Your Net Worth Is Your Network. I Just Expanded Mine.

The Woman Who Marched When Dr. King Spoke

On August 28, 1963, a woman from Far Rockaway, Queens stood in the crowd on the National Mall and heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver the dream. Then she went home and built it.

Her name was Lena Cook.

She bought a house and used it to sell consumer goods and rent out rooms, an entrepreneur before anyone in her community was calling it that. She founded the Lucille Rose Day Care Center in Arverne, New York in the mid-1970s, named in honor of the first Black female deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Education, serving families across fifteen neighborhoods. She led the NAACP Far Rockaway Branch as its president. She organized voter registration drives, led equality marches, and introduced people to the NAACP one conversation at a time. She was not watching history from a distance. She was making it at the local level, which is where it actually changes lives.

She also raised her granddaughter after her son William, who had served his country in the Army, died when that little girl was still young.

That little girl grew up to become Reverend Leona Madison, M.Div., my mother, a graduate of Howard University School of Divinity and founder of Lena Legacy Ministries. Every February, during Black History Month, Reverend Madison hosts a program in her grandmother's honor. This year's was the biggest and most impactful yet.

Lena lived into her nineties. I knew her. I watched her and my mother work. And I had no idea, until recently, that I had been carrying their work forward without knowing it.

God has a way of remaining anonymous.

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The Church Was My First Classroom

My first community organized event was a back-to-school drive. No money. No platform. No experience. Just my voice, my time, and a deep belief that education and community were the foundation of everything.

What made it possible was trust. The trust of my pastor and my congregation, trust that came in part from being the daughter of Reverend Leona Madison. That is one of the gifts of being a preacher's kid that nobody talks about enough. The church, for so many of us, is the first place we learn leadership. The first place we experience mentorship. The first place we discover our voice and begin to understand who we are here to serve. I did not earn that trust alone. I inherited it, and then I worked to be worthy of it. I ran that back-to-school drive for two years. Then I left.

Leaving was one of the hardest decisions I had ever made. I had built momentum. Families trusted me with their children. The congregation believed in me. And I walked away to pursue graduate studies because I believed, deeply, even when it hurt, that I would be more resourceful and better positioned to serve if I kept building myself first. That the sacrifice was worth it. That I would come back with more to give.

That was nearly twenty years ago.

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Memphis, Mommy, and the Road to Georgetown

I earned my BSN at the University of Memphis. Memphis showed me the power of community in a way I had never seen before. It showed me my own ability to make a positive impact on the masses. I planned to begin my nursing career there. I thought Memphis might be the place I stayed. Then my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I came home. Because Leona, the woman raised by Lena after losing her father too young, the woman who went to Howard and earned her divinity degree and founded a ministry, needed me. And there was never really a choice to make.

Coming home brought me to Georgetown. And at Georgetown, I found Alisha and Geraldine, who would later become my co-hosts on The Melanin Initiative, a health literacy podcast built on the same conviction that has driven every phase of my work: that education is the foundation of everything, and that our communities deserve access to it.

Before graduate school there were years of babysitting, nursing home work, and customer service, jobs that taught me how to earn, how to save, and how to sell. Then government work, research, and tutoring adult learners. Then Kids Career Crash Course, a professional mentorship program for K through college students introducing them to jobs of the future. A platform where, coincidentally, I ended up interviewing a lot of entrepreneurs, including one named Mario Kelly, the millionaire who built a company with $27, whom I learned about on a financial literacy podcast (the blueprint for The Melanin Initiative) called Earn Your Leisure. The podcast is the evolution of KCCC³. I wanted to be a teacher. I changed my major. I got different degrees. I focused on something entirely different. And teaching kept finding me anyway, in every role, every city, every season.

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What Dr. King Knew That We Keep Forgetting

On April 3rd, 1968, the night before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood in Memphis and said something that rarely makes it into the highlight reels.

He told the crowd to take their money out of downtown banks and deposit it into Tri-State Bank. To buy from Black insurance companies. He reminded them that collectively, Black Americans had more annual income than the national budget of Canada. He said we do not have to argue with anybody. We just need to go around to these stores and these massive industries and say, you are not treating God's children right.

He was not only fighting for the right to march. He was building a business plan for economic self-determination. And he gave his life in the middle of it.

Fifty-seven years later, John Hope Bryant stood in the National Civil Rights Museum, built on the same ground where Dr. King was assassinated, and said that financial literacy is the civil rights issue of this generation. That a 700 credit score is as important as a four-year education in the world we are living in now. That if we do nothing, Black America will have a net worth of zero by 2030. That artificial intelligence, investment, home ownership, and buying profitable businesses from retiring owners represent trillions of dollars in wealth that we can build, mostly without waiting for anyone's permission.

Dr. Bernice King called racial justice and economic justice the inseparable twins. Her father knew that freedom without financial infrastructure is just a different kind of cage.

Lena Cook knew it too. She stood in that crowd in Washington in 1963. Then she came home to Far Rockaway and built economic infrastructure in her own neighborhood, a house turned into a business, a day care center, a community organization, because she understood that the dream required more than the march.

I earned my BSN in the city where Dr. King gave his last speech. I did not know then what I know now about what he was really saying. I know now.

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What I Saw and Could Not Unsee

I entered this work because I saw a pattern I could not ignore. Cosmetic nurse practitioners getting sold an escape from burnout, only to create a new job for themselves. Paying to play. Going bankrupt or burning out in the first two to three years and abandoning the industry entirely. The advice never changed: take a Botox course, start your own business. But no one told them what it actually takes to build and exit a business. No one built the infrastructure around them to keep them in business.

Nursing school ignores skin of color. Dermatology training does not include entrepreneurship. Cosmetic training does not care about your nursing experience. We built The Alliance of Cosmetic Nurse Practitioners™ to address all three.

What if instead of scattered scrimmage games, everyone was in one stadium, like the Olympics? Like the march on Washington? What if I was the lady who built the stadium? That question became The Alliance which launched in July 2024. And at the center of everything we do is a conviction I have held long before I had language for it.

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Nurses are investors, and we are investable.

Financial literacy is not a workshop topic inside The Alliance. It is the foundation. The 9 Pillars of Advanced Practice Nursing, patient care, personal well-being, professional development, financial literacy, research, policy, media, technology, and business, exist together because none of them work in isolation. You cannot sustain excellent patient care from a position of financial devastation. You cannot build generational wealth while running a practice that only works because you show up. You cannot serve your community at the level you were called to serve if your doors are closed.

When our doors stay open, our patients get the care they need. And we get to live the life we worked so hard for. This is true whether we own those doors or work for the person who owns those doors.

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I Am Making Black History. Right Now.

This is not a statement I make lightly. It is a documented fact.

I am the first Black woman to found a professional dermatology nursing program. And The Alliance of Cosmetic Nurse Practitioners™ is the only one founded on the 9 Pillars of Advanced Practice Nursing, including financial literacy, which Dr. King called the foundation of the dream, which John Hope Bryant (author of Financial Literacy for All) calls the civil rights issue of this generation, and which Lena Cook practiced in Far Rockaway before it had a name.

John Hope Bryant is the founder and CEO of Operation HOPE, the largest not-for-profit financial literacy organization in the United States, and the architect of the Dream Forward initiative, a comprehensive business plan for America that includes dedicated frameworks for Black America, Latino America, women, Native Americans, rural America, and more. All of them free. All of them open source. All of them rooted in the same conviction Dr. King carried to Memphis: that economic justice is not separate from civil rights, it is the foundation of it. If you have not downloaded his business plans, do it today.

My great-grandmother marched in Washington when Dr. King spoke. I am building what he was pointing toward. And on February 20th, 2026, six months to the day from my birthday on August 20th, I made an investment that will change the trajectory of my life. August 20th marks the day I arrived. February 20th marks the day I expanded what my arrival will mean for everyone coming after me. I did not plan that symmetry. But I am not surprised by it.

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Your Net Worth Is Your Network. I Just Expanded Mine.

Before my first LLC in 2022, I was already investing in coaches, communities, and the infrastructure of what I was building. That practice has never stopped. Community has always been my strategy, not as a marketing tactic, but as a conviction rooted in something much older than me.

Lena Cook built it in Far Rockaway. Reverend Leona Madison carries it forward through Lena Legacy Ministries. And I have been living it, in every city, every role, every season, because this is what was poured into me before I ever had a business card.

On February 20th, 2026, I joined EYL University, an investment community, a financial education and wealth-building platform built for high-earning professionals who are serious about turning income into lasting wealth. Not as a side interest. As a continuation of the same practice I have always kept. What I learn there belongs to the people I serve. It will deepen the financial literacy curriculum inside The Alliance and directly shape the quarterly ebooks on financial literacy for cosmetic nurse practitioners. I am not just teaching financial literacy. I am practicing it. Because the only standard I hold myself to is teaching what I am actively living.

Your net worth is your network. I just expanded mine.

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To My Community

Some of you have been with me for decades. You were there before The Alliance had a name. You watched the back-to-school drives, the move to Memphis, the pivot home when my mom went through treatment, the growth at Georgetown, graduate school years at Tufts and George Washington University, the mentorship programs, the podcast, the research, the workshops, and the seasons when none of this had a clear shape yet. You watched me leave momentum more than once because I believed the long game was worth it. You stayed anyway.

Others have been here just a few years. You found The Alliance, or a workshop, or a single piece of content that made you feel seen for the first time in a space that was supposed to be for you but never quite was. You arrived exactly when you were supposed to. All of you are part of this ministry. Because that is what this has always been.

Lena marched in Washington and came home and built. Leona lost her father young, was raised by a woman who refused to let grief become a limitation, raised two children as a military wife, continued to dream, went to Howard, earned her divinity degree, became a Chaplain, and now carries that legacy forward through a Black History Month program that keeps growing in power and impact. And I, their daughter and great-granddaughter, their legacy, their continuation, have been building something I did not fully understand until recently.

On February 20th, 2026, I made an investment that will change the trajectory of my life. And by extension, the lives of my friends, my family, and my community.

I count you in that number.

This is not a coincidence. This is a calling that was placed on this family long before I arrived. I am simply the next one to carry it. We all work too hard not to enjoy the fruits of our labor. History has always shown that the community is our greatest advantage. I am building mine, so I can strengthen yours. I'm glad you're here.

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Looking for a place to start? Download the Q1 Financial Literacy Ebook in the Mahogany Dermatology Nursing Bookstore. It is immediate and it will give you the foundation to start closing the gap between what you earn and what you keep.

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About the Author

Dr. Kimberly Madison, DNP, AGPCNP-BC, WCC, is a Board-Certified, Doctorally-prepared Nurse Practitioner, educator, and author dedicated to advancing dermatology nursing education and research with an emphasis on skin of color. As the founder of Mahogany Dermatology Nursing | Education | Research™ and the Alliance of Cosmetic Nurse Practitioners™, she expands access to dermatology research, business acumen, and innovation while also leading professional groups and mentoring clinicians. Through her engaging and informative social media content and peer-reviewed research, Dr. Madison empowers nurses and healthcare professionals to excel in dermatology and improve patient care

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