MBEI Factoid

Africentric \a-fr -sen-trik\ adj:
describes the character of any human being who finds identity, enjoyment, belonging, friendship, bonding or unity with any of the universal cultural components that derive from the African-descended Experience.

What is MBEI?
Michigan Black Expo, Inc. (MBEI), initiated in April of 1994 and incorporated and founded on May 9, 1995, by Grand Rapids residents Taalib El-Amin (MBEI Chairman), the Honorable Judge Benjamin Logan, Michael Mohan and Rudolph R. Treece III (MBEI President), is a 501(c)(3) non-profit conglomeration of culturally-unified and MBEI-branded events, products and services that are designed to:

1. Establish Metro Grand Rapids (Kent, Muskegon, Ottawa and Allegan counties) as the west coast of Michigan’s regional hub of African-descended intellect, culture and commerce to compliment the Detroit hub in the east (as a world-class means to empower people who have historically been targets of racism to mitigate its effects by creating an economic asset out of their culture for all people / i.e. - “taking lemons and making lemonade”).
2. To create a mechanism for African-descended people statewide to contribute to and benefit from the world-class growth of the Grand Rapids metropolitan community alongside their Latin-, Asian- and European-descended siblings and 3) to create a mechanism to unite the Human family through the sharing of the most positive and universal aspects of the African-descended Experience.

What is MBEI’s purpose?
MBEI was founded primarily to administer a series of annual state-level events to create a permanent funding source for Africentric economic development and social change throughout the State of Michigan.  These major events will include the annual statewide African-descended cultural showcase entitled “Michigan Black Expo”,  the annual MBEI River City Heritage Classic Historically Black College Basketball Invitational, the annual MBEI Midwest Health and Fitness Exposition, the annual MBEI Golf Classic Weekend and the annual MBEI Metro West Urban Music Fest.  Since then, however, MBEI’s purpose has expanded to include consolidating Michigan’s Africentric buying power with culturally unified MBEI-branded events, products and services as well as positioning the youth (with an emphasis on at-risk youth) to be the focus of a new creativity-based economy for the State of Michigan.  Through MBEI’s Youth Enhancement Division, programs such as MBEI Youth Music Institute will be able to put the youth in a position to better achieve the bright futures that they deserve with the enormous creative capital that is latent inside each of them.

From a business standpoint, MBEI would more easily be established in Southeast Michigan / Metro Detroit.  Why is MBEI being headquartered in West Michigan / Metro Grand Rapids?:

Though MBEI must be viewed as a business, its reason for being headquartered in West Michigan makes it far more than that.  MBEI must be seen as a seed to grow African-centered quality-of-life and well-being - a need that is both conspicuously well-addressed in Metro Detroit and conspicuously absent in Metro Grand Rapids.  The implementation of MBEI’s initiatives of promoting unity among all people by sharing the superlatives of African-descended culture in Michigan will ensure that in the midst of West Michigan’s rapid and historic growth that it will have a foundation on which to ensure that those seeking a multi-cultural environment in West Michigan are provided the same vibrant multi-cultural quality-of-life that their brothers and sisters in other world-class cities like Detroit enjoy.

Additionally, MBEI must be seen as a mechanism to solidly link the State’s two largest metro regions as well as the remainder of urban Michigan by way of the combined cities’ sharing a common tie to the Africentric communities that MBEI was created to “pull up by their own bootstraps”.  This quality-of-life building and cross-state linking will have the beneficial side-effect of providing the mechanism necessary for African-descended people statewide to become an important contributing part of the greater Michigan society around them.  Also, this will become a mechanism to create a new statewide paradigm regarding the nature of West Michigan wherein, besides being a world-class hub for business and commerce, it will also be recognized as a cosmopolitan hub where multi-culturalism is consciously and enthusiastically integrated into the fabric of the metropolitan community (and where the sense of sincere welcome is not perceived to be reserved for any one component of the Human family).

Who has stepped forward to offer underwriting assistance to MBEI?
Our growing list of underwriters includes William Brock, Burger King of West Michigan, Betty Burton, Center for Independent Living, Coca-Cola, Paul Collins, DPFox, D & W Foundation, Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation, Dyer-Ives Foundation, Frey Foundation, Grand Rapids Foundation, Grand Valley State University, Nevin Groce, George Heartwell, Interurban Transit Partnership, Dr. Edward Jones, Bradford Mathis, John Matthews, McClain Construction Co., SMG, Staffing Inc., Jerome P. Subar Foundation, WQHH FM-96 Lansing and WWMT TV-3 Kalamazoo.