Dear Reader,

Thank you for your continued support and welcome to the second of our 2007 web issues. We look forward to growing with you, and are working towards providing you a continued space for discourse and enlightenment. This time around, we are “Minding Our Business”.

The business issue is of a particular importance and interest to us, since recent years have suggested a dramatic increase in the involvement of our members in entrepreneurial endeavors and accomplishments. We are so proud to share seven stories with you, each unique in experience from seven different businesses that involve Black women, and each demonstrative of our varied strengths and concerns.

For our feature article, The Coup talks to Angela Peabody, we received an opportunity to interview a remarkable publisher and CEO of Global Woman Magazine, Angela Peabody. The magazine addresses the issues that affect women on a daily basis. They have active fights against breast cancer, female genital mutilation, fistula, domestic violence, lung cancer in women, and many other issues.
In columns, we celebrate the photography of the American Photography Institute Fellowship Winner, Angie Buckley. We are also delighted to present our first poetry spread, featuring the work of Veronica Bohanan from unsilencedwomanpress.com, and Amanda Porter, a writer from Howard University.

We hope you enjoy this body of work. Visit our blog at www.thecoupmagazine.blogspot.com for more articles, and to share your input and commentary. Thank you again for your support. Keep reading.

A Conversation with Angela Peabody: CEO of Global Woman Magazine
"I wanted a different magazine – one that would make a difference in the lives of women and children,

I did not want to be subjected and restricted to the rules and control of a large magazine. It would have

been so less complicated with no obstacles or difficulties, had I gotten the parenthood of a large magazine

to hold our hands. However, I believe that God had it planned the way it unfolded and is still unfolding."

ArielSimone
"Black designers have been, for the most part, excluded from the fashion industry. Too many of those

who have made strides have been snatched away prematurely by AIDS, including Willi Smith,

Patrick Kelly and Isaia. Professional obstacles, including a lack of visibility, job bias, fewer graduates

entering design fields and limited career information, continue to hamper both aspiring female

designers and seasoned professionals."

Heroes
"The women would dress themselves in camouflage gathered by their military accomplices, use their

friendships to travel about the country and across the border freely, and secretly help civilians in and out

of the country. They made it their business to use the associations that their beauty blessed them to

transport lost loved ones across war infested borders to be reunited with their families."

The Real World
"If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 20+ years of life in the corporate world, it’s that successfully

navigating the Corporate America as a black woman takes WORK. And I’m more wrinkle of the brow

work than sweat of the brow work."

Getting on the Bus
"In both cases, I walk into the audition room and I see Black women, as I know us to be: diverse. We

walk into an office in midtown with different styles, shades of skin, hair, heights, widths, and voices.

It’s not a matter of being dark or light as in the era of School Daze, and the kinship is out of this world."

The Business
"Sounds like the feeble excuse of a perpetrator who has committed an act of domestic violence and

attempts to convince that his partner provoked him….And invariably the music industry’s victims, like

those on the homefront, are women and children: those myspace-MTV—BET-VH1-Sidekick-IPOD-toting

children-of-the-corn who believe The Game ain’t in on the game; those women who succumb to both the

grotesque, over-sexed images in music videos and the ignorant terms used in place of their names."

The Business of Sex Slavery

"Though debates still rage over the exact amount of women and children that are bought, sold, and used

each year as sex slaves, one thing is clear: the problem exists. Many differ with regard to its extent, whom

it affects, and how to solve it, but in the longrun, the focus should be on how to prevent the increase of the

human trafficking business of all sorts, and how to help those who find a way out."