On April 16,  2015 Lou Fields, president of the Baltimore-based African American Tourism Council announced that the City of St. Louis has been selected as the host city for the National Black Business Summit (NBBS) occurring on August 6-9, 2015. The host hotel is the St. Louis Hilton at the Ballpark. The NBBS is open to everyone including non-business owners.

The Summit will bring national and local business leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals and educators together over the four-days to address the State of Black Business in certain industries including tourism, MBE/WBE procurement, technology, marketing, business networking and other vital industry sectors.

Mr. Fields stated "The primary goal of the Summit is to provide an opportunity for business persons from the west & east coast to meet-up with St. Louis area business owners and to hear from national business leaders. Additionally, it is important that the NBBS support local St. Louis area businesses including museums, theaters and local artists". 

Interested sponsors, program book advertisers, donors, speakers, exhibitors, vendors, photographers, media outlets, transportation & service providers, restaurants, retail shops, public relations representatives and volunteers are encouraged to promptly contact Mr. Fields at email address: loucfields@gmail.com or at mobile # (443) 983-7974.

Online registration will be available on May 4, 2015.

Lou Fields and the late Steven R. Pace founded the African American Tourism Council in 1996. Fields is also the founder and first president of the Greater Baltimore Black Chamber of Commerce. Fields is the author of three books including his latest book titled Maryland Black Facts: 1634-2014. Fields is active member of the NAACP and Visit Baltimore. Yearly, he hosts the Langston Hughes Book Fair, the State of Maryland Harriet Ross Tubman Day of Remembrance and the Baltimore Town Hall Meeting.

On Monday evenings (8pm-9pm EST) Fields hosts the BDX live online talk Listen in/call in # 1-888-547-2899.