Ticker Tape

Jet, Oct 29, 2001 by Simeon Booker

CONFIDENTIAL: The man who founded TransAfrica and built the organization into a national powerhouse has resigned, along with his board chairman. Randall Robinson quit as TransAfrica's President and Essence Magazine publisher Edward Lewis quit as its board chairman on October 1. Both will serve on the organization's board.

They will be honored at a farewell reception on December 3 at the Forum building in Washington, D.C., while Harvard law professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. heads a search committee to find a successor ... Several prominent Black businessmen "with deep pockets" are in the process of opening a bank in the nation's capital ... Give Virgin Island Rep. Donna Christian-Christensen credit for gaining 15 more acres for the Booker T. Washington National Monument Park in Franklin County in Virginia. She led the expansion effort for the park named for the Tuskegee Institute founder and noted educator ... When President George W. Bush recently spoke to a New York City business group, one of the leaders photographed with him was American Express Chairman Kenneth Chenault. The picture was used by media worldwide ... Maggie Williams, the first Black chief of staff for former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, is being heavily wooed to return as Sen. Clinton's office manager ... Former Mass. Sen. Edward Brooke, the first Black elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote, just finished his memoirs and the literary world is waiting to see whether he can wind up among the best-selling authors. Currently he lives on a 155-acre farm near Warrenton, VA, and raises horses and cattle.