BIRMINGHAM, Alabama-Being able to manage money wisely is the key to creating sustainable black businesses and reducing the black unemployment rate, author and entrepreneur Mark A. Peterson says.

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Peterson will share tips on capital management from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17 as the two-day 2015 A.G. Gaston Conference kicks off at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex. The Selma native and business consultant is author of "Guerrillapreneur: Small Business Strategies for Davids Wanting to Defeat Goliaths."

Peterson says blacks, especially women, are 50 percent more likely to launch a business than whites, yet the black jobless rate is still twice the national average. Black entrepreneurs are not having the same economic impact in their communities as their white counterparts, in large part because of poor capital management skills, he said.