Ever felt the weight of being the first? This power-packed panel redefines first-generation achievement, exploring the sacrifices, triumphs, and financial wisdom needed to build lasting legacy.
Join us as we dive deep into the real experiences of those forging new paths. Discover the essential financial habits and systems that create generational impact, moving beyond buzzwords to tangible wealth creation. Learn what it truly means to build and steward your family's financial future for generations to come.
This conversation unpacks the realities of "building the plane as you fly it"—creating infrastructure and plans for wealth transition without a safety net. Get ready for transparent discussions and actionable insights to help you thrive.
#FirstGeneration #GenerationalWealth #FinancialLiteracy
Join us as we dive deep into the real experiences of those forging new paths. Discover the essential financial habits and systems that create generational impact, moving beyond buzzwords to tangible wealth creation. Learn what it truly means to build and steward your family's financial future for generations to come.
This conversation unpacks the realities of "building the plane as you fly it"—creating infrastructure and plans for wealth transition without a safety net. Get ready for transparent discussions and actionable insights to help you thrive.
#FirstGeneration #GenerationalWealth #FinancialLiteracy
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NewsTranscript
00:00All right. Well, welcome, welcome, welcome to the We Love Us stage. I know it is a light
00:06crowd because there is so much going on, but either way, we are going to have a fabulous
00:11time. So my name is Quinn Conyers, and I have the honor, the privilege, and the pleasure
00:15of serving as your host for this particular stage. Now, if you have ever felt the weight
00:22of being first, this first conversation has your name written all over it. Matter of fact,
00:28the title of this conversation is the weight and wonder of being first. Maybe you're the
00:35first person to buy a home, the first person to go to college, the first person in your
00:40family to start a business, or maybe even the first person to build wealth. Either way, you
00:46are absolutely positively in the right place because behind every major milestone is a story
00:53of sacrifice, resilience, pressure, and possibility. Now, this conversation explores the real experiences
01:00behind first-generation achievement and the financial habits and the systems that are required
01:08to create lasting ownership and generational impact. Now, I'm excited because we have a powerhouse
01:14panel. Here to moderate this fabulous conversation is the one and only Casey D.K. She's going to
01:22join us on the stage. Let's go ahead and give Casey some love. Now, joining Casey is two amazing
01:30individuals who are breaking barriers as the first in their families, in their careers, in
01:35their businesses, we have Enza Huger and Dr. LaTonya White. Let's give them a round of applause.
01:42Welcome, welcome, ladies, to Essence Fest 2026.
01:49Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to festival, y'all. How you feeling?
01:55That's right. Well, we are absolutely excited to kick off this stage for this entire weekend,
02:02to have a very important conversation about what it really feels like to be the first.
02:07So, get comfortable. Imagine you are in Big Mama's living room and we can talk about some things.
02:13We are going to be absolutely transparent and give you the gems you need to be the first.
02:19But before we kick this off, I really want to give the ladies an opportunity
02:24to introduce themselves because these are powerhouses, y'all.
02:28They are absolutely forging paths for people who don't even understand the weight of what they're
02:35carrying. Y'all resonate with that? They're having to build the plane as they fly it, where there is
02:42no safety net. Y'all understand that? Right? And so, y'all take up space first to just, in your
02:48own
02:49words, articulate who you are. Enza, we'll start with you.
02:52Well, good morning and cheers to festival day one for all of us. It's year seven for me,
02:58so let's turn this up. My name is Enza Huger. I am formerly the chief financial officer and chief
03:04compliance officer for the New Voices Fund, which is a venture capital fund closely affiliated with
03:09Essence. We also have an accounting firm in the Atlanta area, but we service clients globally.
03:14And my mission is to really help entrepreneurs and families turn this paradigm of wealth to really
03:20understand what it means so that we aren't just saying generational wealth as a buzzword, but really
03:24turning it into something. So, that's me.
03:28Yes, yes. Good morning, everyone. And thank you, Casey. Enza, it's so good to be back on the stage.
03:34Right. You're two of us.
03:35Yes.
03:36And thank you, everyone that's here. So, I'm Dr. LaTonya White. I am a rattler by blood. So, for all
03:44my rattlers in the house,
03:45I know we got the HBCU activation over there, but I'm the founder and creator of Dynastic Wealth. So,
03:51to your point, Enza, Dynastic Wealth is an evidence base. It actually came out of my dissertation research
03:57studying first-generation wealth creators and what it means to really go beyond money, right? So,
04:05the framework looks at these five forms of wealth that I look forward to unpacking today, but a part of
04:11the work that I do is really building community and holding space for first-generation wealth creators
04:16to change the narrative around financial trauma and our family to move toward a place of financial
04:23healing. Y'all, please give it up for these two ladies. It's an honor to unpack your stories.
04:29And again, I am KCDK. I am the CEO of a company called Blaze Group, where Blaze means building leaders
04:35and accepting zero excuses. Essentially, I help black folk build their own cash apps and their own
04:41sales and all of the things so that we not just use the systems, but we make the rules, and
04:47we'll get
04:47into some things. So, last year, this same time, the three of us sat on the stage talking about
04:54building generational wealth in the black communities, right? And Enza said something heavy.
04:59She said, by this time next year, I hope that everyone in the audience understands what a family
05:06office is. I don't know where we land on that today, okay? But one, Enza, I want to give you
05:14an
05:14opportunity to explain for the audience what a family office is, because we all have families. That
05:20office piece might be some jargon. But number two, has there been a family office in your family? Are you
05:26the first one building the infrastructure and the plans to transition wealth from generation to
05:32generation? That's a really good question. So, first, I'm going to ask like I did last year. Raise your
05:36hand if you know what a family office is. We got work to do, okay? So, that means we still
05:41have work
05:41to do, and that's okay. I'm okay with that. That's why we're here. A family office is essentially a place
05:47where you centralize wealth in your family, and it's not just wealth by monetary terms. We're talking about
05:52insurance. We're talking about like life insurance, health insurance, generational passdowns of systems
05:59and processes so that you can continue to stay in the wealth. It's trust. It's wills. It's estates. It's
06:05homes. So, and you have, as the family office gets larger, you start to employ people to actually run
06:11this for you. You have brokers. You have accountants. You have lawyers that work for your family office that
06:16keep you guys safe and rooted. And to your second question, no, there was no family office for my
06:23family. As a matter of fact, I would say that until about five years ago, my family didn't know
06:29what a family office was. It's oftentimes hard enough to remember what family is as a step one,
06:35right? Sometimes that's the first hurdle is understanding family. What I mean by that is
06:39building the trust required to even have these conversations, right? So, lucky for me, I was able to
06:45demonstrate wealth by acquiring a certain level of wealth and education on my own. And basically,
06:51I started just giving my family instructions and nuggets and tidbits. And we started small with like
06:57family dues. So, we started with like $5 a month from everybody in the family. Then it was $10,
07:02then it was $15. And the original motivation was we're going to use this to go like family reunion
07:07or family trip, right? We're going to use this to buy the food. We also built in like an emergency
07:13fund.
07:13So, like if someone in the family needs something, $100 to $500, we would take it out of this emergency
07:19fund instead of any individual constantly being burdened by this, right? And we had criteria and
07:26all that. So, that evolved over the years. There came a point where I think year five or so, so
07:30recently, where we looked at that bank account and there was $10,000 there. And I was able to say
07:35to
07:35my family, look what y'all did. Look what y'all did by just doing 10, 15, whatever you could
07:40do and
07:41holding each other accountable to it. So, now I've given them the plan that we're going to go
07:45buy a piece of land not too far from where my family is. And the next thing we're going to
07:49do
07:49is build something on that land. So, when we want to have a family reunion, we don't have to pay
07:53a vendor. We're going to go there. And the rest of the year, we rent that thing out. So, then
07:58it's
07:58paying us. And so, that step by step, I couldn't give them all of that on day one though. I
08:03couldn't
08:04say we're going to buy land on day one. I couldn't say we're going to have a venue on day
08:08one
08:08because it's too big and it's scary. So, we started with $5. This is dues. They can understand
08:14$5. And that's it. And so, now we're in year five. We're about to go buy land. And now I'm
08:20going to explain what a family office is. I had to get to achieving something first. And
08:25then like, now our family office is established to buy the land. Our trust is established to
08:30hold the land. So, now they get it. And they're in love with the idea of like, how do we
08:36get
08:36here? How do we do this? And I named it after, you know, my great-grandparents. So, I'm like,
08:41you understand this isn't about me. I don't care. This is about all of us and what comes
08:46next. So, there's excitement now.
08:49Hand claps for that, please. My God. So, many times as financial professionals, we see things
08:57as a math problem, right? $5 times 12 months is $60. But the truth of it is, it's the mindset
09:03and the body and the trauma that has to come across that threshold with all of us as people,
09:08right? And I think you beautifully touched on that. Dr. White, I want you to go deeper,
09:14right? Because most times, it's not the math that holds us back. It's the mindset.
09:19In your position, you taught, I think, 13 years at FAMU entrepreneurship to students. You have your
09:26own company called Dynastic Wealth, right? You're doing all of the things. You're at Howard now,
09:30building entrepreneurial pathways for HBCU students. So, I'm sure you've seen a lot of
09:36mindset hiccups along the way. So, can you, and be very honest, right? Because I hope that I see
09:41myself in what you say. I hope anybody out there who is hiding and disguising, right, sees themselves.
09:46What are typically the mindset issues that hold people back from embodying ownership?
09:53Right. And thank you for that question and for the context. So, a part of the research that I did
09:58actually looked at 150 years of wealth distribution in America and then specifically what that experience
10:06had been like for melanated people. So, this is looking at, of course, chattel slavery. This is
10:14looking at the reconstruction era. This is looking at the establishment of the Freedmen's Bank. And then
10:20when our ancestors were working and building and had amassed a collective $3 million in black wealth
10:29and deposited them in banks that disappeared overnight, although that wasn't my experience,
10:35that hadn't been my great-grandmother's experience, I now can appreciate why she still puts money in a
10:42shoebox under the bed. Like, now I can appreciate that. And really understanding how we all come as a
10:50family inside, right? As a family, we bring Madea's, right? We bring big mama's memory into how we relate
11:00to money. And so, until we get to the place where we are naming those experiences and then we can
11:06reconcile
11:07those experiences where our heart posture is really kind of holding us back. Do I belong here? Am I safe
11:14here? Do they have my best interests at heart? So, if it weren't for leaders like INSA saying, no, in
11:20this
11:20family, we belong in these spaces. For what you're doing, KC, for what we're doing, for what you all are
11:27doing for your families, as the vanguard, you're going in front of to say, no, this is where we belong.
11:33And so,
11:34that's a part of shifting it. It's really, it's going to take someone to be brave enough to say,
11:40this is, this was our story. We're changing the narrative. We're rewriting it. And we're creating
11:45these dynasties. We're building these family offices. So, these generations behind us don't
11:51carry the same pain and trauma that we have. That's good, sis. It makes me think about the title of
11:59this
11:59book called The Body Keeps the Score. It's a good book. It's a really good book. It's one of my
12:04favorite
12:05books. Right? No matter what I look like on the outside, the body keeps the score. And so, there's
12:10a reason why it goes under the mattress, because the body is keeping the score. There's trauma in
12:14my cells that I'm trying to heal, right? Another thing I noticed, another pattern I noticed in us
12:23sisters, family, black folk, black men, is when we have a heart of service, so many times we get our
12:29joy from the joy we give to other people. And it's so hard to name our own needs and our
12:36own joys,
12:37and it's so hard to relish in that. And so, before we go deeper into the weight and the wonder,
12:41I want
12:41to know from each of you, what has been the most gratifying experiences for you being the first?
12:47Not things you share with other people, not the journey you see and you're like, good for you.
12:52You too, black women. What are those private moments that make you cry in the car on your way home
12:59when nobody can see? Right? And so, I want to start with you.
13:06That's hard, because my initial reaction to that question was essentially what you said first.
13:11Something that someone else experienced that made me feel happy or joyful. But if I had to think of a
13:18moment that was very internal to me, I think there's two. One, when I got my graduate degree.
13:25I didn't even go to graduation. I didn't care, because it wasn't about anybody else. It was about me
13:30wanting to go back. I graduated with a 4.2 GPA in grad school, and I don't think anybody knows
13:36that in
13:36grad school, right? No one cares, but I cared, you know? And then the second moment was...
13:42Don't... Okay, now. We gonna... Okay. My second moment, honestly, was when I finally became a
13:48millionaire. That was the second, like, I didn't tell anybody. I was just sitting in the car. I saw,
13:54like, I log in every day, because I'm an accountant, so I log in every day trying to see
13:57what's going on. And there was one day I logged in and was like, oh, I finally made it. Like,
14:03it finally
14:03happened. And being able to share that, I told my mom later, so now my family has something to
14:08look to, and I can tell them I made all these mistakes, but still ended up here. So it's okay
14:13that you make the mistakes. It's okay that you got it wrong some days. Here's how you keep moving
14:18forward. Here's how you bounce back. Remember that time I lost all of this? And here I am today. So
14:24that gives them a blueprint to make the mistake and get back at it again, and know that, like,
14:30we're building a community safety net. So I'm not wealthy. We are wealthy. And to the extent that
14:35we're doing what we're supposed to be doing as a family, I got your back. I got your back. Build
14:39something else. Try again. So those are probably my two, like, moments. You better say it with your
14:46chest, sis. Love it. Dr. White. Yes. So with dynastic wealth, there are these five pillars of wealth,
14:54right? So financial wealth, spiritual wealth. This is your family identity. There's wealth of
15:00knowledge, like family recipes, whose name is on the deed to the house. There's intellectual wealth
15:05and relational wealth. So five forms of wealth, three generations of control. But to answer your
15:11question, there are four directions that wealth can be transferred through this framework. And the most,
15:28gratifying moment for me, my grandmother was 91 years old. So there were four generations of my
15:33family that were working on this. And the day that my grandmother said, I never thought I would still be
15:38learning. That's real. That's real. Yeah. That's real. And so. And from you. Right. So that was probably
15:47the most moving. And I'm gonna keep these tears at bay. It's okay. It's okay. All right. We in the
15:55living room.
15:55But they're right. Right. Right. Right. Right. That was the most gratifying moment when my grandmother said,
16:00basically, she acknowledged that she was learning from me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna let that breathe. Yeah.
16:07Yeah. Because it can be scary to mentor up, even when we see the gap. Right. When we honor our
16:16elders
16:17and the people who did the best they could, it could be scary. And it's nuanced because there's a level
16:22of
16:22respect that still has to be there on both sides. Right. Like the respect has to go up and down
16:28because,
16:28and we're also demonstrating that. So right. Your daughter was able to see that happen. So now when she
16:33has something to teach you, she knows it's a safe space to do that. It's okay. You know, so I
16:39love seeing
16:39that. I say. So now, because we're quickly coming to a close and I cannot let this conversation
16:46end without us saying the quiet parts out loud because the road of being the first can be kind of
16:54nasty
16:54sometimes. Right. Uh, what is his name? Prom time. Dion Sanders says, don't let my confidence offend your
17:04insecurities. But he's talking to folk who feel a way about him being a pioneer. Right. And so for both
17:12of you,
17:14I want you to be honest about some of the things you had to leave behind to navigate this road
17:20of
17:20being the first, the thing could be person, place, thing, mindset, self things. Right. But, uh, what were
17:28some of the things you had to leave behind Dr. White to ascend to this place that you're standing now?
17:34I had to leave behind the identity that people wanted for me. Yeah. Like I grew up
17:42being the shy one. And I carried that with me until my early twenties, until I almost lost an
17:51internship opportunity because I was living in that identity. I had to establish and create my own
18:01identity. I had to construct my identity. So who people wanted me to be is what I had to leave
18:07behind.
18:08And I still find that I experienced that who people think I am is the thing that I have to
18:15separate myself from because you only know this, what you know about me can fit into your pinky finger.
18:21Right. Right.
18:22And, and there's so much more to me that I have to really, and it's really hard to separate myself
18:29from the part, the part of me that you think, you know, and to really stepping into all of who
18:35I am.
18:37Yeah. Yeah. Casey, I would say, and I don't know the best way to put it, but I had to
18:43leave behind
18:43the lack of boundaries. So growing up as a Southern black woman, religious in church,
18:50the identity is also important. So there is a level of servitude that we're taught as women.
18:56Um, I'm the first daughter, so I got younger siblings, my brother, my cousins. So, and I'm
19:01one of the older, so I'm always taught to, you know, bring them with me. And I'm not actually telling
19:06anybody that that's wrong, but there should be boundaries and it should not consume you to the
19:12point that you can't move forward. So what I had to realize is that they need me to continue to
19:17go
19:17to have somewhere to pull them to. If I am so inundated with, with protecting them and helping
19:23them and fueling them that I can't fuel me, then there's nothing for us to aspire to. There's nothing,
19:28there's nowhere for us to go. So I had to leave behind like some boundaries, some of the
19:32manipulation, some of the, the discussions about me. Oh, she thinks she's too good. I don't,
19:37I don't actually, I think that we are the same. I think that you are just as good as me.
19:41That is
19:41your thought that is bringing you there, not mine. So leaving behind that kind of, you know,
19:47boundaryless environment that I think we're raised in to create some healthy boundaries
19:52relationally within family, within friendships, within, you know, coworkers.
19:57Um, cause what Solange say, don't touch my hair. We need some boundaries. Like y'all play too much.
20:03And I don't want to play like that. Like I got something really on my heart to do. Y'all
20:07playing.
20:09I say, well, y'all, that's our time. I know it came very quickly, but please give it up for
20:14these powerful visionary legacy driving women. We thank you so much. Enjoy festival.
20:20Thank you, everybody.
20:24You
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