African-American professionals have rediscovered the neighborhood.

After the end of segregation, African-American professionals began to patronize other neighborhoods, and members of the African American middle class moved out of the Fifth Ward.

HBCUs graduate over 50% of African-American professionals, 50% of African-American public school teachers, and 70% of African-American dentists.

In reality, the city was planning on making a recruiting drive to bring African-American professionals to the city.

But now, Black Diamonds is just one of several promotional groups that concentrate on African-American professionals.

He said some barriers had been removed for African-American professionals in recent years because some newer networking tools, like Internet chat rooms and e-mail, are essentially colorblind.

This sort of thing happens to African-American professionals often.

Initially, BlackPlanet was designed as a way for African-American professionals to network.

"African-American professionals, who have a higher presence proportionately in areas such as personnel, advertising and human relations, should consider profit-center areas, such as marketing and sales," he said.

It was in 1987 that, twelve African-American professionals decided to find a way to accommodate a growing need to network and socialize in quiet sophisticated, upscale surroundings.