With New Orleans still a work in progress as well as the country in the midst of a recession, what’s it going to take to get things back on track?
We need black entrepreneurs. We need 100 more Earl Graves. We need that. A big city like New Orleans? We used to have a lot of little black-owned places and shops, we don’t have that anymore. I’m almost standing alone with the restaurant, trying to make do, trying to make it big. I want big things for our people. I want everything for our people. And that’s the only way we’re going to move. We are in the political arena, but as they say down home: “That ain’t bringing us no money.†You can put people in the White House, people in governor seats and mayor seats, but unless you have those entrepreneurs, we’re still going to fall behind. They are the ones that push the money up, but we have to be able to put in the work.