Editor’s note: “My Story” is where business executives share their personal and professional backgrounds and journeys that have made them who they are, in their own candid words, from the challenges of confronting stereotypes to the glory in overcoming them. Amid calls for racial justice, we can only make real change with greater awareness and understanding — and the ability to learn from each other’s experiences.
If you threw a dart in the middle of the map of Mississippi, you’d probably hit Prentiss. It’s where I grew up in the 1960s, in the heart of the Jim Crow South. Three generations of Newsomes raised their families on farms in my small town. By the time I was 8, I was driving trucks and tractors and fixing things on the spot. Whether we were breaking horses or dealing with snakes in 100-degree barns, we had to figure it out.
Although my dad only had a seventh-grade education, he was an astute business mind, well known and revered in our community by both Black…
Read the full story from the Washington Business Journal.
