Six hundred thousand Black women have been laid off, fired or pushed out of the workforce since early 2025, and the number is still climbing. DEI initiatives that took decades to build have been gutted through executive orders. In the midst of it all, three veteran executives decided it was the right moment to update a leadership book written specifically for Black women, one beloved enough to earn a second edition.
Elaine Meryl Brown, a Daytime Emmy Award-winning writer and executive producer, and Rhonda Joy McLean, president and CEO of RJMLEADS LLC, aren’t newcomers to this fight. The co-authors of the newly republished “The Next Little Black Book of Success,” part of a leadership series they built alongside the late Marsha Haygood, who passed away earlier this year, have spent decades navigating spaces that were never built for them, and buried the people they loved most while still showing up to lead.
The book, originally published in 2010 and selling more than 60,000 copies, has been updated for this specific moment: mass layoffs, AI reshaping entire industries and a political climate openly hostile to Black women in professional spaces.