Investment By Blacks Encouraged

Kelvin Boston learned of a desperate need for financial planning in the black community the painful way - by watching his client, a 37-year-old widow, disregard his financial advice, squander $350,000 in insurance money and end up penniless.

“Before her husband’s passing, she was used to living from paycheck to paycheck. That’s what made her comfortable,” said Boston, now one of the country’s most famous financial advisers. “At that moment, I knew I had a new mission: to help my clients understand and correct their attitudes toward wealth.”

Boston, a Detroit resident and creator of a syndicated TV show about money matters, has spent two decades encouraging blacks to invest in stocks, mutual funds, real estate and their own businesses.

His 5-year-old show, “The Color of Money,” reaches an estimated two million viewers nationwide through PBS and Black Entertainment Television. He has written financial plans for hundreds of clients. His new book, “Smart Money Moves for African Americans,” went on sale in bookstores nationwide this week.

“Smart Money Moves” is a 300-page how-to book that emphasizes reducing debt and investing wisely. In it, Boston urges African Americans to build wealth and live “with financial dignity.”

The black community, Boston said, needs his advice. Just because people have better jobs and more education than their parents doesn’t mean that their balance sheets are sound.

“Businesses finally respect African-American purchasing power, but not our economic clout,” Boston said. “We have little net worth in banks, mutual funds, real estate and businesses. As America’s No. 1 minority, we have the opportunity to put our financial house in order.”

Boston’s own financial house - or, more appropriately, his media empire - is in tiptop shape. He’s chief executive officer at Boston Media, which publishes The Color of Money Journal, a companion magazine for the show. He also publishes Corporate Detroit magazine.

Did he mention he’s also director of the investment group Calvert New Africa Mutual Fund?

Boston says “Smart Money Moves” is the first “holistic” book on black investment because it is the only financial guide that incorporates cultural, political and religious nuances. The target audience is anyone who lives in a household making $25,000 to $50,000 a year.

In his book, he tries to dismantle the idea that blacks should be content with poverty or postpone prosperity until they reach heaven.

“The majority of African-American churchgoers were taught that money was the root of all evil and to store their treasures up in heaven,” Boston said.

A central theme of the book is entrepreneurship - what Boston dubs “the ultimate smart money move.” He pushes African Americans to open their own businesses to avoid getting trapped beneath corporate glass ceilings.

He also urges all black people - even those who prefer to work for others or in large companies - to become their own financial agents by owning stocks, homes and mutual funds. African Americans should build their financial portfolio aggressively, Boston said, and invest in their own educations and health.

The crux of Boston’s wealth-building plan, he said, is confidence: African Americans must believe they can play the stock market and win. That they can open businesses and profit. That they can buy a home and watch it appreciate.

“We can all rattle off the names of 10 or 20 white entrepreneurs, from Bill Gates to Ted Turner, but many of us can’t name one black entrepreneur or millionaire,” Boston said. “By not knowing who our financial heroes are, we tell others that we don’t have any.”

“Smart Money Moves” didn’t turn out exactly as Boston had planned when he pitched the idea to publishers more than a year ago. “I had thought of it as a philosophical book,” Boston said. “But it’s better now, as a how-to book. It’s much more valuable.”

G.P. Putnam’s Sons thought the book was so valuable the publishing house signed Boston to write two more by 1997 that will target blacks earning more than $50,000 a year.

Although Boston admits his future isn’t in books (his goal in the next five years is to increase his TV audience), he is an avid reader. Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois are two favorite authors.

“My book isn’t a solution to the color line,” he said, gently folding his hands. “But in the future, the color line will become less black and white. As the nation separates into haves and have-nots, the color line will become a green line. Money will separate us, not race.”