Forgive Us Our Debts
There’s something extraordinary going on at Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church in Norfolk, VA. Sure, there’s the praying, clapping of hands and singing of hymns. But upon the pulpit sits a jar filled with cut-up credit cards — a testament to what makes this church unique. And along with paying their tithes, the members of the congregation are quite faithful when it comes to a far more secular ritual — paying off their debts.

Paths to Power
Though she’s an accomplished pianist, exceptionally brilliant and remarkably poised, Condoleezza Rice is notable to many because she’s the most powerful African-American woman in the country and the first black woman to hold the office of secretary of state. But the two qualities most often used to define her—her race and gender—are of far more interest to others than they are to her. Though Secretary Rice grew up in segregated Birmingham, AL, her parents taught her to focus less on the limitations of Jim Crow and more on what she could accomplish through hard work.

A Man is Not a Plan
If you go to WIFE.ORG, the Website for the Women’s Institute for Financial Education, you’ll find a bevy of financial advice and an opportunity to get a free bumper sticker with the slogan: “A man is not a plan.” Some may think it’s feminist jingoism. However, the maxim means much more.

For Whose Welfare Does This Work?
Arnette Smith is an unlikely figurehead for corporate America. She is a 53-year-old grandmother, mature yet decidedly hip, with three earrings in each ear, a pierced nose, and a black scarf tied around her head. She is sharp: ambitious and hungry for any opportunity to “refurnish the mind” as she puts it, which perhaps makes her a more probable candidate for a corporate icon.

Keeping It Real
The first day Mary Cofer wore braids to work, she was nervous. She’d spent ten years at American Electric Power just trying to blend in, with her hair relaxed stick straight, dressed in the corporate uniform of navy blue suit and pencil tie instead of the more colorful clothes she prefers. “I started at AEP in 1976. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964,” says Mary. “Technically, [African Americans] had only been human for twelve years. I felt that I had to assimilate.”