Exploring the Leadership of Black History

Introduction

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On this Website.
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It does not apply to information collected by:

us offline or through any other means, including on any other website operated by Company or any third party (including our affiliates and subsidiaries); or
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Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Website. By accessing or using this Website, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy). Your continued use of this Website after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

Children

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Information We Collect About You and How We Collect It

We collect several types of information from and about users of our Website, including information:

by which you may be personally identified, such as name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, or any other identifier by which you may be contacted online or offline (“personal information”);
that is about you but individually does not identify you, such as organization, company or comments you may provide; and/or
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We collect this information:

Directly from you when you provide it to us.
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Information You Provide to Us.

The information we collect on or through our Website may include:

Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you enter a contest or promotion sponsored by us, and when you report a problem with our Website.
Records and copies of your correspondence with us (including email addresses).
Your responses to surveys that we might ask you to complete for research purposes.
Your search queries on the Website.

Information We Collect Through Automatic Data Collection Technologies.

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:

Details of your visits to our Website, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website.
Information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type.

The information we collect automatically can be associated with other personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:

Estimate our audience size and usage patterns.
Store information about your preferences, allowing us to customize our Website according to your individual interests.
Speed up your searches.
Recognize you when you return to our Website.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection include:

Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.
Flash Cookies. Certain features of our Website may use local stored objects (or Flash cookies) to collect and store information about your preferences and navigation to, from, and on our Website. Flash cookies are not managed by the same browser settings as are used for browser cookies. For information about managing your privacy and security settings for Flash cookies, see International Data Transfers
When you use the Website and provide information to Company through the Website, your information may be transferred to a destination outside your jurisdiction, including to the United States. The United States has not received a finding of “adequacy” from the European Union under Article 45 of the GDPR. Company has executed agreements between its affiliates and subsidiaries in accordance with Article 46 of the GDPR. Company also relies on derogations for specific situations set forth in Article 49 of the GDPR in order to transfer personal information across international borders outside of Company, its affiliates, and subsidiaries. In particular, Company transfers personal information across international borders only: with your consent; to perform a contract with you; or to fulfill a compelling legitimate interest of Company in a manner that does not outweigh your rights and freedoms.
Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.
Web Beacons. Pages of the Website and our e-mails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity).

How We Use Your Information

We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information:

To present our Website and its contents to you.
To provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us.
To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it.
To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection.
To notify you about changes to our Website or any products or services we offer or provide though it.
In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.
For any other purpose to fulfilll our legitimate interests or with your consent.

For more information, see International Data Transfers

When you use the Website and provide information to Company through the Website, your information may be transferred to a destination outside your jurisdiction, including to the United States. The United States has not received a finding of “adequacy” from the European Union under Article 45 of the GDPR. Company has executed agreements between its affiliates and subsidiaries in accordance with Article 46 of the GDPR. Company also relies on derogations for specific situations set forth in Article 49 of the GDPR in order to transfer personal information across international borders outside of Company, its affiliates, and subsidiaries. In particular, Company transfers personal information across international borders only: with your consent; to perform a contract with you; or to fulfill a compelling legitimate interest of Company in a manner that does not outweigh your rights and freedoms.

Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information.

Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose aggregated anonymized information about our users without restriction.

We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this privacy policy:

To our subsidiaries and affiliates.
To contractors, service providers, and other third parties we use to support our business.
To a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, or other sale or transfer of some or all of Company’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation, or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by Company about our Website users is among the assets transferred.
To fulfill the purpose for which you provide it.
For any other purpose disclosed by us when you provide the information.
With your consent.

We may also disclose your personal information:

To comply with any court order, law, or legal process, including to respond to any government or regulatory request.
To enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes.
If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Company, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

International Data Transfers

Choices About How We Use and Disclose Your Information

We strive to provide you with choices regarding the personal information you provide to us. We have created mechanisms to provide you with the following control over your information:

Tracking Technologies and Advertising. Our website does not respond to “Do Not Track” signals. You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. To learn how you can manage your Flash cookie settings, visit the Flash player settings page on Adobe’s website. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.
Promotional Offers from the Company. If you do not wish to have your contact information used by the Company to promote our own or third parties’ products or services, you can opt-out by checking the relevant box located on the form on which we collect your data or at any other time by sending us an email stating your request to Privacy@gravityspeakers.com. If we have sent you a promotional email, you may send us a return email asking to be omitted from future email distributions.

We do not control third parties’ collection or use of your information to serve interest-based advertising. However, these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way. You can opt out of receiving targeted ads from members of the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) on the NAI’s website: https://www.networkadvertising.org/.

Your Rights

To the extent required by law, Company provides you with (i) reasonable access to the personal information collected through the Website, and (ii) the ability to review, correct, export, and delete such personal information. Please contact us using any of the methods identified in the “Contact Information” section if you would like to exercise your individual rights and for information on any fee required to obtain copies of your personal information. We may need to obtain or confirm certain personal information in order to accommodate your request. We will not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect.

Your California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section § 1798.83 permits users of our Website that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to Privacy@gravityspeakers.com or write us at: 570 El Camino Real, #150-250, Redwood City, CA 94063, Attn: General Counsel.

Data Security

We use commercially reasonable measures to secure information collected through the Website. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to our Website. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Website.

We retain your information for as long as needed: (i) to conduct business with you; (ii) as needed for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy; (iii) as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce any agreements.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page with a notice that the privacy policy has been updated on the Website home page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will notify you by email to the email address provided by you or through a notice on the Website home page. The date the privacy policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Website and this privacy policy to check for any changes.

Contact Information

To ask questions or comment about this privacy policy and our privacy practices, contact us at:

570 El Camino Real, #150-250, Redwood City, CA 94063, Attn: General Counsel

Email: Privacy@gravityspeakers.com

European Union: Company’s Data Protection Officer is Nausheen Razzak, and can be contacted using the information above. You can request copies of Company’s GDPR Article 46 agreements from the Data Protection Officer. Please contact the Data Protection Officer if you believe Company has processed your information in a manner inconsistent with your privacy rights. You also have the right to contact a supervisory authority if you believe Company has processed your information in a manner inconsistent with your privacy rights.

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Exploring the Leadership of Black History

December 13, 2021 9:42 PM

Featured Author:

It is Black History Month and we thought it would be nice to look at some known and not so known figures in Black history as well as some modern leaders pushing Black history forward. One of the things we embrace at Gravity Speakers is giving a voice and platform to underrepresented groups. Often times these underrepresented groups display incredible courage, overcoming the odds and systems that work against them and alienate them. We are proud to have an amazing group of African-American speakers, leaders, and activists in our network of speakers. Let’s take a look at some Black leaders in history and how their principles of leadership are still present in the next generation of black leadership.

Robert Smalls

Born on April 4th, 1839 the story of Robert Smalls is one of courage, excellence, and inspiration. Smalls was born in Beaufort, South Carolina. His mother was a house servant and his father was likely his master Henry McKee. In order for him to fully understand the plight of the field slaves his mother asked that he work in the fields. When he was 12 he was sent away to work in Charleston and ended up working in the shipyards. Robert learned the ways of his oppressors by watching keenly as they used hand signals. He became highly knowledgeable in all manner of seamanship. He married at 17 to Hannah Jones who had two daughters already and they later had a daughter together and a son who died at the age of two.

Robert hoped to buy his wife and children out of slavery but after sending most of his wages to his master it would have taken him decades to save enough to buy their freedom. In 1861 the American Civil War began and Smalls was assigned to steer the CSS Planter. He watched and waited for the officers to go to shore and he recruited some other ship slaves and they hijacked the boat. He used the hand signals he learned dressed as a Confederate soldier to get past the five Confederate points on his way to freedom while picking up his wife and kids and the family of other crewmen. He put up a white flag and narrowly avoided being shot out of the water by Union forces.

Robert went on to become a pilot of many vessels in the Union army and even became a captain of the Planter which he originally escaped on. Aside from his military duty he also learned to read and write and supported programs to raise money for the education and development of ex-slaves. After his military career, he went into business serving the needs of freedmen. He also founded the Enterprise Railroad with what would end up being one the most impressive commercial ventures of Charleston’s black elite. He also published a black-owned newspaper, the Beaufort Southern Standard.

From business, he went into politics becoming the first African American elected into the United States House of Representatives. He went on to advocate for Black rights and education. Smalls journey highlights a pattern of Black leadership. He came from oppression and an environment where he was the minority. He learned the ways of his oppressors, waited for an opportunity, recruited others, made a bold move, found new allies, proved himself to those allies, rose in power and influence, and used that power to create activism and education. You will see this pattern is almost identical with other Black leaders. On a monument by his grave, his final words are engraved, "My race needs no special defense for the past history of them and this country. It proves them to be equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life."

Harriet Tubman

Born Araminta Ross on January 29th, 1822 into slavery in Dorchester County Maryland. Tubman was whipped and beaten by various masters as a child. In one incident a slave owner threw a heavy metal weight at another slave and it hit her in the head causing dizziness, pain, and bouts of hypersomnia throughout her life. Her father taught her to lumber and this is where she came in contact with freed black sailors who shipped the wood to the North. Tubman learned about secret communications and an underground railroad of people willing to help slaves with safe-houses and transportation to get to freedom.

In 1844, she married John Tubman and renamed herself Harriet after her mother. When her master died, his widow planned on selling the slaves and Harriet fled with her two brothers for fear they would be separated. The way was hard and they started to turn back when she had a dream which later inspired her to follow the North star to Philadelphia. She then returned 13 times to free her family and others and earned the nickname Black Moses. From there she served in the Union army as a nurse, scout, and spy and in 1863 was the first woman in military history to plan and lead a military raid that liberated over 700 slaves.

After the war, the 13th amendment abolished slavery, the 14th amendment expanded citizenship, and the 15th amendment gave voting rights to formerly enslaved black males. Though she accomplished a lot she was not even close to done. She continued to raise funds for schools and hospitals and then in 1888 worked on getting women the right to vote. On her deathbed, her last words were, “I’m going to prepare a place for you.”

Once again we see in her life a similar pattern, she was born into an environment of oppression, learned the ways of her oppressors, aligned with others under the same oppression, waited for her opportunity, made a bold move, found allies, proved herself to her new allies, became an activist and promoted education and pushed for higher power to be used to further her cause. Let’s look at one more example in the early tech space.

Katherine Johnson

Born on August 26th, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs West Virginia, Katherine was the youngest of four children. Katherine’s mom was a teacher and her father worked at a hotel. She ignored her environment and excelled in math at an early age. African Americans were only offered schooling up to the eighth grade at that time. Her family managed to enroll her in high school at the age of 10. Her abilities could not be denied and she graduated at age 14. She took a break to focus on family after becoming pregnant and became the first African American to attend graduate school at West Virginia University. She was one of the first to integrate graduate schools after the Supreme Court ruling on Missouri Gaines v. Canada in 1938.

Eventually, she decided on a career as a research mathematician which was both difficult for women and even more difficult for African Americans to enter. She moved into a male-dominated space to lead the way once again in unaccepting environments. She became part of the group of human computers which did complex calculations before computers were created. The movie Hidden Figures released in 2017 tells the story of her and other African American women who made it possible for humans to reach outer space. Not only was she separated as a woman in a male-dominated workplace, she was further marginalized by being separated into the colored women computers group. She exemplified the point that results, leadership, and tenacity could overcome hostile, unfair, and unsupportive environments. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 from Barack Obama.

Her history shows the same pattern of Black leadership, coming from an oppressive environment, she educated herself, learned the ways of the oppressors, made bold moves, found allies, proved herself to her allies, and helped educate, inspire, and pave the way for others by being willing to be the first to pioneer black leadership in unwelcoming environments.

Our Leaders

These are just some of a multitude of historical Black leaders but I see the powerful principles of Black leadership in every one of these amazing people. At Gravity Speakers, we are blessed to have modern Black leaders, pioneers, and activists that are following the same pattern of Black leadership as those who came before them. They are going into environments where women and people of color are rare or don’t exist. They are willing to trailblaze and create where nothing existed. They make bold moves, find strategic allies, and educate and advocate along the way while creating influence and power that can be used to set an example and support more people of color. We are proud to be an ally, supporter, and advocate for the Black leaders of today. Here is a list of some of the amazing leaders we are able to work with and you can too. Book them for your next event.

Arlan Hamilton - Outstanding entrepreneur leading the way in venture capital for underrepresented founders, women of color, and LGBT.

Sheena Allen - Founder of Capway a neobank, Forbes 30 Under 30, and advocate for inclusion in tech.

Mike Brown - Pro-athlete turned coder, CEO of Win-Win a platform for athletes and influencers to monetize their fanbase.

Morgen Bromell - Technologist working to make technology more accessible for people of color through justice-based initiatives and activism.

Dawn Dickson - Serial entrepreneur currently working on PopCom an automated retail company using facial recognition, AI, and blockchain to generate valuable customer data.

Ugwem Eneyo - Co-founder and CEO of Solstice Energy Solutions specializing in the use of IoT for energy management with a passion for creating opportunities in Africa.

Harold Hughes - CEO of bandwagon an analytics and identity management company focused on creating personalized experiences.

Sky Kelley - Founder of Avisare, software that fosters an inclusive ecosystem for small businesses.

Russell Ladson - Creative technologist driving the intersection of technology and design for better human to human experiences.

James Norman - Serial entrepreneur in multiple verticals building his first business at age 16, now focusing on OTT media and consumer video consumption behaviors.

Amiah Sheppard - Director of Backstage Accelerator LA, educating founders on ways to harness their socio-cultural backgrounds to achieve their goals.

Kimberly Seals Allers - Award-winning journalist, author, and advocate for maternal and infant health as well as the intersection of race, policy, and culture.

Phil Gwoke - International speaker helping people reach their highest calling through motivation, education, and support.

Roderick Jefferson - An award-winning veteran in sales enablement.

Sarita Maybin - Communications expert who teaches people how to deal with tough situations and stay positive.

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