age group. According to a U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee report, in 2006, one out of every three Black males was not in the work force. Black men with less edu cation have by far the highest unemployment rates. "The percentage of this group that was either unem ployed or not in the labor force reached 72 percent in 2004, up from 65 percent from just four years earlier," according to the report. The report also said, "a Black male in his late twenties without a high school diploma is more likely to be in jail than to be working ." Ted Shaw to step down at NAACP LDp BY HAZEL TRICE EDNEY NNPA CORRESPONDENT WASHINGTON - Four years ago, Ted Shaw, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, was on top of his game He was standing before the U. S. Supreme Court, applauding the reaffirma tion of affirmative action and preparing to lead the LDF that helped to champion the case. Last week, in an NNPA interview, he was still the same determined civil rights warrior. But. he appeared pensive, almost solemn as he fiddled with the empty wrap per from the crackers he'd just crumbled over his clam chowder. It was a moment indicative of a man reflecting on the last 25 years of his life. "I'm not saying I'm old, but I'm saying I've been at the Legal Defense Fund for a long time. That's a long time in any institu tion." he told the NNPA News Service in an exclusive interview. "And the reason that I think that it's important - at least for me - and I think it's important for people not to stay in these positions for too long is that change is growth for individuals and institutions." With that explanation and the fact that he has a family, including ? wife, a 14 year-old daughter and 20-year-old son that needs more of his focus, time and attention, Ted Shaw, 53, has told NNPA that he has resigned from the LDF, effective Feb. 1, 2008. The decision has been a long time coming. In a May 15 resignation letter sub mitted to the NAACP LDF, he writes, "I have served in various capacities at the institution since 1982. during all but three of the last twenty-five years . . . Compelled by professional and personal reasons, I have concluded that it is time for me to make this change." Shaw took the helm of the LDF only three years ago, succeeding Elaine Jones, who had served for 32 years. He serves as LDF'? fifth head, having risen from the position of staff attorney in 1982 to associ ate director-counsel before being selected to lead the organization formed in 1940 by then lawyer Thurgood Marshall to legally challenge racist civil rights laws. Shaw's legacy -r still in the making - has been his vigorous battle against oppo nents of affirmative action. He represented African-American and Latino students in the University of Michigan cases in which the Supreme court upheld limited use of race in college admissions. The June 23, 2003, ruling in that case was deemed the See Shaw on A9 y ' ? ? I NNPA Photo by Hazel Trice Edney Ted Shaw speaks.