The 123rd National Black Business Conference is continuing its commitment economic empowerment in the Black community, and has the perfect keynote speaker to prove it.
Per a news release, the conference will be keynoted by attorney Ben Crump, notable civil rights attorney that helped win a landmark victory settlement for Henrietta Lacks’ family regarding the unauthorized use of her cells. As founder of Ben Crump Law PLLC, he has championed the importance of Black entrepreneurship as a means of wealth creation, a core message and mission of the conference.
The conference, which was founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900, was formerly known as the National Negro Business League. For more than 100 years, the conference has assembled thought leaders, activists and next-gen change-makers.
Crump, who has represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Martin Lee Anderson, Breonna Taylor, has championed for the civil and economic justice for more than two decades.
Last year, Crump represented a former Google employee after the tech giant came under fire for discriminating against its workers. The employees filed a lawsuit in March 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, claiming the company “engages in a ‘pattern and practice’ of unfair treatment for its Black workers. The suit [also] claims the company steered them into lower-level and lower-paid jobs and subjected them to a hostile work environment if they speak out,” as ESSENCE previously reported.
Attorney Ben Crump said, “Google says core value No. 1 is to work with great people…When you take the allegations of these minorities, and you look at the data, then one would conclude that apparently, Google believes great people are white people. Where, with this lawsuit, we’re proclaiming to Google that Black people and brown people are great people, too.”