When Alexander B. Cummings Jr. addresses The Executive Leadership Council’s Mid-Level Managers Symposium dinner in Washington, D.C., this month, he will tell those who do not see Africa on their career radar screen why they should consider the continent as a place rich in professional opportunities.

Born in Liberia, Cummings, who has spent most of . . .

As the economy gets tighter, Blacks are thinking ahead and investing in real estate, stocks and a host of savings vehicles. In fact, says Valance Williams, vice president of investments at the Maxim Group, a financial firm in New York, while the percentage of Blacks investing is relatively low compared with other ethnic groups, “It is rising rapidly.” More Blacks are “engaged in good financial planning,” notes Williams. “And Blacks are becoming more comfortable using Black financial . . .

The picture cannot be grimmer. May the Lord help those of us who continue to do business as usual in America at a time when Black people are on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder and are steadily descending. Social progress without economic growth is tantamount to leaving New York City and traveling southward, down the New Jersey Turnpike, in hopes of getting to Boston up north. The fact that you are on Interstate Highway. . .