The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Cheryl McKissack On ‘The Black Family Who Built America,' Black Solidarity, McKissack & McKissack

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Today on the Breakfast Club, Cheryl McKissack On ‘The Black Family Who Built America,' Black Solidarity, McKissack & McKissack. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Or wherever you get your podcasts Hold on Every day I wake up The Breakfast Club Are you all finished or y'all done Morning everybody It's DJ NV Just hilarious

Shalomaine the guy We are the Breakfast Club Lawna Rosa is here with us as well And we got a special guest in the building Yes we do Her new book is out right now The Black Family Who Built America Ladies and gentlemen

She's back Cheryl McKissick, Daniel. Welcome. Thank you. I'm so excited. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you.

Good to see you. Good to see you, too. You look younger. I love that. Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay, whatever he's doing, I need some of that. So for people that didn't hear when you came up here last time

or didn't read the book yet, explain what your family has done for this country. The black family who built America. Break it down from your great, great grandfather, how he started, and where it came from me. Moses. Moses McKizick the first. That's right. Okay, so let me start with saying, I am the proud CEO of a fifth generation business in America.

And I know Charlemagne keeps calling it seven generations. He's just calling in the girl behind me. Okay. And her children, my grandkids. He got in trouble for that earlier today. One of the producers was like, it's fifth generation. Hold on why. I keep saying seven.

I thought it was seven years. Because that's what it's going to be. Yeah, he's manifesting. That's right. He's manifesting. So we date. back 230 years in this country, starting with the first descendant of our family, Moses McKissick I, who came to this country in 1790 as a slave and was taught the trade of making

brick. His son was Moses McKisick the second, and he was a master carpenter, and he actually started in North Carolina, but he was given as a gift to the Cheers family in Nashville, Tennessee, for Spring Hill and so that's when the McKizzix moved from North Carolina to Tennessee he had

seven girls and then seven boys and his first son is Moses McKizick the third and his brother Calvin and they became the first black

licensed architects in America sure you don't want that one to stand and take yours and anyway they

They were known because they traveled all through the northeast and the south. They built over 6,000 churches. They built 13-14 historically black colleges. All the colleges, all the buildings at Fisk University are pretty much designed by Calvin and Moses McKisick, Mahary Medical School, Tennessee State University. the one in Tuskegee. And so they worked all through the South. They also

got an opportunity to go to Haiti and work with Papadoc and then over to Africa. So these men were very innovative and the company was then passed down to my father, William DeBerry McKiswick. And so now we're four

generations in, if you haven't lost count. All right. And then the company was passed down to my mother who was a fierce leader all by herself um and then eventually i stepped in and took over the company as the fifth generation you know what i love about that and i joke with my my kids all the time right and i said you know when i pass i'm said i'm going to leave all everything i said but there's one thing that i need and i said i want to put a family

portrait of me and my wife in the house and they say well why i said a lot of times in our family We forget about grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and what they've established and brought to us because it's like time moves so fast. Especially the great-grandparent. So the fact that you can break down all that, you know, your kids will be able to break that down. Your grandkids will be able to break that down.

And that's something that I feel like we miss. You know, when people pass, you know, we're sad, and then we forget about it. But these are the people that started our lives, started generational wealth we talk about all the time. And I feel like, especially in black families, we should have that. We should know, like, I don't know my great-grandfather. I don't know much about them because my grandfather didn't talk about it.

My parents didn't talk about them, but it's one of those things that's like we move on. And I love the fact that that is so built into your family that y'all keep talking about it. You keep mentioning, and you keep talking about the great things that your family has done. I love that. You know, what you just said is so powerful, but it's so easy. to record what's happening in your family. Just do a family tree. Just start a family tree with the individuals that you do know.

I remember being like nine or ten years old. My mother said, look at this. We just found a family tree. And I'm like, I was fascinated by it. So that was the beginning of me really trying to get this story out. I remember taking that family tree to my father's office and turning it into a real structural plan. I mean, it was like as huge as a blueprint for a building

because it dated back to my great-great-grandfather. But I kept losing it. I mean, I totally redid it, beautiful print and everything. And lost it. Can't find it. So now when it's time to do the book, I'm like, well, the one thing we need is a family tree because people will get lost in the shuffle

reading all of this. So a couple weeks ago, I go visit my mother and I'm cleaning out one of her and bam. That's the family tree. The original one I saw from the very beginning. That's God. And so what I would say to everyone

is just start writing it down and have someone responsible to keep it and track it. That is why we ended up giving a lot of our artifacts to the African-American Museum on the mall because I kept losing the original license. Well, you put them in your office, you know, actually, we store them and we make replicas of

the license and of the pictures and things like that. But then when it comes time, when you move, you're like, oh, my God, where is it? I told Chan, my PR consultant, I said, Chan, I am tired of losing this. What are we going to do? So we're going to give it to the museum and they will keep it forever. and so that's that's important that you know we keep up with our family legacy because everyone has one you see what all the time with you know when you see white people like they do it all the time right like love them I hate him you know who Donald Trump's father

is right you know who Donald Trump's grandfather is right because he talks about him all the time you hear the story about his father that gave him a million out you hear those stories easy though But a lot of times... I guess the great, great grandparents that you end up losing track of. Your father and your grandparents, that's easy because that's pretty much a generation. Like Trump's son and Trump's grandson will always know about the grandfather that gave Donald Trump the million dollars to start his... Because somebody knew him, though. Yeah, you know what I mean?

But, you know, those stories always talk because you hear about the stories and we need to talk about hours more. I think it's a little different for us, too, because, like, when my grandmother, she always talks about how, like, they weren't... They didn't keep record of things because they just, it wasn't something that was normal in the household. Like, you didn't have pictures of certain people. you didn't. So then that gets passed down. It's just something you don't know to do. Also, as black people, they just didn't care about us and they didn't give us our records.

Right. First records, they threw them out. They didn't care. But I still think you can find it. It's just genealogy and getting a genealogist to help you, you know, go through it. I mean, we went back, well, with Nick Childs, we went back to Spring Hill, Tennessee

and went through records of, you know, the slaves that were actually working on the McKiswick House and the Cheers House, and there were records. You know, I mean, they try to erase them, but they can't. I mean, they're graves. So I think everyone can track their family history. And I want to ask. When I read this book and I see how this empire started in the 1800s,

it reminds me of how resilient black people are. We can navigate our way through anything. So it gave me a sense of hope, especially for the times that we're in now. Has it always given you that sense of surprise? Yeah, I mean, you know, if you think about it, one in five businesses fell the first year. 65% fell in 10 years, and the average family business only lasts 24 years. Now, the chances for a family business to pass down to a second generation is like 60%. The chances of it pass into a third is 14.

and, I mean, to a third is 14%, and to a fourth generation is 3%. So here we are at five generations. And so I think what we do in the book is we make a case as to how the McKinnisks were able to do that. And it goes all the way back to slavery. So slavery was different in every state.

You know, like North Carolina was probably the most lenient of slaves at the time compared to, um let's say Alabama and some other states south Carolina South Carolina and really it's because they didn't have as many of the huge plantations slave masters have more like 12 13 14 15 slaves so the slaves were more like extended family they weren't really uh they didn't have to be suppressed because just think about it we went to Spring Hill Tennessee and we saw a plantation where there was a family of five people, but there were 300 slaves working for them. So who had the power?

That's right. Right. So you have to suppress the 300 people if you want to survive. And so it wasn't like that in North Carolina. So we make that case that, you know, the leniency of slavery in that state must have helped the McKizs gets where they are. And then the fact that slave masters after slavery still needed the craft and services that we provided. So they put us in business. And so the McKinnisks were put in business by their slave masters. Moses McKissick the second had his first company. And so, you know, this was during the time where we had Tulsa, so we had the Black Wall Street. And this was all over the country happening. I mean, this did not change until birth of a nation.

And I don't know if you read that in the book. Absolutely. But that's why I was so excited to launch the book last week in Martha's Vineyard at the African American Film Festival because it is the complete opposite of what was happening

in Hollywood a hundred years ago with birth of a nation that depicted us as ignorant, subhuman, sexual predators and And, you know, it scolded white people who thought maybe we should reach out. You know, they're trying to figure out what to do.

You were a slave one day and now you're a business the next day. They're patronizing you. Some people are just, they're good people. And so this film scolded them and said to them, listen, if you patronize these businesses or if you have any empathy or sympathy for black people, people you shouldn't and then for others who hated us it gave them the license to just kill us and and uh instilled more fear in them as to why they should never give us any political power it i mean the fear is still here today um and that was the rebirth of the klukecks clan

you know this and because it was economically so successful it was really like the beginning of Hollywood. So Hollywood was birthed with this racial movie about black people. So now to be in Martha's Vineyard and to go to all of those black films that really tell the truth about us, you know, all the women aren't skinny with long blonde hair. You know, I went to see Ebony Canal, which is about the problem we're having with black women pregnancy, getting pregnant, delivering healthy children, and our children living past a year, you know, and I was so glad to see that the women really did look black. Nothing was sanitized. And that's what we have to do is tell our stories, and that's what our book does. It's a receipt. You know, I'm glad that you bought the TV part of it up

because I remember when they were going to turn your story into a television show with Paramount. And I'm like, that's never probably going to happen now, right? But it's because when you showcase these type of stories, and I'm glad we were able to publish the book, but when you showcase these type of stories, it provides inspiration. It does the exact opposite of what films like the Birth of a Nation would do.

Yes, yeah. Because that was detrimental. I mean, because of that, I believe, is the root of Tulsa being burned and, you know, Chester, Pennsylvania, all across the nation where black people were thriving. If they had just left us alone right now, this picture would be totally different than it is today. So, anyway. I do have to ask, you know, when I speak to a lot of black company owners and construction company owners, they say one of the hardest things is these companies don't pay out when they're. supposed to right so it's like you know let's say they have a net 30 net 60 net 90 we're supposed to get paid in these times and it's like a lot of times they feel like especially with the black

companies they don't have the necessarily the money to hold until they actually do get paid do you have to deal with that a lot when it comes to these these companies when you building these things and things like that because a lot of companies actually fold because they're owed money and they just can't survive oh you got to read the book i have financial clearance No, that's what I'm asking. No, that's definitely a problem. Okay, when you... And it seems like it seems like it happens to us more than others.

Well, yeah, but... Okay, so the bottom line is real estate and construction is a capital-intense business, right? You've got to have some serious money, some serious relationship. If you're building airports, schools, you know, anything in New York. I mean, renovating a kid. is a million dollars in New York okay so you crazy you got to have money and so it's very

difficult to bridge that gap as a new contractor coming in and so what we do is we create what's called an impress account so let's take JFK Terminal 1 and you know this is the difference between having you know having black ownership at the top of the food chain because we have Jim Reynolds, Loop Capital, and Magic Johnson. But we were able to do an impress account, meaning we could pay contractors extremely quickly before 30 days. Because the bottom line is if your construction is faulty in any way, you're going to see it.

As long as you're inspecting on a regular basis, you're going to see if there's a problem. So if a contractor, you know, gets paid a little bit more and they still have to come back and fix something, so what? Contractors are used to tearing down a wall and putting it back up, as long as you catch it. And so that helps contractors a lot because cash flow is extremely important here because if you miss your union dues by a few days, your workers don't show up. And the union doesn't mess around with that. They want their union dues, and they want the union to be paid. So you've got to pay for that.

You've got to get your materials to the job. So when you're a contractor, a lot of that money is flowing from you to other sources. If it's your payroll, if it's your equipment, or what have you. And you're only keeping a fraction of it to yourself. And so if you don't get paid on time or if you have to borrow money, that's eating into your actual. profit and so yeah that that is a serious problem access to capital what's the most difficult thing that you have to deal with you would say that i have to deal with company i mean you know it's it's it's it's the same it just never changes you know um most of time especially when

i first came to york i'd walk into the room i'm the only woman definitely the only black woman i was never expected to lead anything people don't want your opinion don't don't want your advice and you know this kind of a new a nuisance like what are you doing here and so just getting over all of that and saying you know listen i'm going to lean into my legacy i'm going to lean into delivering on time on budget with excellence and i'm going to let my work speak for me and that is how i built my reputation in new york over the years. You know, it's an interesting thing. The New York Building Congress is the premier club in New York City when it comes to real estate construction and design. And I have been going to

their gala for years. And the first gala I went to was over 30 years ago. It was in the 80s. And I remember being the only black woman. I remember seeing 500 white men in suits and a couple of white women and you know I'm thinking to myself how am I ever going to make it in this city if these are people that I have to rely on to get my work um I have to tell you 15 years in my husband said to me Cheryl stop running up to these people and telling them who you are you need to just lay back they know who you are now and I'm like he doesn't know what he's talking about I'm never bringing him to one of these events. Bang.

Sure enough, the next event, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to try what he said. So I just stood there instead of running over to people. Hey, my name is Cheryl McKissick. How you doing? They were coming to me. And so, you know, you establish yourself over time. Now, here we are 30-some-odd years later.

I'm interviewing right now to be chair of the building Congress. Amazing. the lead of the building Congress, which has to be approved by the governor. I don't know which mayor. We'll know surely. Well, no, surely.

But these things can happen, but you know, you have to constantly, you have to be persistent, prepared, you have to persevere, and you have to be on purpose. When do you know, when do you know how to, like,

like your husband said, like sit back, but or when do you know how to like kind of like poke your chest out and be like okay but do you know who I am like what's that like balance for you because in a book you talk about it was early on but there was a time where you were fighting for a certain percentage of a partnership and they played with you a little bit about what you couldn't do right but like now it's different because you have so much more under your belt like when do you know how to fold or hold them like you know what I mean I know exactly what you mean and you know it's really you're going to have to like pay attention to what's happening in the or have someone who cares about you in the room paying attention. Because in the beginning, no one knows who you are. So you do have to kiss the rings. You've got to pay homage. You've got to let people, you know, get to experience who you are as a person. But after a while, after you've contributed and after you know people for a while,

then you shouldn't have to do that. you know I'm in new circles quite a bit now but my reputation precedes my you know me entering the room so I'd like to say I try and hold back and just relax and talk to everyone just like they're anyone but sometimes I feel like I have to go over and introduce myself and whoever is if it's Anna Warthrope

And or if it's someone who looks like they don't want to talk to you, that's exactly who. You need to talk to. That's exactly who I will run up to and talk to. But it's not everybody. It's not everybody. You talk to us about some of the challenges you face when y'all were involved with the Barclay Center in Brooklyn. You know, that was, when I look back on that experience, it was probably one of the best. because I remember sitting just watching TV

and hearing Bruce Radner was going to buy this team and build this arena and I knew Brooklyn was, you know, had a high percentage of African Americans and that the politicians there were strong and they were going to make sure that minorities or African Americans were a part of this development. And so I remember

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people who run organizations and I'm going out and I'm meeting all of them and in the first four or five I met Bertha Lewis and you're talking about a force of nature I mean Bertha Lewis was well respected because if you didn't respect her she was going to pick it your sight and I mean really turn it out so she became really good friends with Bruce Radner she had a real knack for finding compromise you know some people are all or nothing she found great compromise and and so people like Bruce Radner respected her the next thing I know she's flying around on his plane I'm like okay she's in I know I'm in and that's how it works you know it's important that we really work together as a race. You know, all of us working together will make a difference.

You know, like Charlemagne, you saying, I will publish your book. That is black solidarity. That is really working together. That is when black people, when I can go in a room and I can talk about you

and you're not there and I can say something positive and support you, that's what we need to happen all the time. We need sponsors at high levels doing that all the time. The Jim Reynolds and Magic Johnson's, I can't talk about them enough and what they've done. We're at a billion dollars at JFK Terminal 1 spent with MWBE firms because of their leadership, their risk.

It was a risk for them to own this airport and putting their money where their mouth is. And so we were able to help local black firms in Queens, in Manhattan, in Brooklyn. I mean, it's a beautiful story. I can go back to, and this is in the book, and I know I'm talking about Barclay Arena. I hadn't forgotten. This is it because I can go five different ways at one time. I was in Martha's Vineyard for the launch of the book, and Wendy and George Van Ampsen walked in. So Wendy and George are in my book.

because when I had my first payroll that I could not make, I called five black investment bankers, and they all gave me money. They all let me borrow money from them, and they were two of them. At first, I got the wife first, and she said, I'm going to make George write you a check too. You know, and that's how we have to do it.

That's right. We have to work together. And so Barclay Arena is that story, you know working with Londell Macmillan oh God I'm trying to Roger Green black politician

back then you know they went into Bruce Radner with Bertha Lewis and they said listen we don't care who you bring in on the majority side but you're going to work with McKisick and McKisick because that's who we want because we know that they're going to

pay it for it. They're going to make sure our community goes to work. And so Barclay Arena is like all of that coming together, black solidarity coming together and making it happen. If you could change one policy tomorrow to level the playing field for black on construction firms, what would it be and why? I would get rid of personal net worth goals, which we've gotten rid of pretty much in the city. Is it in the city? I think is yes, in the city. personal net worth goal. Meaning there are thresholds to be certified as an MWBE. And for the state of New York, I want to say it's $15 million, excluding your

business, excluding your home. Your net worth can't be more than that if you want to be in MWBE. If you go to Tennessee, Florida, D.C., that number is like a million too. So, like, black investment bankers, they can get certified

as MWBE's. And so, you know, I feel like that would help a lot. And we got rid of some of these thresholds because what happens, and this is in the book, too, you're too small to be big and too big to be small.

And so that really hurts firms over a period of time. And then, you know, I think capital is another important thing. It's not a policy, but, well, it is, you know, because if you think about the pension funds, you know, and every state has one, well, they're the ones supplying all of the venture capitalist money. and out of all the venture capitalist money out there you know firms of color have less than 1.2 percent and so that needs to change you know we we need the capital I mean you know you see all these big developers you know developing these projects they're not using their money they're using other people's money but we don't have access to that and so we can't build that long

long-term wealth, you know, and you've had Don here, you know, Don talks a lot about that because that's his business, but that should be all of our business, you know, ownership. Speaking of Don, what happened with the Freedom Tower? You kind of gloss over there in the book a little bit. Like what exactly happened with the Freedom Tower? Why isn't it happening? Oh, you don't talk about it. Want to drink some of your water?

Yeah. Last Sunday way that way it was, right, we move on. We move on here. I was going to ask, you just mentioned with the payroll situation, you had relationships that you could call. You talk a lot about watching your mom navigate rooms and building relationships and what that taught you. Today, what are like some of the biggest things

that you still remember from what your mom taught you that help you every day in business? My mom taught me not to be afraid of anybody to be afraid of her. Just like a black mom. No, and she's not. She's not afraid of anybody. But she taught me that.

And I don't mean, you know, when I say afraid, just don't feel like they're better than you or that you have nothing to offer them. Always walk up to people and say hello, introduce yourself and not worry about what they look like. And I tell a story in there about Gentry Carl, who was this old, old white man who was running the, the state of Tennessee's school district.

And I had been working with my mom now for over a year. And so she was teaching me how to do business development and how to sell our business. And so I had watched her for a year. And so this day she said, you're going to go in and you are going to do the sales pitch. So, I mean, I had never done that before. And I was scared to death.

Like my daughter back here, she's scared to death. She's like, Mommy, I can never do what you do. I'm like, I was just like you. Yeah, you're talking about that in the book. I was just like you. And mom, I got into that room. I was shaking like a leaf. But I looked at my mother and she raised her eyebrow.

I'm like, I'm more scared of her than I am with him. And I started talking to him. He never lifted his head. His head was down like this the whole time. And I mean, he had a roadmap in his face. And it's like, I'm like, this dude is not feeling me. But anyway, I was like, I'm just going to get it out.

So I do the pitch. And he stands up. He says, come over here, young lady. So I go over to him, he grasped my hand. He said, I absolutely want to do business with you. He didn't say anything the whole time. And I looked at my mom, looked at me like, told you. Yeah, yeah.

Well, she knew him. I didn't. And so that taught me a lot, you know, like you don't really know what people are thinking just by the way they look. You know, yeah, he was an old white man in rural South with, you know, racism and everything going on. But he had a respect for my mother in the McKissig's, and he did business with us. She also told me how to solve problems. We went to Tuskegee University to open a building, and the president walked up to mom and said,

you know, Ms. McKissick, two years ago, when I told you to design this place, I told you it gets hot and we need operable windows. He said, I don't have one operable window in this building. they all will not open so we're going to suffocate in here so my mom looked at him she said no you're not

we're going to fix that I'm going to pay to have every window removed so now he's happy she's not that happy but we're walking through the campus and so mom sees this old building

dilapidated they're literally keeping lawn furniture there and mom says, I see you living there, Dr. Payton. And Dr. Payton said, huh? She said, aren't you looking for a new residence? And he was. So mom understood that he needed a problem solved.

And so she said, let's go in there. So she goes in and she sells him on, you know, it's a stately building with this beautiful Coppola at the top. And she says, we're going to call it great columns. She said, you're going to live here. And so she had to pay for the windows, but she also got another project all at the same time. And I just watched her to move through all of that, you know, because she wasn't an architect. She wasn't a contractor.

She probably couldn't even mix concrete. But she understood how to deal with the psychology of people. And she took over the business during the time where, like, women didn't have a lot of the respect that men did in business. No. Like it was hard for her. yep she took over in the 80s the women's business act came about in 1990 so that before the women's building business act women couldn't borrow money and so your son could your uncle could would you sit there and be broke like you can't say let me get fired out but just think

about it this was in 1990 that's when Spike Lee's first month movie came out. This was yesterday. We were doing the butt. Don't excite him. It was a dance. That was the big song. It was a dance. Not what you're thinking about. I'm a DJ. I don't want to excite you. Do you know who sang that song? Yeah, uh, at EU. EU. Yeah. Come on now. Just making sure. You didn't go to HBCU, so I don't know if they played it.

I'm black. I don't know that. I don't know that. I didn't know that. Go ahead, Ms. Howard University. We got ahead. Continue on. But I'm just saying that was just yesterday in our world. You know, I don't even think there was an internet in 1990, right? Okay, so women are just coming on the scene at that point and considered business women. But listen, my mother knew how to operate. She knew how to move.

And I learned that from her. The thing I like a lot, too, about the black family who built America. We're talking to Cheryl McKissick is you also, you've lived a life. And I want you to talk about that. How important is it for people just to live life? Because you talk about why you didn't drink,

then you talk about why you started to get a little drink. Then you start talking about how you like the boys. Especially the hoodniggas. Like, you know what I'm saying? I'm not sure. Just speak to the importance of also living a life. Yes. Well, yeah, our motto and our family is have fun.

Play hard, work hard, and then play hard. And then my pastor, A.R. Bernard, has another saying, and he's like, I do what I have to do now so I can do what I want to do later. And that's really the way you have to live life. I mean, if you're going to achieve anything and really enjoy those moments with your family and your friends without any cares in the world, you got to take care of. what your business is first. And so we were able to live life that way. We grew up in a small neighborhood

in Nashville, Tennessee. And, you know, we knew everyone on our block. And so, you know, our regular day was after we did our homework, we could go outside and play with our friends, you know, kickball, whatever. It was

innocent. Until you got older. Until we got older. Okay, did you get a galley? Oh, okay, so the galley has it all. We took some of that stuff out. No, so it was fun. I mean, and then showing up on Howard University's campus,

and after being at an all-white school from first grade all the way to 12th grade, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. You know, everyone was black in D.C. at that time. You know, the U Street all around Howard University. It's not like that now, but back then, that's how it was. And so, you know, we had our own shops, our clubs, you know, L.A. Cafe, Tiffany's, the Fox Trap. You know, it was amazing. The Fox Trap.

Okay, what that is, Michelle? Look it up. It's still out there. It's still out there on the internet. But all the world was community. It was all community. It was all community. And everybody got along.

I mean, you know, from the higher echelons to, you know, the janitors and, you know, the cleaning ladies. I mean, it was everyone was together. And, I mean, all the time. We go on the weekends out, you know, to our lake property. And the parties would just roll. yeah and i and i enjoyed it because you said you that's what you grew up seeing even in your house like that's what your parents used to do in their house invite people over have a good time that's right yeah and you know my mother would credit herself and that's how she would help my father

win his work because she would tell him bring your clients home we're going to have a nice gourmet meal at home and then she'd have me and my twin sister uh you know laying out the china you know so you learn a lot when you're doing those types of things and then we're just sitting there listening yeah we're hearing the transactions taking place and so it was good good great life people got to build in business relationships building really good relationships yeah relationships are key that's right i was going to say speaking to relationships a lot of the um projects that you do you talk so much in the book about the w the mw be and bringing in other black contractors but also women contractors uh from that organization can you talk

talk about the MWBE and the importance of it and what it did for you in business? Sure. So I'm the first generation that certified as an MWBE, and that was here in New York City. So I had a strategy. My strategy was to figure out which of the agencies had the most money for capital programs. pick three and work those three. And that's what I did. And so the only way to get in was having an MWBE certification. But that meant you had to be a sub-consultant to a larger contractor. And at the time, let me say, the MWBE goals were probably like less than 10%.

But it was fine. because construction in New York is very complicated. And so we need it, I needed, to make sure I really understood what I was doing, how to get through the building department and pull permits, how to work with the unions, what's in contracts, all these things that are extremely important if you're going to conduct business successfully. And so I didn't mind working as a sub to say a Turner construction. construction, a Skanska construction, all the large companies at the time.

So really, I was selling myself to them and not necessarily to the direct client until later. But the plan was once I understood how the game was played to then make sure I got to a prime role. So to take those programs and use them to learn a client, to learn a business, I think is great. but the ultimate goal is you have to get to the point where you have your own prime contracts because that's when you get to chart your own destiny you know that's where you get to really build a strong team of individuals in your company it's hard to to attract good people when you're taking that person and you're telling that one or two employee of yours i need if you go to go work in someone else's shop

for the next two years instead of my shop but when I'm in control of the project they're working in my shop so that's how you use those programs what structural changes are still needed for minority on firms

like to compete on equal footing what structural changes are needed I keep going back to access to capital So we, yeah, that has to happen. And then there's another dynamic in New York that is insurance base. Because of the scaffolding law here, our insurance is exponentially higher than any other state in the United States. And it's prohibitive if you're a small firm because, you know, how do you pay a million

dollar policy and you don't even have a project yet but you can't get a project unless you have a policy unless you have an insurance you know certificate and so the insurance we've got to deal with that and it's costing all of us a lot of money and so it's not just a minority woman on business problem it's a problem across the board in New York City so that that definitely needs to change tell us about the merch that they asked okay that y'all didn't bring us by the way yeah I know we ran out in the vineyard everybody everybody wanted the t-shirt well that's amazing and it is it's really catchy but they ask and the back says who built this And the reason why that's significant is because people walk in a, their own church.

They can walk in a hospital, walk through a train station. People can say, oh, it feels nice. I like this environment. But no one says, well, who built this? No one asked the question, who designed this? You know, is there a connection between Terminal 1 and JFK and LaGuardia Central Terminal? Like, who built this? And so we want to bring awareness to that for people to say who built this and for people to get interested in the real estate design and construction profession.

And of course, we say we did. That's right. That's amazing. That's amazing. My husband always does that, though. He does ask like, wherever we go sometimes. I don't wonder who built this. He really does.

But he's also Mexican. Please. Don't write. Please. Wow. Michelle, it's not even, don't even give that no light over there. He did, he asked that all the time, we go to museums, we go to stuff. He was like, I wonder who built this.

Like, he always. Well, maybe he has a, you know, he likes construction. Ms. McKissick, though. Where did you think she was going? Exactly where she went. Maybe, maybe, because you know how they are, you know. Maybe construction a little bit. Well.

We just ordered 500 T-shirts because we're going to Invest Fest. Okay, I know that's right. So you will all get your T-shirts before we go down there. Please, because you ain't going to leave with none in Atlanta. That's right. Yes, you'll be doing a fireside chat with Miss Basketball at Invest Fest this year. It'll be on Friday. What day?

What did it? Friday to 20. Second. Friday to 22nd. Five o'clock. The black family who built a. America. We appreciate you for joining us so much. The book is available everywhere you buy books right now from Cheryl McKissack, Daniel.

You are black history. That's right. You know, we always be reading stuff in history books and, you know, wondering who these people were. We got living, breathing, black history sitting with us every day, still out here. So we need to celebrate it, appreciate it, learn about it, and know about it. So when they ask who built it, you could be like, oh, I know her. I just saw her on breakfast club.

That's what I'm telling you. I love it. I love it. I'm going to tell my husband next time, Cheryl McKissing. That's right, babe. I know that. I know her. Tell him that every single time.

Yes. All right. I got her some water. Yes. And tell him if he wants to go and design and construction, come see me. All right, all right, Michelle. Wow. You need a job.

You got to go to tell her. She hired my uncle. Jesus Christ. The Sharon McKinnick, thank you so much for joining us. Pick up the book, the black family who built America. That's the breakfast club. Good morning. Oh, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's

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