Dreams and Visions: No Longer Deferred. We Choose to Build Together
Written by: Willie D. Barney
© 2025 Revive Omaha Magazine
Lessons from King’s Mountaintop Dream, Malcolm X’s Vision, America’s Black Wall Streets and a New Path Forward to Reconnect, Revive & Rebuild Black America
In the face of a what can be a chaotic and uncertain time in our nation and world, there is hope on the horizon.
- This is a historic moment. Mark it down. Moving From Chaos to Opportunity.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence or accident. 2025 is the 100th anniversary of Malcolm X’s birth in Omaha. 100-year anniversary of the rebuild of Tulsa’s Greenwood Black Wall Street. 60th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. 20th anniversary of Katrina. 5 years since the murder of George Floyd. There are many threads that connect these significant milestones.
Malcolm X’s family moved to Omaha in response to the murder, lynching and burning of Will Brown in 1919. Malcolm X was born here in 1925.
Greenwood was rebuilt after the horrific massacre that left thousands dead and thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses destroyed. Greenwood was rebuilt in 1925.
2025 is also the 20-year anniversary of the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. We will never forget the vivid images and the impact of poverty which were broadcast for the whole world to see.
That was also the year that I personally stepped out in faith to start putting the final pieces together to develop what would become the Empowerment Network.
All three cities, Omaha, Tulsa and New Orleans along with other historically Black communities across the country have been severely impacted by racial injustice, economic disparities, deep poverty, neglect, redlining, disinvestment and all forms of violence.
All had Black business districts destroyed by urban renewal and highways driven through their economic centers.
History shows there were over Black business districts and cities that experience this same type of destruction. But, that’s not the end of the story.
Just as important as these devastating and historic moments is the fact that all of these communities have shown incredible resilience and are now forging a new way forward collectively.
They are embracing a model that integrates the best of what we have learned about community building and economic self-sufficiency from Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and our most impactful leaders, Black Wall Streets, our most economically successful communities from across the country and our 20+ year journey towards Empowerment in Omaha.
Both Omaha and Tulsa have recently elected their first Black Mayors, John Ewing and Monroe Nichols. Both cities are in the process of rebuilding their historic communities. In the past three years, leaders in these cities have started to build on the work they have done within and now are creating similar networks and finding ways to do business together along with other cities across the country.
What God has revealed to me are 10 key strategies our leaders and historically strong communities had in common. I have summarized them into three overarching principles that we have been slowly releasing this year. God has put in my spirit that this is the time to bring the Dreams and Visions: No Longer Deferred message forward.
I have started to release this article every year for the past five years. I wrote the original part in 2000 right before the pandemic hit. I updated it again later that year when George Floyd was murdered. Each year since, I have prepared to release it, but it wasn’t time. Now is the time.
It originally focused on the lessons I have learned in my study of Dr Kings work between 1963 and 1968 with an intense focus on his final dream that he shared the night before he was assassinated.
Over time it has incorporated what I have learned by studying more about Tulsa’s Greenwood district and other Black Wall Streets around the country. I’ve been blessed to go to Durham, Atlanta, 18th and Vine, Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans and had the opportunity to work with Black leaders in Kansas City and Tulsa for the past few years.
I’m sharing what God has put in my spirit at this time as I see what’s possible even more following the historic election of my friend and longtime partner with the Empowerment Network, John Ewing as the Mayor of Omaha.
We hosted our 18 annual Rebuilding the Village Conference in May including leaders from Omaha, Kansas City, New Orleans, Tulsa, Lansing, Syracuse and representatives from Durham and Atlanta some of the most historically successful Black Wall Streets in the nation. They all have all responded with such incredibly positive affirmation and confirmation. It was a dream come true for me.
Also in May, I attended and presented at the Black Economic Alliance Summit in New York and all of the keynote presenters from Governor Wes Moore to Killer Mike and everyone in between once again confirmed the content that I am sharing in this deeply personal piece.
The final piece for me was taking 35 Black business owners and leaders from Omaha to New Orleans for a powerful site visit during the 20th anniversary of the commemoration of Hurricane Katrina. It was a historic trip and a reminder that no one is coming to save us. We must work together to do it ourselves. Led by God, we must choose to build together! We come from a people who have always found a way. We served a God who has always made a way out of no way. Even when it didn’t look like it. Even when it didn’t feel like it. God has always made a way.
I pray that you will read the entire document. I believe this will help us all to shape a new vision for the future. I will further introduce the model in future articles and an upcoming book with the same title based on my 50 year journey to help build economic self sufficiency. What are your dreams and visions? We all have a role. Imagine what is possible when we truly work together?
Interestingly enough, while I’ve been praying for the time to release this and preparing, there have been a series of spiritual attacks. Each time, causing me to hold off on sharing.
On Friday, October 24th at the Empowerment Network’s African-American Leadership Conference and Revive Black Business Network’s Black Business Expo, I finally the call to release the bigger dreams and visions God has given me. Judging by the response from those in attendance, this is the time!
I pray that this will be the time that you will also step out to discover your purpose, use your gifts and work together to make the dreams and visions of our ancestors a reality. We Choose to Build Together. We Can All Win!
Dreams and Visions. No Longer Deferred. We choose to build together!
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If you pay close attention, there’s a hopeful reawakening occurring to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s final message for African Americans and America as a whole. Economic Empowerment and Collective Advancement. We have also rediscovered that Dr. King and Malcolm X shared a philosophy of economic self-sufficiency.
King was assassinated as he turned his full attention to the economic condition of all people, African Americans, yes, but poor people of all racial and ethnic groups including whites facing the brutal effects of poverty.
You can hear about King’s final campaign when you listen to media billionaire Byron Allen in an interview with “The Grio” as he recounts conversations with King’s late wife, Coretta Scott King.
Allen describes vividly in an interview a conversation with Coretta where she points out that blacks had gone through three major fights. One, the fight to end slavery. Two, the fight to end Jim Crow. Third, the fight for civil rights. The fourth and final fight was for economic rights. Allen recounts that Coretta said to him, “That’s why they killed my Martin.”
You can hear King’s message of economic advancement when you listen to and see the actions of leaders and entrepreneurs spanning backgrounds as wide and distinct as George Fraser, Claude Anderson, Killer Mike, John Hope Bryant, Eric Thomas, Tyler Perry and through the legacy left by the late Nipsey Hussle.
It’s also encouraging to see an increasing number of African American athletes and entertainers finally embracing the building of their own brands and businesses to create wealth and now investing back into their own communities. Magic Johnson. Lebron James. Kevin Johnson. Dr. Dre.
Dr King and Malcolm X would be proud to see these athletes and entertainers investing back into their communities. Economic self-sufficiency.
It’s a journey similar to Omaha’s own world champion boxer, Terence Crawford, who established his storefront right in the heart of his old neighborhood along N. 24th Street and recently purchased the former OOIC Building for a future development and is in the process of expanding his gym.
For many years in the Black community, we have pitted King’s dream against Malcolm’s vision. Could it be that they have more in common than we realize? King’s message in his later years was focused intensely on economics.
We’ve also been forced to choose whether we believe in Booker T Washington’s vision of “cast down thy buckets where you are” with a focus on trades and working with our hands versus W.E.B. Dubois’ focus on college and the Talented 10th. Think of the power of embracing both.
In an interview a few years ago, one of King’s contemporaries, former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, fully embraced the economic vision. Young, who was a mainstay along with Jessie Jackson and was there on the balcony when King was assassinated, states that King’s final days were marked with a push for an economic bill of rights. Young said he was pushing for economic rights for all poor people in America. The effort became known as the “Poor People’s” Campaign.
King was committed to the vision even when Young and others questioned him. In a recent documentary focused on John Hope Bryant’s Silver Rights Movement and Operation Hope, Young said some of those most deeply involved in the civil rights movement tried to convince King not to do it. But there was no stopping King. He was fully committed.
He had seen firsthand the devastating and decrepit conditions faced by those living in poverty in America. He had seen it in the South as he traveled through some of the most iconic sites of the movement, Atlanta, Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham and other communities. He had seen it in Chicago, Detroit, Newark and other northern cities.
Young said a trip to the Mississippi Delta where children took baths in streams filled with dirty, filthy water made him even more committed to the campaign. People were living in shacks, not knowing where their next meal would come from, with no job, no transportation and poor health.
Before he was assassinated, former attorney general and presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy, would declare the conditions in the Delta similar to the likeness of a third world nation right in the southern heart of America.
These were the people King planned to bring to Washington, DC, the nation’s capital, to pressure the president and congress to pass legislation that would accomplish key objectives: guarantee incomes and jobs; assure safe, sanitary and affordable housing; provide quality education; and invest in support services for all people in poverty.
King’s final years were increasingly focused on ending poverty through jobs, education, housing and support services for the poor.
Young says that King knew that this push toward economic justice would most likely end with his death, but he would not turn back. Even as they were working diligently on the poor people’s campaign, King was drawn to Memphis to stand with sanitation workers who were struggling to receive the dignity, respect and income they deserved.
Against the recommendations of many leaders, King could not resist stepping in to do his part to address the issues. Those closest to him have shared that King continued to receive death threats throughout his life and those around him feared that an assassin’s bullet would take the life of their dear friend.
King himself could be seen in videos flinching when loud noises occurred in his presence. But it did not stop him from pursuing his vision of a better America.
In what would become his final speech, King presented a profound economic appeal to black Americans. King challenged the crowd to not shop at stores or buy products from businesses that wouldn’t hire them.
He said blacks needed to pool their resources and directed them to purchase products from black businesses and put their money in black banks. King shared that the Black population in America was the 9th largest economy in the world. He told the crowd that by using their consumer power effectively, they would “distribute the pain.”
King had come to believe that the only thing that politicians and businessmen would respond to was economic pain.
King expressly states that the issue was that these leaders were not experiencing economic pain and the poor people must use their collective consumer power to make sure the rich, wealthy and powerful could feel this financial sensation through economic withdrawal and boycotts.
King said blacks must distribute the economic pain by withdrawing from businesses that did not invest in their community. You can see this today in the work of Pastor Jamal Bryant and others to address companies pulling back from diversity, equity and inclusion.
Beyond the boycott, King specifically advised black Americans to build and support their own businesses and institutions. He emphasized that when blacks use their resources in a united way, they become one of the richest nations on the planet. Separate they were poor, collectively they were powerful.
This message from King is in direct alignment with the focus of Malcolm X. X said there cannot be Black White unity until we first establish unity within. We cannot think of uniting with others until we have first united among ourselves. This resonates with me as we have adopted a Build Strength Within First Mindset. X went further to say he wasn’t interested in boycotting, but we should build our own.
Even today, collectively African-Americans represent the 12 largest nation in the world from an economic standpoint. 40 million people. $1.7 Trillion dollars in household income. If you add in the African diaspora, we could be in the top five. We are not poor when we move collectively. The question is what are we doing with the income we have?
Malcolm X embraced taking control of our own economic destiny. He stated “Our economic philosophy is that we should gain economic control over the economy of our own community, the businesses and the other things which create employment so that we can provide jobs for our own people instead of having to picket and boycott and beg someone else for a job.”
Only after African-Americans gain their own economic strength and use that financial power will they be able to stand as equal partners with others.
For years, this message has resonated with me. I was born a month after King’s assassination. I have seen and experienced firsthand the poverty and simultaneously the importance of business ownership growing up my first years of life in the same Mississippi Delta visited by King and Kennedy.
Though my grandmother and other relatives would never accept us being poor as an excuse not to excel and achieve success, our family faced a difficult environment growing up in rural Mississippi. While we did not discuss or even acknowledge being poor as our families and our village made sure, we had enough to eat, a place to sleep and plenty of time to enjoy life as children, we were nonetheless faced with the rude reality of Jim Crow conditions.
Yet, even as we dealt with racism and discrimination at various times, our neighborhood along Highway 438 was indeed a village where families looked out for each other and shared what they had. It was there at a young age that a fire was lit within me to see a day when African Americans would advance economically by coming together to develop our own plans to lift our communities.
I witnessed black business ownership and entrepreneurship early in life. My father’s family was full of innovators and entrepreneurs. My great uncle who had traveled to Chicago to gain skills in carpentry and construction returned to Mississippi to build and own a cafe, motel and homes with his own hands.
My grandmother on my father’s side owned a business. Another uncle had his own barbershop, and another owned his own auto repair business.
My mother’s family was just as ingenious and creative. As with other African American families, we excelled at making something out of nothing.
On my mother’s side, my great grandfather was a major land owner in Louisiana. My aunt and uncle owned a farm. Later in life my mother became an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship was all around us. While in Mississippi, I remember shopping at stores owned by a diverse group of entrepreneurs including Chinese Americans, blacks and whites.
I also experienced Jim Crow, segregation and economic separation. At an early age, we frequently passed a plantation house and shotgun houses. As we entered Greenville, we saw brick homes and mansions while also seeing broken down houses. On the school bus we passed the school where white children attended before arriving at the school where all Black students attended.
Kings economic message has always connected with me. But, like most Americans I was captivated more by the dream speech that is shared so religiously and continuously during celebrations of his birthday and national holiday. It is so compelling and powerful that it is easy to forget the work of his later years.
The “I Have a Dream” speech can at times overpower Dr. King’s legacy. The transformational refrains of “Let Freedom Ring” and the engaging cadence draw you in and can move you spiritually and emotionally no matter how many times you hear it.
He was, however, much more than a 1963 dreamer. Yes, he talked about being judged by the content of our character, but he also talked about police brutality.
Yes, he talked about justice rolling down like waters, but he also talked about going to Washington to cash a check.
Yes, he fought for the right to have a seat in front of the bus, but he also helped to organize a self-sufficient transportation system during the bus boycott.
He had a vision well beyond the memorable words of the “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s important to note that even in the first part of the speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln memorial, King stated “the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”
Though it’s overshadowed and often left out of the media coverage, the march itself was called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The coverage of the dream has drowned out the bigger vision.
King’s vision was to make America what it said it was on its most important piece of paper in the nation’s history, the Constitution. He wanted to see a place where all Americans were guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Or, as my friend Dr. Pamela Jolly points out life, liberty and pursuit of wealth.
He wanted all Americans to have a job, guaranteed income, safe housing, a good education and good health. He was willing to die to make it happen.
And, though it’s not talked about in our history lessons about the civil rights movement, King and his contemporaries developed a plan called the Freedom Agenda that they believed would end poverty in 10 years. The plan was co-signed by dozens of the civil rights movement’s most significant leaders.
Though it never caught on fully, parts of the plan did make it into pieces of legislation proposed by Lyndon B. Johnson and passed by Congress. It was however not funded at the level proposed as the nation directed significant investments to the Vietnam War and dramatically increased funding for prisons, the criminal justice system and police departments. America chose to invest more in the “War on Crime” rather than the “War on Poverty.”
As we commemorate the 58th anniversary of King’s assassination this year, I encourage us to embrace the message of his later years.
We must become financially literate and financially empowered. We must support businesses that support us and invest in our communities. We must own businesses and teach our children how to become entrepreneurs.
We must use our collective consumer power to help these businesses to become successful and create jobs in our own communities.
We must stand with those in poverty and continue to push and support elected officials to pass legislation, adopt policies and make larger investments to fund improvements in our community with a sense of urgency.
It’s not one or the other. We must embrace and implement all these strategies. We must have success in jobs, careers, and business ownership.
We need some working in corporate America. We need some working in the trades. We need some to own businesses.
Most importantly, we need them to work together and support each other.
Ultimately, our collective work is aligned with King’s final dream and vision. The Empowerment Network can be the infrastructure to help make the vision and mission a reality.
The Transformation 2025 plan was our version of the Freedom Agenda. We made measurable progress from 2015 to 2020, but the pandemic slowed or reversed many of the positive trends.
In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, we came back together to update the Transformation Plan. We made commitments as African American leaders and secured commitments from strategic partners. Those investments are making a measurable difference.
We also worked with Senators Justin Wayne and Terrell McKinney to help pass LB1024 and LB531 which incorporated much of the community-based strategies and budgets from the Transformation Plan. We helped to mobilize over 100 testifiers, letter writers and advocates. We assembled a wide array of leaders and residents: Mayor, City Council, County Commissioners, Police Chief, Police Union, Banker’s Association, non-profit leaders in housing, education, cultural institutions, entrepreneurship, small business owners, pastors and faith leaders, neighborhood representatives, youth, college students and many others.
This historic legislation and other bills passed by the State Legislature and signed into law by Pete Ricketts and Jim Pillen allocated over $500 million for North and South Omaha and other areas of poverty across the state. We are beginning to see those funds allocated in the community.
And, after learning what we have about the rebuilding of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street in five years, we are challenging ourselves to see what we can accomplish by 2030. If they could rebuild an economy in five years under those conditions, what can we do with the assets, resources, successes and experiences that we have?
King’s final dream and vision shared the same principles as what it took to build not only Tulsa’s Black Wall Street, but what we’ve come to learn from the dozens of Black Wall Streets that existed across the country. On a smaller scale, 24th and Lake was our Black Wall Street in Omaha, referred to as Dream Street.
As we celebrate and commemorate the 100-year anniversary of Malcolm X’s birth, we are reminded of his message of self-sufficiency and doing for self. He believed in strong economies where we supported one another. We are rediscovering economic self-sufficiency in all of these seemingly disconnected frameworks.
In Omaha, we have also created venues and platforms to help us build and expand businesses. There are a number of organizations positioned to help us become homeowners and business owners.
Yolanda and I have also worked to create the Revive Black Business Network, a Black owned financial institution, Revive Center and a Black Business Market. We are now working nationally with other entrepreneurs and leaders. It is the companion piece to the Empowerment Network.
While not perfect, we have been piloting and implementing aspects of the model in Omaha for the past 20 years. In the last five years, I have integrated them into a more holistic framework. The core elements of the models are now being introduced and customized in Tulsa, Kansas City, New Orleans and Lansing, Michigan. Other national cities are on the way. Syracuse, Atlanta, St. Louis, Durham and other cities are implementing components of the larger vision.
In a “capitalistic democracy,” the game is ownership. The founding fathers were primarily business owners and landowners. The laws are therefore written to benefit landowners and business owners.
We must own our own land, homes, careers and businesses. It’s about ownership. Through ownership and wealth, we can then invest in our families and communities.
This should not be a threat to other Americans. When African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups are economically successful, it will help our cities, rural areas and America as a whole to thrive. Yes, we can all achieve success. We can all win.
This is not a zero sum game where one must lose in order for us to win. All Americans can have a “thriving wage” to support their families.
In the richest nation on the planet, we can assure that every family has the income needed, a safe home and neighborhood, quality education, access to healthcare and support services to help them get back on their feet when they are down. This is something we all want for our families, friends and neighbors. We should want the same thing for all Americans.
Economic justice and advancement for all. This was King’s ultimate dream and final vision. We are rediscovering this dream had been achieved in Black Wall Streets across America under the most difficult environments because the communities walking in faith, worked together, pooled their resources and established self-resilient economic models.
Build strength within. Partner with strategic allies. Collaborate, align, invest and scale.
At the core, we are focused on living our faith, discovering our purpose, using our gifts, pooling our resources, investing in each other, doing business with each other, building wealth together and rebuilding our communities.
It starts with reconnecting with our faith and collective mindset. Our churches must use their platform and work together with the community to help make these dreams and visions a reality. They should be leading examples of how all of these goals can be accomplished.
Together, we can enhance and expand the dreams and visions of our greatest leaders and most economically successful communities and make them a reality. Reconnect, Revive and Rebuild Black America. When we win, everyone wins. Now is the time.
In honoring the 100-year anniversary of Malcolm X’s birthday, 100-year anniversary of the rebuild of Tulsa’s Greenwood district, 20 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and 20 years journey towards Empowerment in Omaha, we choose to build together. It couldn’t have come at a better time.
Dreams and Visions: No Longer Deferred. We Choose to Build Together. We Can All Win!
