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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) -“The reason why I do what I do is because the first real estate we own is in our minds,” says Malik Yoba. “This space between your ears is the first place that you own, that you can invest in.”

While the lines are powerful, they’re not from a movie script. The veteran actor known for films and TV shows from Cool Runnings and New York Undercover is trying to draw young people of color into the real estate industry.

While people were watching his acting career, Yoba was investing in real estate in his 20′s and learning from those he says gave him a seat at the table.

“So the more I learned, the more I felt I had to share,” says Yoba.

That sharing is what brought him to Birmingham this weekend at part of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers Region IV Regional Conference at the Hilton Hotel in Birmingham’s Southside.

As part of the conference, Yoba will host a free screening of his documentary series The Real Estate Mixtape on June 10 at 6:00 p.m. at Miles College. The series explains how Yoba got involved in real estate and while also trying to guide a group of young people to do the same. Helping to draw young people of color into the industry so that they can change their communities is one of the things that drives Yoba.

“We’re grossly underrepresented, certainly at the C-suite level when it comes to commercial real estate across the board, whether you’re talking developers where you’re talking finance, where you’re talking architects, we’re talking engineers across the board.”