17577: (Hermantin) Miami Herald-Activist fights for cause of minority firms (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sun, Dec. 28, 2003

Activist fights for cause of minority firms
Beatrice Louissaint fought as a child -- and is still fighting as a champion
of businesses seeking their share of the economic pie.




BEGINNING THE STRUGGLE: Haitian-American activist Beatrice Louissaint as a
child.


Beatrice Louissaint arrived in Miami at the age of 5 in the early 1970s.
Growing up at Northeast Second Avenue and 47th Street, she witnessed
firsthand the birth of a community.

''My dad had the first Haitian church in Miami, and we were the first
Louissaints in the phone book,'' recalled Louissaint, who now lives in
Northwest Miami-Dade County.

Her father, Jean Louissaint, is a Baptist minister who relocated the family
to Miami from Haiti at the request of a white mission seeking a pastor to
help meet the religious needs of what was then a fast-growing Haitian
community.

For the Louissaints, the lifestyle change was enormous.

''I got beaten up a lot by black American kids,'' said Louissaint, who
arrived here not knowing English. ``My mom called me the cockfighter. I
fought almost every day to protect myself because we were Haitian.''

Fast-forward three decades: Beatrice Louissaint is still fighting. Today,
it's on behalf of black and Hispanic companies seeking their share of the
economic pie.

As executive director of the Black Business Association for eight years, she
went to bat for African-American contractors. Now, as president and chief
executive officer of the mostly Hispanic Florida Regional Minority Business
Council, she is championing the needs of minority-owned firms seeking to do
business with corporate America.

''I don't know when I became so assimilated,'' joked Louissaint, who in 1989
founded the Haitian-American Women's Coalition to help mobilize Haitian
women economically, socially and politically.

Louissaint has spearheaded educational seminars and conferences aimed at
helping Haitians adjust to South Florida. She brought to Miami Marjorie
Judith Vincent, the first Haitian American to wear the crown of Miss
America.

''I have truly seen some amazing things happen,'' Louissaint said.

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