Our Black Year

by Maggie Anderson

  APPENDIX 6 Calculation of Impact Potential of After-tax Spending in the Black Community

  APPENDIX 7 Black-Owned Retail Businesses, 2002

  Source: Survey of Business Owners, U.S. Census Bureau, 2002 Economic Census.

  APPENDIX 8 Black Spending by Category

  Source: Shares were calculated by the Selig Center for Economic Growth, based on data obtained from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2006.

  Notes

  Introduction

  xii it is in African American neighborhoods? Six hours.... Brooke Stephens, Talking Dollars and Making Sense: A Wealth-Building Guide for African-Americans (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), 18.

  xii in this country goes to Black-owned businesses.... Michael H. Shuman, “Community Entrepreneurship: To Turn Communities Around, Training Programs Must Teach a Double Bottom Line,” National Housing Institute Shelterforce Online, September/October 1999.

  xii only 7.5 percent of Latinos and 5.1 percent of Blacks.... Robert W. Fairlie and Alicia M. Robb, Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black-, Asian-, and White-Owned Businesses in the United States (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).

  xii Black-owned firms? $74,018. . . . Ibid.

  xii which generated 2 percent of the nation’s business revenues.... Shuman, “Community Entrepreneurship.”

  xii groceries, footwear, clothing, and shoes than the overall population . . . Jeffrey M. Humphreys, “The Multicultural Economy 2008,” Terry College of Business/ Selig Center for Economic Growth, University of Georgia, http://www.terry.uga.edu/selig/docs/buying_power_2008.pdf, 7–8.

  xii categories of apparel, video game hardware, and PC software. . . . “African-American /Black Market Profile,” Magazine Publishers of America, 2007, http://www.magazine.org/ASSETS/2457647D5D0A45F7B1735B8ABCFA3C26/market_profile_black.pdf, 11.

  xvii within a year 80 percent of the people diagnosed with the disease.... Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, “Prognosis of Pancreatic Cancer,” http://www.pancreatic.org/site/c.htJYJ8MPIwE/b.891917/k.5123/Prognosis_of_Pancreatic_Cancer.htm.

  Chapter 1

  1 and some of the highest murder rates in the city.... ”Austin,” Great Cities Institute Neighborhoods at the University of Illinois at Chicago, http://www.uicni.org/page.php?section=neighborhoods&subsection=austin, 1.

  2 Bulldozers cleared away most of the charred ruins.... Stevenson Swanson, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Days: 150 Defining Moments in the Life of a Great City (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1997), 210–11.

  6 neighborhoods with high need for grocery stores and supermarkets. ” . . . “Going to Market: New York City’s Neighborhood Grocery Store and Supermarket Shortage,” New York City Department of City Planning, http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/supermarket/index.shtml, 2.

  7 in the American Journal of Public Health told a similar story. . . . Carol R. Horowitz, Kathryn A. Colson, Paul L. Hebert, and Kristie Lancaster, “Barriers to Buying Healthy Foods for People with Diabetes: Evidence of Environmental Disparities,” American Journal of Public Health 94, no. 9 (September 2004): 1549–54, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448492/.

  11 the last couple of decades have exacerbated the problem. . . . William J. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions , 2d ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).

  11 and they are falling further and further behind.” . . . “The Two Nations of Black America,” Frontline, 1997, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/wilson.html.

  16 Basically, their numbers dwindled . . . . Jessie Carney Smith, Millicent Lownes Jackson, and Linda T. Wynn, eds., Encyclopedia of African American Business (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), 353–54.

  16 grocery stores existed in the United States.... Dwetri Addy, Ajamu Baker, Arielle Deane, Stephanie Dorsey, and Susan Edwards, “The Empowerment Experiment: The Findings and Potential Impact on Black-Owned Businesses,” March 19, 2010, appendix 2 of this volume, 253.

  16 provide the stores with satisfactory material for sale.... Cliff Hocker, “A $16 Million Win for the Little Guy: Grocery Store Owner Defeats Major Wholesaler,” Black Enterprise, September 2007, http://www.blackenterprise.com/2007/09/01/a-16-million-win-for-the-little-guy/.

  16 Since 1968, the rest of them have all closed . . . . Addy et al., “The Empowerment Experiment,” 254.

  17 the 148,901 food and beverage stores in the United States.... Ibid.

  17 nearly 10,341 additional Black-owned grocery stores need to be opened .” . . . Ibid., 255.

  Chapter 2

  24 world” and had the highest land values in the city.... Harold M. Mayer and Richard C. Wade, Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 24.

  24 West Side’s population quadrupled, from 57,000 to 214,000, . . . Ibid., 64.

  24 the riots that erupted after King’s assassination.... “East Garfield Park,” Encyclopedia of Chicago, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/404.html; “West Garfield Park,” Encyclopedia of Chicago, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1338.html; “Near West Side,” Encyclopedia of Chicago, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/878.html; and “Austin,” Encyclopedia of Chicago http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/93.html.

  Chapter 3

  39 “outsiders” or at businesses outside the community.... “CITIworks ‘City of Excellence’ Economic Development through Dollar Circulation YOUR CITY & Surrounding Counties,” Hudson Strategic Group, Inc., 2004, http://gsaabo.net/CITIworks-Generic.ppt, 4.

  40 the few hours it now remains in a Black neighborhood . . . . Stephens, Talking Dollars and Making Sense, 18.

  40 outside of their own South Side communities. ” . . . Natalie Moore, “South Siders Spend Billions Each Year Outside of Their Neighborhoods,” WBEZ-FM, September 1, 2009.

  40 all households there was $370 million a year.... Michael Shuman, Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global Age (New York: Free Press, 1998), 106.

  40 is not the absence of money, but its systematic exit. ” . . . Ibid., 107.

  40 Black Enterprise published the article in 1983. . . . Udayan Gupta, “From Other Shores—Recent Wave of Asian, Latin American and Caribbean Immigrants Is Stirring Fears of Displacement in the Black Community,” Black Enterprise 13, no. 8 (March 1983): 51–56.

  42 from $318 billion in 1990 to $845 billion in 2007. . . . “African-American/ Black Market Profile,” Magazine Publishers of America, 2008, http://www.magazine.org/ASSETS/2457647D5D0A45F7B1735B8ABCFA3C26/market_profile_black.pdf, 6.

  42 jumped by nearly 73 percent to $791 million.... Ibid., 18.

  42 at least $75,000 has increased 47 percent since 2005. . . . Todd Wasserman, “Report Shows a Shifting African-American Population,” Brandweek, January 12, 2010, 1.

  42 terms as ‘mammy,’ ‘pickaninny,’ ‘coon,’ and ‘nigger.’” . . . Robert E. Weems Jr., Desegregating the Dollar: African-American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 1.

  43 war-related industries and other manufacturing.... “Great Migration,” Encyclopedia of Chicago, http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/545.html.

  43 services that African American companies produced. . . . Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 10.

  43 to take business away from Black companies.... Ibid., 18.

  43 Blacks’ lingering social and psychological hangups. ” . . . Ibid., 27.

  43 African American pioneers in corporate America. ” . . . Ibid., 3.

  43 “buxom, broad-faced, grinning mammies. ” . . . Ibid., 33.

  43 “darky,” and “Pickaninny” in advertising. . . . Ibid.

  44 $1.5 billion more than the national income of Canada.... Ibid., 34.

  44 Dodgers owner Branch Rickey, Professor Weems writes.... Ibid., 3.

  45 and a degree of glamour for the same dollar. ” . . . Ibid., 74.

 
; 46 in a culture that was angry at its powerlessness. . . . Ibid., 80–90.

  46 African Americans spent about $750 million in 1977. . . . Ibid., 93.

  46 substance, to place similar warnings on their labels.... Ibid., 94–95.

  47 insurance carrier meant one was “moving up. ” . . . Ibid., 95–96.

  47 without the corporations returning the favor.... Robert E. Weems Jr., “African American Consumerism Since the 1960s: Spending Power or Spending Weakness?” paper presented at annual meeting of Association for the Study of African American Life and History, 2010, 8.

  47 was the downright paltry sum of $512,193. . . . Weems, Desegregating the Dollar , 112.

  47 causes in African American and Hispanic communities.... Ibid.

  48 Estée Lauder decided to pay attention to it.... Grayson Mitchell, “Battle of the Rouge,” Black Enterprise (August 1978): 23–29.

  48 in the United States were Black-owned is shocking.... Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 122, 125.

  49 phenomenon have been white businessmen.” . . . Weems, “African American Consumerism Since the 1960s,” 5–6.

  50 the power to produce, as well as to consume.... Weems, Desegregating the Dollar , 131.

  Chapter 4

  66 racism—however nuanced—they experience.... Myra Croasdale, “Racial Fatigue: Minority Doctors Feeling the Pressure,” American Medical News, July 23–30, 2007, http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/07/23/prsa0723.htm; material also obtained from abstract of Marcella Nunez-Smith, Leslie A. Curry, JudyAnn Bigby, David Berg, Harlan M. Krumholz, and Elizabeth H. Bradley, “Impact of Race on the Professional Lives of Physicians of African Descent,” Annals of Internal Medicine 146, no. 1 (January 2, 2007): 45–51, http://www.annals.org/content/146/1/45.abstract.

  66 This drives Black physicians from the profession.... Nunez-Smith et al., “Impact of Race on the Professional Lives of Physicians of African Descent.”

  66 13,000 below the number of Hispanic physicians.... “The Black Physician Workforce,” National Medical Association, October 2009, http://www.nmanet.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=3.

  67 the current ratio is 73 per 100,000 people. . . . V. Rao and G. Flores, “Why Aren’t There More African-American Physicians? A Qualitative Study and Exploratory Inquiry of African-American Students’ Perspective on Careers in Medicine,” Journal of the National Medical Association 99, no. 9 (September 2007): 986–93, http://www.nmanet.org/images/uploads/Journal/OC986.pdf, 986.

  67 only 4.2 percent of medical school faculties. ” . . . “Missing Persons: Minorities in the Health Professions: A Report of the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce” (Durham, NC: Sullivan Commission, September 2004), 2, http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media/pdf/sullivanreport.pdf.

  67 health care, the quality of which is not improving.... “2009 National Healthcare Disparities Report,” US Department of Health and Human Services, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr09/nhdr09.pdf, 3, 4, 6, 7.

  67 eighty-three thousand African Americans every year. . . . David Satcher, “What If We Were Equal,” Health Affairs (March 2005), http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/2/459.full.

  Chapter 5

  71 nonsense to do what building we should want. ” . . . Quintard Taylor, “Maria W. Stewart Advocates Education for African-American Women,” Blackpast.org, http://www.blackpast.org/?q=1832-maria-w-stewart-advocates-education-african-american-women, 1.

  72 Walker, who became Maria’s mentor. . . . Cheryl R. Jorgensen-Earp, “Maria W. Miller Stewart, Lecture Delivered at Franklin Hall,” Voices of Democracy (September 2006), http://umvod.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/jorgensen-earp-stewart.pdf, 15, 18, 19.

  72 whispers of something more diabolical persisted. . . . Ibid., 20.

  72 W. E. B. Du Bois later gave broader exposure.... Ibid., 21, 15.

  72 She died in 1879. . . . Ibid., 34–35.

  72 her 2006 piece for the journal Voices of Democracy. . . . Ibid., 36.

  73 the Free African Society, founded in 1787 in Philadelphia.... Juliet E. K. Walker, The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship (New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA, 1998), 85–86.

  73 that had not been produced from slave labor. ” . . . Juliet E. K. Walker, ed., Encyclopedia of African American Business History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 90.

  73 began in the mid-1820s. . . . Ruth Ketring Nueremberger, “The Free Produce Movement: A Quaker Protest Against Slavery,” PhD diss., 1942, Duke University Press (abstract).

  73 cheerfully recommended to her store. ” . . . Walker, The History of Black Business in America, 149.

  73 kind among the colored people of this city. ” . . . Ibid.

  74 racial pride and keep money in Black communities.... Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 180–81.

  74 and means, are all given to the white man. ” . . . Ibid., 181.

  74 in response to the lack of capital available to them.... Walker, The History of Black Business in America, 151.

  74 conducted by their own race, even at some disadvantage. ” . . . Ibid., 183.

  74 to promote African American–owned businesses.... Ibid., 184.

  74 the world is long in any degree ostracized.” . . . Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 589.

  74 called “the Golden Age of Black Business. ” . . . Walker, The History of Black Business in America, 182.

  75 the most powerful Black organizations in the world.... Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 76.

  75 without inconvenience or inefficiency.” . . . Ibid., 186.

  75 Negro Business Leagues were functioning in thirty states.... Ibid., 590.

  75 “Buy Something From a Negro Merchant!” . . . Weems, Desegregating the Dollar , 17.

  75 promoting National Negro Trade Weeks.... Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 526.

  75 gets vision enough to use its strength. ” . . . Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 57.

  76 People’s Cooperative supermarket at the Tuskegee Institute.... Walker, The History of Black Business in America, 231–32.

  76 hospitals and churches in the late nineteenth century. ” . . . Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 451.

  76 forty hospitals, all supported by African Americans.... Ibid.

  76 only nineteen hundred “Negro-owned” businesses; . . . Ibid., 430.

  76 white-collar jobs, many of which were in Black businesses.... Ibid.

  76 professionals as well as financing and insurance companies.... Ibid., 82.

  76 enterprise,” sociologist E. F. Frazier wrote in 1923. . . . Ibid., 202.

  77 a tradition of industry, reliability, and integrity. ” . . . William Kenneth Boyd, The Story of Durham, City of the New South, 2d ed. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1927), 278–79.

  77 there were only two airports in the entire state.... Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 81–82.

  77 A gunshot was fired, and a race riot ignited. . . . 2001 report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, http://www.okhistory.org/trrc/file1.pdf, iv–v.

  77 an Oklahoma state commission’s 2001 report on the riot.... Ibid.

  77 Thousands of occupations were lost. ” . . . Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 204.

  78 aggregate retail sales drop was only 13 percent.... Walker, The History of Black Business in America, 225–26.

  78 leading them to patronize local, Black-owned businesses.... Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 62.

  78 that led to the demise of the family’s business.... Ibid., 63.

  78 There is GREAT POWER in 15 BILLION DOLLARS!” . . . Ibid., 54 (emphasis original).

  79 movie theaters, workplaces, hotels, and other public services.... Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 262.

  79 businesses that sold primarily to the Black commun
ity.... “Operation Breadbasket,” Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Encyclopedia, http://www.kinginstitute.info/.

  79 “negotiate a more equitable employment practice. ” . . . Ibid.

  79 $25 million a year going to Black neighborhoods.... Ibid.

  79 two thousand jobs, worth about $15 million.... Ibid.

  79 sustained black consumer economic retribution. ” . . . Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 69.

  80 in the Encyclopedia of African American Business History.... Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 75.

  80 enough to lift African Americans up economically. . . . Ibid., 77.

  80 nearly 13 percent of Americans who were Black.... Ibid.

  80 which has sometimes contradicted earlier rulings. . . . “The Adarand Case: Affirmative Action and Equal Protection,” Constitutional Rights Foundation, http://www.crf-usa.org/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=221&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=49, 1–2.

  81 traditionally the hardest hit in economic declines.... Walker, Encyclopedia of African American Business History, 150.

  81 who studies racial inequality and public policy.... Ibid., 481.

  81 in communities with large minority populations.” . . . Ibid., 480–81 (emphasis added).

  81 communities, both of which can be very unstable.... Ibid., 150.

  82 white corporate America and demand employment. ” . . . Walker, The History of Black Business in America, 273.

  82 by gaining jobs and using their consumer muscle. . . . Dr. Juliet Walker, interview with author, January 23, 2011.

  82 specific goals to achieve black economic parity. ” . . . Dr. Juliet Walker, interview with author, January 24, 2011.

  83 “black capitalism” of the 1960s and ’70s, . . . Walker, The History of Black Business in America, 271.

  83 positive outcomes for the Virtual Black Community. ” . . . iZania, http://www.izania.com/info/about/about-izania/.