NEW ORLEANS — Every year the Essence Festival of Culture attracts at lease 500,000 people to the city of New Orleans. This year's celebration will feature countless immersive experiences focused on Black beauty, art, lifestyle, and music.
Events like the Afro-punk Experience and the Inaugural Beauty Con are new this year. However, one thing remains the same, as it has for the festivals 29-year run, the focus on Black business. It's something the founder and CEO of 'Future in Color', Lekiesha French, is using to launch her initiative.
"Essence is the epicenter of Black culture," said French. "Not just Black culture, but economics. There are people here from the business community, from the political community, from the local communities, entrepreneurs, innovators, influencers. There is no place that you can find this sort of a collective community that comes together at one time on one accord and speaks a common language."
Essence prides itself on informational programing like 'The Black Economic Forum'. It's something that aligns with the global, economic, action tank that French has created.
"The Future in Color is a global initiative and a movement, and we are looking to accelerate the Black GDP and increase it by 50% by 2045. So, we are tracking the changing demographics that are happening nationally, by 2045," said French. " Will there'll be a new majority with the Black and Latino community."
French explained the world's demographics are changing so she wants to encourage people of color to learn more about their economic impact and shift their thinking with the hopes of accelerating wealth in the Black community.
French said, "We've never been centered and really being the authors of our own story, right and that and so when we look at industry, 4.0 and technology advancement in the innovation economy, this is an opportunity for us to leverage the shifting demographics, to shift the conversation for us to take ownership of how we show up."
This initiative is all about working in a collaborative space to engage governments, massive corporations, and communities in working towards an economic ecosystem centered on the principles of equity, innovation, and ownership. By doing this, French is striving to close the 228-year wealth gap by 2045.
"We want to talk about our community from a place of abundance and not scarcity. We have enough and we want to be able to bring the diaspora together as a collective," said French.
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