Inaugural A.G. Gaston Conference Town Hall Meeting to take place Feb. 18-Free event aims to stimulate dialogue and spearhead small business development in Birmingham communities
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama—Organizers of the 10th Annual A.G. Gaston Conference are hosting a free town hall meeting Feb. 18 at the BJCC with the goal of stimulating dialogue they hope leads to development of new small businesses in deteriorating communities across metro Birmingham.
The general public, government, business and community leaders are being invited to attend the town hall “interactive session” meeting, scheduled for 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. February 18. Bob Dickerson of the Birmingham Business Resource Center, co-founder of the A.G. Gaston Conference, will moderate the meeting, which will feature the event’s four keynote speakers discussing economic challenges cities face today, and the role education and entrepreneurship can play in fixing urban ills.
“We want to examine why we haven’t created another A.G. Gaston in Birmingham,” Dickerson said in describing the Town Hall meeting, which he says is a first for the conference, which he and Gaynelle Adams Jackson of Advanced Planning Services started 10 years ago to pay tribute to the self-made black multi-millionaire who before his death at age 103 in 1996 was proclaimed by Black Enterprise magazine as its Entrepreneur of the 20th Century.
Dickerson said the free town hall meeting, which he called an “interactive session” in which community leaders share ideas with the panelists, will help the conference reach out beyond event attendees and extend lessons from Gaston’s legacy for folks who cannot afford the two day conference, which costs $75 a day on-site, and those unable to attend because of work obligations during the day.
Dickerson sent an invitation to the presidents of all 99 Birmingham neighborhoods, encouraging them to get involved in revitalizing their communities.
“In the town hall meeting, we want to start a dialogue that hopefully leads to the creation of enterprises for small business development in neighborhoods throughout the city,” Dickerson said. “We want to discuss what must be done to make communities attractive for business development.”
Tracey Morant Adams, a senior vice president at Renasant Bank in Birmingham and former director of economic development for the city of Birmingham, will join Dickerson in moderating the town hall meeting. Panel speakers will be Dr. Julianne Malveaux, former president of Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C.; George Fraser, CEO of FraserNet, a Cleveland-based networking expert; Mel Gravely, managing director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Thinking in Cincinnati, and John Sibley Butler, director of the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas.
Dickerson said he hopes the A.G. Gaston Conference Town Hall meeting will be the first of many such sessions that spark the dialogue necessary “to bring creation of new entrepreneurs in neighborhoods across the city to the forefront.”
The A.G. Gaston Conference will kick off with the A.G. Gaston Legacy Luncheon on Tuesday, Feb. 18 with the theme “Green Power Revisited: Why It’s Important to Grow and Develop Black Businesses” (A.G. Gaston wrote a memoir, “Green Power”). It will be followed by a Money in Action Panel Presentation, presented by Butler, a business professor at the University of Texas in Austin.
Malveaux, who founded Last Word Productions after leaving Bennett College, a black women’s institution, during the Tuesday activities will lead a presentation on “How HBCU’s Impact Local & the U.S. Economy.”
Sessions Wednesday Feb. 19 will include a Green Power Panel presentation, “The A.G. Gaston Empire-Then & Now,” and a discussion on “What It Takes for Black Companies to Succeed in the 21st Century” presented by Gravely, the author of several books, including “When Black and White Make Green” and his latest, “Getting To The Next Level: Business, Race and our Common Goal to Be Competitive.”
Fraser, an author often called a new voice for African Americans and networking, will be keynote speaker at the closing luncheon on the topic, “Connect the Dots…Please! The 4 Key Mindsets to Revive Black Wealth in the 21st Century.”
On-site registration is $150 for both days or $75 single-day registration. Register online at aggastonconference.com or by calling (205) 250-6380.
