I'm a Sahihpe, Global Head of Corporate Engagement and President of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. I'm excited that today's episode of Undistracted

is brought to you by Goldman Sachs 10,000 small businesses,

which helps entrepreneurs create jobs

and economic opportunity

by providing access to education, capital and business support services.

Later in the episode you'll hear from one of our program graduates and learn more about their

business and experiences. To learn more or apply to Goldman Sachs 10,000 small

businesses, visit GS.com slash 10Ks B. And Hey y'all it's Brittany. It was just over eight years ago that I found myself in the middle of an uprising I absolutely saw coming.

Michael Brown Jr.'s killing by a Ferguson police officer was the

spark, but the match was ready to be lit.

My hometown of St. Louis, full of creative, beautiful people, was besieged by economic

stratification, educational inequity, and severe racial discrimination. One street, Delmar, still stands as the divide between a Black St Louis to the north and a white

one to the south.

Everything from median income to life expectancy are starkly different on each side of the line and frankly

folks were sick of that shit. Those days and nights were filled with police terror

and tear gas, but always, always we fought back.

A determined people are an unbeatable people and what emerged were organizations like

Action St. Louis and elected leaders like

Corey Bush and Mayor Tashara Jones, an unbridled determination to set a model for

what can and must be different about how we are governed and the voice we deserve to have and

building it. But that was to come in the later years. In 2014 I was just there to play my part

alongside so so many others.

...