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Long distance company
started after march

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WASHINGTON--At last year's Million Man March over 1.5 million Black men gathered in Washington, D.C., and pledged to "resurrect" themselves and their communities throughout America, spurring new ideas, businesses, cooperation and vigor.

Lew Andrews, a march organizer and currently a co-hair of the African-American Leadership Summit, is one of those who found a new opportunity after the march. He founded Statewide Communications Inc. Network (SCIN), a long distance service that emerged when the Chicago-based telecommunications company Statewide Communications International watched the march and a potential business opportunity.

"We are a national reseller of long distance service," Mr. Andrews said. "What that means is that any African-American that participated in the Million Man March can authorize and change their service and we can become their carrier."

Telecommunications giant MCI is the underlying carrier for Mr. Andrews' new company.

"Statewide Communications was inspired by the Million Man March. They looked at the study that was done by the Howard University Political Science department and a public relations firm out of New Jersey following the march. They saw that there was 15 states where most of the marchers came from," Mr. Andrews explained.

"After negotiation with Statewide, I determined that this is an opportunity for us to have some economic development for the Black community," he added. "We know that there's no telephone company which is successful without customers. What we want to do and what we're going to do is to control and capture the customers who participated in the Million Man March and who also believe that we should have economic development for ourselves."

"We believe that big business is the key for our success. For example, the long distance service industry generated $100 billion this year, and that's just long distance, and doesn't include other services like pagers and cellular phones," Mr. Andrews said.
--Tyrone Muhammad