The Martha's Vineyard Legacy Breakfast Club Black History Symposium

Welcome to The Martha's Vineyard Legacy Breakfast Club Black History Conference! Join us on Tuesday, August 13, 2024 at 10:00 AM at the Martha's Vineyard Museum for a day filled with celebration, education, and community. This event is a unique opportunity to honor the rich history and contributions of Black Americans while enjoying a delicious breakfast. Come together with like-minded individuals to learn, share stories, and build connections. Don't miss out on this special gathering that pays tribute to the legacy of Martha's Vineyard and Black history.

Zebulon Vance Miletsky, Ph. D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies and History at Stony Brook University (SUNY) specializing in recent African-American History, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, Urban History, Mixed Race, and Biracial Identity. In addition to his earlier work on Mixed Race, Miletsky’s major project has been the Boston School Desegregation Crisis and the parent-led civil rights movement in Boston. His book Before Busing: A History of Boston’s Long Black Freedom Struggle was published by the University of North Carolina Press in December of 2022. It has been well received and was featured in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education as a book “of interest to African American scholars.” He is also the author of numerous articles, reviews, essays and book chapters. His articles have appeared in the Trotter Review, the Historical Journal of Massachusetts, the Journal of Civil and Human Rights and the Journal of Urban History. He has been a regular contributor to the award-winning blog Black Perspectives, hosted by the African American Intellectual Historical Society (AAIHS) for which he co-authored “How Displacement and Gentrification are Remaking Boston” (2017) among other pieces. He has written op-eds for Diverse Issues in Higher Education, BK Nation and the BK Reader. Originally from Boston,

Miletsky received his Ph.D. in African American Studies with a concentration in History from the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2008. There, he was trained as a historian by some of the best thinkers in the field of African American Studies, many of whom are veterans of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960s, 70s and beyond. He has received fellowships from the Northeast Consortium for Faculty Diversity and Case Western Reserve University, where he was, respectively, a Minority Dissertation Fellow at Monmouth University and a Post-Doctoral Fellow in African American Studies in the Department of History. He has made appearances on NBC4 New York, the PBS show American Experience and has been quoted by NBC News, TheRoot.com, and many others. Miletsky was awarded a “Game Changer Award” from the Long Island Area NAACP branches at their Annual Freedom Luncheon in 2020 for his “work in Civil Rights in Long Island.”

He is a voting member of the Citywide Education Council (CEC) for District 32 in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the school board for the City of New York, for which he was appointed by the Brooklyn Borough President. In 2021 he was honored by the Town of Brookhaven Black History Commission “for leadership and service to the community as a role model to the next generation.” A proclamation to this effect was read in which February 5th was declared “Dr. Zebulon Miletsky Day” in the Town of Brookhaven, New York. Dr. Miletsky was selected to give the annual John Hope Franklin Lecture at Adelphi University for Black History Month of 2023 for which he also received several proclamations. He is nominated for the Civil Rights and Humanitarian Award to be awarded at the Black Authors Festival in Sag Harbor, New York in August. He lives in Brooklyn.

Hanif Omar, MBA, Director of Commercial Lending / Financial Analyst/ Professor/ Founder Panelist, Piedmont Business Capital / Shaw University / The Omar Group

Hanif Omar, is an entrepreneur, historian, professor, and business professional with over two decades of owning and leading complex organizations, building strategic business alliances and developing successful business models. Currently, Mr. Omar manages The Omar Group, LLC, a business and finance consulting firm operating in North Carolina, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. In addition, he is also the Director of Commercial Lending for Piedmont Business Capital, and a professor of Entrepreneurship at Shaw University (Raleigh, NC) in the School of Business and Professional Studies.

Mr. Omar owns and manages The Omar Group, LLC, a business and finance consulting firm operating in North Carolina, Virginia, California and Washington, D.C. Firm’s current contracts:

• Mission Driven Finance (San Diego, CA) – Reviewing and underwriting loan packages ranging from $100K - $10M range. Consulting with managers about credit policies, credit lines, standards, and procedures. Making recommendations to the credit committee regarding loan decisions, identifying strengths and weaknesses of each credit applications. Developing credit memos for use by the credit committee in making credit decisions.

• Piedmont Business Capital (Greensboro, NC) – managing the CDFI’s $3.5M small business loan fund. PBC offers relationships, knowledge, and resources to help dedicated entrepreneurs achieve their goals. PBC’s focused is wealth creation in minority communities across the central Piedmont area of North Carolina, including Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point.

• NC Rural Center (Raleigh, NC) – Reviewing and underwriting loan packages ranging from $100K - $4M range from lenders enrolled in SSBCI. Consulting with managers about credit policies, credit lines, standards, and procedures. Making recommendations to the credit committee regarding loan decisions, identifying strengths and weaknesses of each credit applications. Developing credit memos for use by the credit committee in making credit decisions.

• Illumined Leadership Solutions (Durham, NC) - Strategic Planning Project for Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta GA. Creating a five (5) year financial capacity plan and assessing capital campaign for the church.

Mr. Omar owns The Aya Center, a community mental health and educational agency. The agency’s community-based approach has been widely recognized as a highly effective mental health, education, and social development model assisting numerous public and private institutions in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia with their academic, business, and mental health service needs. Under Mr. Omar’s leadership the agency employs fifteen (15) professionals and has scaled to a multi-million dollar operation. The agency current contracts:

Mental Health - Providing mental health services in their respective catchment areas under the North Carolina1915 b/c Medicaid waiver for mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse.

• Alliance Health (MCO)

• Sandhills Center (MCO)

• Cardinal Innovations Healthcare Solutions (MCO)

Hailing from Paterson NJ, Jaquair is an actor, poet, producer and a graduate of Ramapo College. He has performed in Theater in New Jersey & NYC in plays like August Wilson's Piano Lesson for The Now Theatre Workshop and Black Issues Issues at Joe's Pub for The Public Theater. Also, he's been featured in television shows like Orange is The New Black, Godfather of Harlem, Tommy, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Law & Order: Organized Crime. He has co-starred and Produced the festival award-winning film, 3rd&4th Chapters. He is the annual open mic host of The Paterson Poetry Festival and has performed in poetry venues across the U.S. From being a three time featured poet at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City, to rocking the stage several times at Da Poetry Lounge in Los Angeles. He recently released his highly reviewed debut spoken word poetry book entitled "Defiance & Desperation". In addition, he produced a performance art film based on his book release performance that was an official selection of the Garden State Film Festival of 2023. Now, Jaquair has released the first single, "Defiance" from the digital album version of his book that will be available in all digital online stores worldwide. Jaquair continues to stay active in his hometown as a co-founding committee member of Paterson's Green Acre Community Garden and as a Commissioner on The Paterson Arts Exchange.