With the holidays coming up, I can't help but think about the seven principles of Kwanza,

two of which are Ujima and Ujama, collective work and responsibility and cooperative economics.

Now this is not a Kwanza story, but it is a story about a black community and a group

of savvy entrepreneurs who came together to literally lift themselves from the ashes.

Joanna Manatsabeer, our entrepreneur, who in 2018 took a burned out bank building in Milwaukee

Sherman Park neighborhood and transformed it into an economic hub called the Sherman Phoenix.

This is from a video they put out to promote the space in 2019.

I met Joanna Manan on a reporting trip in Milwaukee a few years ago and I knew right away there

was just something about them.

They ooze positive energy, aspiration and black love and it's all of that that gets us

into the heart of this story and gets us to Ujima and Ujama and that bank building.

Now filled almost completely with black owned shops.

It was like going into an arena and all your friends were there.

I mean it was like the basketball lineup and now introducing your Chicago Bulls.

You know what I'm saying?

They're like you had Jordan Piff and everybody walking through the tunnel man.

It was the best feeling in the world.

Creating this space for black businesses, it wasn't easy in a place like Milwaukee.

The city is 40% black but it's one of the most segregated cities in America with one

of the highest rates of black male incarceration and there's a long history of police violence

and racism and now it's fighting the onslaught of COVID-19.

As the economic fallout from the pandemic continues to cut American businesses, black business

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