We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jerome Hurt a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jerome, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Mental Health has always been taboo and not discussed in the Black Community. I wanted to normalize conversations around Mental Health. It has not been easy. So with there being two wars which has us divided along with politics and its divisive nature I asked our Community to join me in doing 30 Days of Gratitude beginning November 1.

It’s allows us to share Love and Positivity via Social Media. It gives us a chance to take inventory and count our blessings. When we can give Gratitude and really challenge ourselves to find Gratitude in our lives and business, it can set us up for a great final month of the year. It can also springboard us into the new year with hope and unlimited possibilities knowing all we have to be Grateful for.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As a Financial Professional with more than 30 years in the industry, I’ve worked with wealthy clients. I’ve seen how they use their wealth to create opportunities for their loved ones and also how they use their wealth to gain political favors. I saw how the wealth gap was growing and during the pandemic I wanted to help my community begin to build wealth by circulating the Black Dollar amongst the Black Community. By doing so the Black Community can begin to own our homes, own our businesses, own our health and well being, own our education and own our politicians. I also wanted to create a space where we place collaboration above competition. You see J. Edgar Hoover said in response to the work the Black Panthers were doing in the community to bring free healthcare (the first real Universal Healthcare) and quality food to the community that the greatest threat to America was Black Unity.

To unify, empower, uplift and most importantly support Black Owned Businesses would allow the 2 trillion dollar Black Dollar to support Black Wealth. There have been challenges as we need to form new habits around where to spend our dollars. New habits around finding WHERE the Black Businesses are and give these owners the same grace we’ve given business owners who don’t look like us. Also impress upon our Black Business Owners the importance of being Black Excellence to our community.

One of the ways BuyBlack4Life does that is by promoting events of Black creatives to our community. Via our Facebook Group page we have an events calendar. If we add an event, any of our 170,000 Members/ Followers who live in the area of the event will be notified of the event. We also have our own Directory via our BuyBlack4Life Mobile App. It’s available via Google Play and the Apple App stores. We have over 500 businesses and growing worldwide. With over 5000 downloads.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

What’s driving my creative journey is young people. Seeing their creative works inspires me to give them a platform to be the greatest version of themselves.

We’ve had events with our Kidpreneurs that have left me so proud. One is Joshua Gray who almost left this life of his own choosing and made the decision to live and makes inspirational Tee-Shirts including my favorite, Be Good 2 Yourself. We had actress Layla Felder share her love for the Opera and expose young people and myself to the beauty of Opera. She also was on the TV Series The Sinner and the movie Instant Family acting opposite Mark Walberg. We had iAh Turnbull who took being bullied in school and created a loving brand and space for young people. She also blessed us on a few Wellness Wednesday’s with some Yoga exercises and mindful techniques. She is self taught.

How can one not be inspired by these young creatives and that’s just a few. There are so many more that are part of our community.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I’ve had to unlearn was thinking that my Family and close Friends would support me in this journey. It’s a common theme among business owners in my conversations with them. It took Business Coach and Strategist Dr Tyra Jones to tell me to focus on who IS supporting not who isn’t. There were over 170,000 who were supporters. When I was talking about doing this I had a family member who shot holes into every idea that I had. After a few times I had to shift my mindset around their negative responses.

I would purposely reach out to them because if they are thinking and sharing why this is not going to work, someone else is as well. So use that feedback to build it to address every reason why they said it wouldn’t work. They can never give me all of the issues some may have with BuyBlack4Life but they shared plenty and I got to working on the counter to them.

Let me also add, when some of my detractors in my Family and Friends did see the powerful tool that was BuyBlack4Life, I never reminded them of their negative thoughts. I knew it was confirmation so I stayed true to what the mission is.

Contact Info:

• Website: BuyBlack4Life.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/BuyBlack4Life
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/buyblack4life/?ref=share_group_link
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13976647
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@buyblack4life110?si=A2Wc9QRAoR4aNyvp
• Other: BuyBlack4Life App (Apple) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/buyblack4life/id6447301547 BuyBlack4Life App (Google Play) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=online.blam.buyblack&pcampaignid=web_share

Image Credits
I want to give credit to my day one, ride or die, who has kept me and BuyBlack4Life the amazing platform that it is, Debbie Young. Without her guidance, and voice I don’t know if we make it to this point.