A licensed broker since 1949, Travis also is president of a real estate company, but it's the self-made millionaire's own Travis Realty Co. at 840 E. 87th St. in the Chatham neighborhood, a 30,000-sf building he developed.

"I would that it'd be different," Travis says. He concedes there may be one or two more who may have entered the executive suites while he wasn't looking, but the numbers suggest otherwise. "There's a dearth of minority brokers, period."

Travis, whose seven published books includes "Racism: American Style A Corporate Gift," and "I Refuse to Learn to Fail," laments that not much has changed since W.E.B. DuBois wrote about racial lines in 1900. "Personally, I don't have any complaints. But I'm concerned about my brothers," says Travis, who has blazed trails few have followed.