"Talking Dollars and Making Sense!" is exactly what Brooke Stephens does in her book of the same name in which she shows us how to make more, save more, invest more and build wealth for ourselves, our children and our children’s children.

One-by-one she elucidates, and then shatters, the money making myths that have long retarded our financial development:

• ...Money is evil.
• ...The Lord will take care.
• ...White people won't let us.
• ...Investing is for white people.
• ...Looking rich means being rich.
• ...High income equals great wealth.
• ...The only way I’ll get rich is to win the lottery.
• ...Capitalism is corrupt, and I don’t want to be corrupt.
• ...I don’t make much so I can never accumulate wealth.
• ...Advancement is betrayal.

Throughout Ms. Stephens provides powerful, on target quotes from our historical figures and present day personages. For example:

“Up, up, you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will!” (Marcus Garvey)

“Poverty is not about color.” (Queen Latifah)

“Black folks buy what they want, and then beg for what they need.” (Martin Luther King)

“The problem is not that Blacks don’t have money. The problem is what we do with it, or don’t do with it.” (Tony Brown)

“If you can count your money, you don’t have any.” (Don King)

“Wealth is really what you own and control, not how much you have in your pockets.” (John H. Johnson)

“One cannot feast and become rich.” (African proverb)

At one point she relates the story of how Oprah Winfrey, when she first started out as a TV personality in Baltimore, went to visit a local high school. The kids were surprised to see her driving a 3 year old Honda, and asked her about it. Her answer was that this was the car she could afford and this one was paid for...

Ms. Stephens documents how, even in the teeth of the most fearful oppression, we established economic powerhouse communities. For example, Tulsa Oklahoma which was known as Black Wall Street, and Durham, North Carolina which was, and still is, a banking and insurance megacenter. She details how the city of Chicago was founded by a Black fur trader, Jean Baptiste Pont du Sable. And she chronicles the careers of people like Madame C. J. Walker, the first woman (Black or white) to become a millionaire in America.

This comprehensive book systematically shows us how to budget, set goals, keep records, deal with taxes, handle credit, borrow, save, buy a house, plan for retirement and literally establish a financial dynasty.

Today the African American community controls more than 500 billion in income. Yet we save and invest less than 1% of it. "Racism is still rampant in America," acknowledges Stephens, "but the opportunities for African Americans to build wealth are better now than they have been in the last four centuries of our presence on these shores."

"Talking Dollars and Making Senses" by Brooke Stephens is a culturally rich guidebook that tells us precisely how to make the most of every opportunity, and, at last, to take control of our financial destiny! (Ramsees7@yahoo.com Africa Unlimited 1/4/03)