Annie Shaw-Barnes

I am an award-winning teacher in the state of Virginia who has garnered such accolades as the distinguished Palmer-Scales High School Teaching Excellence Award, one of the Best 13 Teachers in the State of Virginia 1988 Award, and the National Association Case Award for College Teaching Excellence. I was the first African-American member of the prestigious Lychnos Honor Society for Women at the University of Virginia, the university’s first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. at the university, and the second African American to earn a Ph.D. at the University of Virginia.

The Beginning of my Speaking and Coaching Company

Dr. Edgar F. Shannon, my University of Virginia doctoral president, told my class to go out and make worthwhile contributions to society and the world. I took his advice. After earning my Ph.D. in 1971, my husband, Bennie Mamaduke Barnes, and I established Barnes & Barnes Speaking and Coaching Company. Our company's mission is two-fold: first, to give speeches that will motivate and inspire individuals to be the best they can be, thereby empowering them to solve problems in their family, workplace, and church life; and second, to provide coaching services that will help people overcome the obstacles they face in their daily lives.

How this Company Was Built

I have built this speaking and coaching business on the personal and professional knowledge I have gleaned from a variety of sources. It is information that I have gathered from my work with students at Norfolk State University, Virginia, abused black women, and from black wed and unwed families of every socioeconomic status. Also, building this company and continuing to keep it updated required me to conduct, alone, or with my university students, research among young adult gang members, from many perspectives, to learn their entire gang life and how to end it. Similarly, I conducted research, on many family and personal topics, among high school and college students of a variety of races and backgrounds, to understand young adulthood, from 15 to 25 years of age, and upwards of 25 churches that cater to a diverse array of congregants. In addition, my company reached out and I conducted research and learned military sentencing law, how it is applied, and how to help enlisted black men avoid military sentencing and imprisonment. There was more to building this speaking and coaching company. I took a long-running Coaching course and completed a Blogging course to further enable my company. I constantly continue this research and technology in order to keep my business relevant in our rapidly changing high-tech society. Foremost, this business was built and is maintained on the dependency on God and His miracles in my life. It follows that I joyfully invest a lot of time in speech writing and coach preparation.

In the coaching segment of my company, I focus on a number of issues that pertain to the family, including interpersonal relationships, love, and romance. When I am coaching, I concentrate on teaching married, unmarried, and people from age five to 100 how to foster a stronger relationship with God and the Church and a stronger relationship with all other people, which is assurance of overcoming adverse circumstances and problems.

Company Milestones

My company has had the good fortune of reaching a number of milestones over the years. I have spoken to international audiences, such as the Moral Rearmament Conference in Caux, Switzerland and American audiences, including middle class married and unmarried women who wanted to know how to get a good man or how to rekindle their husbands’ love for them and unwed mothers about how to live the best life they can. I have given speeches to corporations such as Southwest Bell, different church denominations in black and white churches, varied churches in each denomination, lay groups, and predominantly white and Historically Black Colleges and universities. I have appeared as a friendly and popular guest about racism on more than 200 radio shows from Montreal to Florida and from the East Coast to Hawaii, with recalls from anchors of the radio shows, and helped some white people understand how racism impacts blacks and what to do about their racism that seemingly occurs automatically. But it does not, for it is developed and learned through a process. In addition, I have appeared on two national television shows, one of which aired for an entire year. Similarly, I appeared on a local show speaking about the Osudoku Tribal Society and the television station played the televised show a year and the local region used my picture in a collage that advertised our resort region a year. I am considered a radio and television expert on African-American affairs in my local region. In 1995, I was also invited to become a member of the International Speakers Platform, a privilege, which gives me the opportunity to speak at podiums, where some of the best speakers speak.

While running my company, I developed relationships with a number of professional organizations. I sat on the Board of Directors of the American Anthropology Association (AAA), served as organizer of the General Anthropology Division in AAA, and served as the first African-American female president of the then-57-year-old Virginia Social Science Association. Besides, I was fortunate enough to read scholarly papers or chair and read scholarly papers in sessions and symposia at the annual meetings of the American Anthropology Association, Association of Black Anthropologists, Southern Anthropology Society, and the Virginia Social Science Association.

Among the other milestones my business has achieved are invitations to serve as a consultant for the Rockefeller Foundation about unwed mothers, the Ford Foundation about education, and the Big Ten Universities in Chicago, Illinois on the topic of what Historically Black College Teachers need to learn to conduct research and an invitation to critique a project for a journal at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Another milestone that Barnes & Barnes Company accomplished was for me to give over 200 speeches at eleven o'clock church services targeted to women. My goal was always to help us Christian women grow in our Christian life. But there was more. One Sunday morning, after I concluded my speech in an Atlanta, Georgia church, a worshipper told me she had been too sick to come to church, but she came anyway and was healed while I was speaking. Now, for sure, I do not guarantee anyone will get healed while I am giving a speech. Now, if worshippers are in need and I speak what they need to hear and they are fully persuaded in their heart of God's all-powerful Word that I speak and His willingness to heal them, God will heal them. Not me. God is the Only Healer.

Foremost, my former students are the most important milestones/ products that I have helped make with this company. For eleven years, my Huntington High School (Newport News, Virginia) colleagues and I taught to prepare our students to succeed in law school, business schools for corporate life, medical schools, colleges, and get hired on good jobs. They did not let us down. Hence, I am proud of helping make hundreds, if not thousands of great products, achieving students who are succeeding a lifetime.

My students at Norfolk State University, Virginia, are other products I am highly pleased about. They sat in my crowded classroom, quiet enough to hear a pin fall, listened carefully, studied efficiently and persistently, and cherished expanded, interesting, and beneficial lectures. They often shared my course syllabus with their friends who sat in our classroom, if we had a vacant seat. In addition, there were students I never knew who sat outside my classroom door on the floor in the hall and listened to my lectures they had chosen from my course syllabus. Importantly, my students' enthusiasm about class periods and learning to conduct research also helped me grow. In my Research Seminar, we conducted research in much of America and they used it to write well-documented term papers with MLA or Chicago Manual Style biographies and I added abstracts. When they finished a research course, they could write a good abstract because good organization in the paper produced a well-organized and written abstract to their term papers. Once they had learned the research and term paper writing skills from our research, they gave me permission to use the research in my company and they taught hundreds of other students how to use abstracts and indexes in the library and organize, document, and write bibliographies to their term papers. Also, I taught my students to use the organization of their term papers while writing essay answers on tests in any class and the result was astounding. Some of my fellow colleagues asked where they had learned essay writing. I was pleased to teach them how to transfer knowledge from my research course to any course essay on a test. There was hopefully a by-product they could use a life time. Specifically, I also wanted them to learn to transfer any knowledge to appropriate contexts. Yes, I wanted good products, stellar students. Several students in my Research Skills Seminar to obtain jobs outside the university. For example, one of my students wanted a gopher's job in a well-established lawyer's office downtown, but was required to compete with students from other universities. Inasmuch as he knew how to use Library Indexes and Abstracts, the lawyer hired him and he was a happy fellow. I aimed in all my anthropology courses to produce good products. When they succeeded, without doubt, I was happy too.

Moreover, this product, my dedicated students, made my Family Class vibrant by their good questions and test warfare. They competed with each other fiercely to earn the highest grade, down to the numerical number, on my tests and asked me to always identify the highest scorers and grade counts. It was a test-taking war. After a while, white students enrolled at my university and there was boosted test-taking warfare and I loved it all. My black students and my white students competed to earn the highest test score. Sometimes a member of one group won, at another time, a member of the other group won, and there were times when both my black students and white students ended up even. The A students smiled, checked their papers for red marks, of any kind, and other students who made B were happy and there were few Cs. After I had returned the papers and announced the winners, the class clapped. As soon as the brief celebratory moments ended, I gave the lecture for the hour to the wonderful students I will never forget. Teaching the family, a research course, urban anthropology, and other anthropology courses was enjoyable. In the midst of it all, one of my "A" white students volunteered, gratis, for me to mentor her in research the entire summer. She said she wanted to learn how to conduct research and learn from me in an informal research setting. What an unforgettable relationship. I have good memories of that wonderful young college woman.

My students were always gratifying to me. One young college man made a C in my course and took two others and earned an A in the last one. In many other courses, David Stephenson placed his desk beside my desk and enrolled in all the courses I taught in anthropology. As you can imagine, with David sitting beside my desk, he could see and hear every thing I did or said. After many class sessions, he told me I had inspired him to pursue a higher degree in anthropology and I encouraged him. With surety, he earned a Ph.D. in physical anthropology at Ohio State University in Columbus. While attending one annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association, we saw each other. Yes, I am proud of my former student products who are also my colleagues or experience success in the work world. I love them all.

I have shared some of the major products of my Barnes & Barnes Company.

If you would like to book me for a speaking engagement or group/private coaching session I welcome you to contact me by phone or by email:

Annie Shaw-Barnes, Ph.D.

Phone: (757) 461-8741

Email: anniesbarnes@aol.com

Email is welcome 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but Barnes & Barnes Speaking and Coaching Company's hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern Standard time. We are closed on Sundays and holidays.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Copyright 2017 Annie Shaw-Barnes Website