Free Fail Up by Tavis Smiley

Literacy Program.” This is an unprecedented collaboration between a major civil rights organization and an institution accused of targeting Black people for its own gain.
    I believe the Urban League, the NAACP, and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition are just as sincere as I am about providing educational resources that may improve the financial success of African Americans. As I said, it’s much easier to target an individual than it is an organization.
    I remain committed to spreading a message of self-determination through financial literacy to African Americans and to all who will listen. In an attempt to get up and fail up, I devote significant time on my radio and television platforms trying to thoroughly dissect the subprime mess and its exploitation of Black and brown people, which, if we’re honest, caught a whole lot of people much savvier than me by surprise. The “Road to Wealth” segments on my PBS show features folks like Maria Bartiromo, host of CNBC’s Closing Bell ; Ken Wade, CEO of NeighborWorks America; and Katty Kay, BBC correspondent and co-author of Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success . The segments are designed to deliver information about building personal wealth, finding affordable housing and suitable loans, and other needed information.
    The financially illiterate are most often shut out of the mainstream borrowing or credit processes. They find themselves victims of predatory lenders like payday loan companies, where they borrow money using their next paycheck as collateral. According to the Woodstock Institute, a nonprofit research and policy organization, minority and low-income consumers often end up paying 400 percent to 600 percent in interest and fees on these caustic loans and this last-resort system of credit.
    As long as I have a public voice, I will use my platforms to help people get their money right and their financial houses in order. The Wells Fargo fiasco only made me wiser. And more determined. I’m doing the same free financial literacy seminar; this time it’s called “The Nationwide On Your Side® Tour with Tavis Smiley,” sponsored by Nationwide Insurance. The seminars backed by surveys provide valuable information—financial basics, retirement planning, employment opportunities, and more.
    Why? Because fiscal accountability is an individual responsibility, and I believe that information is power. Knowledge is power. But getting that knowledge to the proper source is challenging. There’s no excuse these days for being financially illiterate. Comprehensive data about how to prepare for a secure financial future are abundant. But in environments with 50 percent high school dropout rates, where parents have had little experience with proper money management—“comprehensive data” aren’t enough.
    With the proper weaponry, we can win this battle. When we arm ourselves with good information, we can make better financial choices. When we make better choices, we live better lives. And when we live better lives, we leave greater legacies. And if one of your primary goals is not to ensure that your children and grandchildren have more opportunity than you, then what’s it all about?
    All I know is that I’m just a former check-kiter trying to help others fly right.

CHAPTER 6
    A PINK SLIP CAN
FIRE YOU UP!
    L awrence Harvey Zeiger was doing all right for himself: He had hosted local radio and TV shows and by 1971, he had a gig as a weekly columnist for the Miami Beach Sun and served as the color commentator for the Miami Dolphins on WIOD radio in Miami.
    Not bad for the son of Jewish immigrants and who barely graduated high school. The impoverished Brooklyn, New York, kid had a serendipitous entrée into radio. In 1957, he worked as a janitor at a small Miami radio station. When an announcer suddenly quit one night, the station’s manager instantaneously—desperately—decided to put the janitor on