From Obama’s National Finance Committee To Becoming The First Black Woman To Own a Marijuana Dispensary in Colorado

by | Apr 25, 2016 | Culture | 0 comments

Wanda James s wired to succeed so her hand in the Marijuana business is welcomed. This woman excels at whatever she does and over the years she has been a corporate executive, a serial entrepreneur with many businesses, a commissioned military officer, a restauranteur, and a member of President Obama’s national finance committee! Wow!

And now she is the first and only black woman in Colorado to own a Marijuana dispensary!She opened Simply Pure dispensary in Denver, Colorado and is working hard to change the attitude towards recreational marijuana and fight against the injustice black men and women have undergone for simply enjoying this pleasure.

She really is an interesting woman! Here is a bit of what Wanda has to say:

“I think I’ve been very fortunate to do a variety of different things in my life. An amazing father gives you roots and wings to try different things. Some of the things I’m most proud of: I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. The second, and one of the things I’m probably most proud of in my life, is that I was a commissioned military officer in the navy. We are a huge military family. My grandfather, uncles and father have all served, so to be one of the few women in our family and to actually be commissioned an officer was a really big deal. Leaving the military I was extremely happy to become a corporate executive in two Fortune 100 companies. (laughs) I thought at the ripe old age of 27 that I would be a CEO of a major corporation one day. That was my goal. Well, that changed when I met my husband. My husband is a serial entrepreneur. We dated for about a year and a half and had the opportunity to purchase our first restaurant. That was a really big thing for us as well, so we opened up the Jamaican café in Santa Monica in 1995 or 1994. It just had a wine and beer license since we didn’t even have the good sense to know we were supposed to have a full liquor license.

I was on President Obama’s national finance committee. I was very proud of that. Getting the first Black president elected was a big thing. But I’ve gotta tell you, the thing that I am the most proud of in my life is what I’m doing now. Of all of the accomplishments and things that people think you should be proud of – which I am – this is the accumulation of everything I’ve ever done. It combines my marketing background; it combines my military background from the fact that I had to fight every day to keep this business open (laughs). It’s amazing, the social justice aspect of having my eyes open to what’s happening to black and brown people when it comes to this plant; to be able to make a difference. And if it takes a Black woman from Colorado to get everybody’s attention to start talking about locking up our children over a joint to continue with the slave labor in this country, well yeah, this is the thing that I am the most proud of so far.”

Read the full interview here: http://officialblackwallstreet.com/wanda-james/

WandaJamesFirstMarijuana

Wanda and Obama image sourced from http://freedomleaf.com/women-of-cannabis-wanda-james-of-denver/.

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