Our Black Year

by Maggie Anderson

  “There. See? Perfect. Okay. All set everyone?”

  “No mommy,” Cara said. I could see she was in pain. “They hurt.”

  I glanced at the clock. We were going to be late. I could envision my mother-in-law’s critical expression.

  “Jeeesus, Cara,” I said. “Toughen up. They’re a little tight. So what? You can still wear them.”

  “But mommy . . . ” She was moving straight to whining, so I cut her off.

  “You’re going to wear them. Do you understand me? You are going to wear those shoes.”

  “Mommy . . . no . . . ” She was starting to cry now.

  “Please, Cara!” I shouted. Shrill Mommy, the beast, was emerging. “Just keep them on. You can take them off in the car and inside church. No one will see. Wear those shoes, girl. Do you hear me?”

  John had heard enough.

  “Maggie,” he said, his voice a little loud—and John’s voice is almost never loud. “Calm down. She’s not wearing those shoes. Period. We’ll have to figure out something else. Come on now. It’s not the end of the world. Put some other shoes on her or let’s find another dress. Let’s just get this taken care of and move on.”

  Cara started wailing.

  “No. Noooo . . . I want to wear this dress.”

  And, just like that, I was ready to bail. I thought, I’m not prepared to endure this scene again and again for the next eight months. I’m not ready to force a three-year-old girl and her two-year-old sister to “toughen up.” Ridiculous.

  “John,” I half-whispered. “Let’s cheat. We can stop at Kmart on the way and get her some shoes. Nobody has to know.”

  “No way.”

  John Anderson is many things—a detail guy; a man of composure; a deeply protective, loving father; a financial wizard entrusted with millions of dollars of people’s life savings; a mentor; a weekend basketball warrior. He had thought long and hard about the commitment we’d made nearly five months earlier. I knew, in the distinct tone of that two-word response, the discussion between husband and wife was over.

  I found a sundress that was too big for Cara last year but now fit perfectly. She looked adorable in it, but more like she was going to a neighbor’s pizza party than a christening. I thought about her cousin Ashley, who I was certain would be wearing a long dress, accentuated by a shawl, purse, stockings, and closed-toe, shiny shoes, and Cori, who was wearing a Cara hand-me-down ensemble consisting of a white seersucker strapless dress with embroidered fuchsia-colored flowers and a white shawl, white pantyhose, and dark pink shoes. Lovely.

  Cara was going to wear an informal dress with spaghetti-straps and open-toed sandals. No sweater. It was barely acceptable attire.

  When my in-laws arrived at the house and saw Cara, they couldn’t hide their confusion.

  “Is that what she’s wearing?” my mother-in-law, Debbie, said. “It’s cold outside.”

  “Really?” I said lightly, ignoring the obvious, trying to rush us all out the door. “I thought it was warm out.”

  “No, no,” Debbie said, and she stopped me. “It’s one of those Chicago May days, you know. Looks like June. Feels like February. Let’s hurry and put something else on her, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, my voice flat, defeated. I took Cara into our bedroom as if I was about to change her outfit. John was there and knew what was coming.

  “No,” he said again. I sensed he was a little torn up inside too. “We’re not going to cheat over this. She looks fine.”

  “John, she looks ridiculous.” My voice was a mixture of pleading and anger. “You know how your family is. They’re all going to be dressed up and Cara looks like she’s going to Chuck E. Cheese’s. Everybody in church is going to stare.”

  Cara was whimpering on the bed, trying to figure out which one of us was on her side so she could beat down the other with her calf eyes. We both stared at her. John waited a few moments. Then he turned to me and I could see the pain and resolve in his face.

  “You really want to throw this away, Mags?” he said. “After everything we’ve talked about for all these years? After all the planning? After saying that folks aren’t taking a stand? You’re just going to toss all of it out the window over a few hours of discomfort?”

  “It’s not tossing it all out the window,” I said. “It’s just this once.” But I knew as soon as I said the words that I couldn’t justify cheating “just this once.”

  John gave me the smallest of smiles and his eyes softened. He put his hands on my shoulders. His voice was low, comforting. “We’re going to do this, baby.”

  Look, we all know that having a little girl wear a sundress and open-toed sandals to a formal occasion isn’t a scarred-for-life, “Mommy Dearest” episode. But at the time, it mattered, if for no other reason than I was the one imposing this pain on my three-year-old daughter for a reason that she couldn’t understand and that plenty of rational adults thought was futile and foolish. I looked like some sort of whacked-out activist trying to make a senseless point.

  Cara whimpered throughout the service. I buried my head in the Bible, dug my nails into my skin, and prayed the day would end. I kept wondering whether I had forsaken my sweet babies for a purpose to which they had no connection and from which they would never benefit.

  Still, I learned something that day: My commitment to our experiment was not only as strong as the one to my family—they were one and the same. The Empowerment Experiment comes from the love I have for my girls, a love anchored in the desire to cultivate their understanding that helping others—even if it hurts sometimes—is a core value of our family.

  Sure, my girls—especially Cara—would have to feel the burn before I could fully explain fire. During our Black year we all would get hurt as we grappled with the issues we had tried to evade or examine from a distance. But someday, I kept telling myself, maybe my daughters will understand that taking a stand often creates collateral damage.

  Chapter 7

  The Colors of Racism

  SLOGGING.

  That’s what the middle of the year felt like, even though we were getting attention from some of the largest Black and mainstream media outlets. We appeared on CNN (twice), MSNBC, and Fox News, and we were featured in comprehensive segments for Time magazine and BET News. Tom Joyner and Roland Martin, the two most venerated Black media personalities, interviewed us. We’d been on the front page of the Chicago Tribune and received coverage in the Los Angeles Times. People often told us that we’d brought more media attention to the plight of Black businesses than any previous effort. Our Facebook group, “Fans of The Empowerment Experiment,” earned over three thousand members between April and June—we hadn’t passed the five or six hundred–membership mark in the first couple months of the group’s existence. The overwhelming majority of daily e-mails I received came from supporters. We were working hard, and the results were energizing. But even with all that, there was huge anchor weighing down our high spirits.

  One of our inspirations was Karriem Beyah. By this time he and his store were the spiritual and geographic center of our commitment—primarily because he was such a terrific guy and his wonderful place was on the South Side, near several other stores where we’d shop. Jordan’s Closets was on 47th Street, just a mile and a half east of Farmers Best. A born “mompreneur,” Joslyn and her mother, Jera, were equal partners in Jordan’s Closets and Jordan’s Mom’s Closets, upscale resale-clothing boutiques in a still-dicey part of Bronzeville. They began planning their business in 2001 while they were working their day jobs, but they were unable to secure a bank loan—no surprise. After Joslyn’s grandmother and an aunt and uncle offered financial assistance, the two women opened their first store in 2006. They named it after Joslyn’s daughter, who was about five years old at the time.

  “We wanted to be in a place where we could help our community,” Joslyn, who was born and raised on the South Side, told me. “I didn’t necessarily think I was going to get rich by running Jordan’s Closets,
but I wanted to give something to the community. Children around here already have a lot stacked against them.”

  She offered lovely, clean, low-priced clothes, but she had to educate potential customers about a resale-clothing boutique, which many people had never heard of. The community patronized the store, but the store was also burglarized three times—twice in one night—in the first couple years of its existence. Still, the business made a powerful statement: Counting Joslyn’s daughter, Jordan, who helped out around the place, three generations of African American women were running a retail establishment. I wanted to support them.

  As long as I was in the neighborhood, I’d drop in and visit with Milton Latrell at the swanky Agriculture Crop of Clothing. Right next door was my new favorite coffee shop, Bronzeville Coffee, which was also where I bought bagels, as I still hadn’t found a Black bakery that sold them. If I had some time, I’d run four blocks east to see Nicole Jones at Sensual Steps Shoe Salon, whether or not I was in the market for shoes. She was the center of Bronzeville’s small Black business community, and something interesting was always going on at her store.

  Although it was five miles southeast and in an area that felt much more like the West Side, I might swing by God First God Last God Always, our household goods supplier. Like Farmers Best for groceries, it was my only option for household and personal basics. David and Michelle Powell, the quintessential mom-and-pop owners, knew their customers’ names and hugged many of them—not just me—as they entered the store. Native South Siders, they were almost inconsolable over how the once-vibrant area around 71st Street had lost virtually all of its quality, locally owned businesses.

  All of these entrepreneurs, my new close friends, were just two miles from Hyde Park and the University of Chicago, where only a few years earlier I’d lived for four years with John while in graduate school. I’m sure these people and places, or people and places like them, were there all the while. I never saw them back then—or even looked.

  Now I was there at least once or twice a week. My trips to Farmers Best became so frequent, in fact, that Karriem set aside space in his office for me where I could conduct EE business. Stationing myself there was much less about convenience and much more about strengthening the relationship between EE and Farmers Best. We wanted everyone to meet Karriem, as he exemplified the potential of self-help economics. When the publisher of Chicago’s Black Pages, the most reputable directory of local Black businesses, said he wanted to place our family on the cover of the 2010 edition and have me speak at their quarterly networking function for advertisers, I set up a meeting at the store. If the media outlets we spoke with wanted to see EE in action to help understand why we had undertaken the project, I’d tell them they needed to come to Farmers Best to meet Karriem Beyah. Nearly all of them did.

  “KB” was everything we were fighting for. He sensed our respect for him very quickly, just as quickly as he perceived how serious our commitment was. He responded in kind, joining our four-member board of directors of The Empowerment Experiment Foundation, Inc. A 501(c)(3) we’d created in anticipation of funding from that group of wealthy Black corporate executives—which seems almost laughable now—the foundation was a way of assuring donors that we were going to use their contributions for research and social service–oriented projects after our yearlong experiment. We hired an attorney who specialized in establishing nonprofits, and we created the board, which consisted of John and me; a powerful attorney friend of Eduardo’s; John’s aunt, a highly respected public school administrator and community leader in Detroit; and now Karriem.

  Sprung from a philosophical synchronicity, our relationship with Karriem was profound and deep. But at the same time, odd as it sounds, it was fraught with anxiety about our beloved Farmers Best. Odder still is that we rarely addressed it directly.

  The truth was that Farmers Best was on unsteady footing from the outset and not because of anything Karriem did or failed to do. The plight of Black-owned grocery stores is similar to that of other Black-owned retailers. To top it off, the economy went into free fall about the time Farmers Best opened its doors in the summer of 2008. Not long after our very first visit to the store, we realized that we were going to have to do more to help Karriem increase traffic, and that meant devoting extra time and resources to Farmers Best.

  This was a troubling prospect, mostly because financially we were floundering too. The business and marketing professionals in us were very nervous because almost none of the assistance the PBFs promised materialized. There were supporters, of course, like Cheryle Jackson of the Chicago Urban League, who had us on her TV show a couple times. Nonetheless, we felt as if almost everyone in Chicago who was supposed to shower us with love, praise, and aid was treating us like the Jehovah’s Witness who rings the doorbell early on a Saturday morning.

  But we had to save Karriem. So starting in April, I dove right in. Almost every day I’d ask him about his sales, what was going on with his suppliers, how much he spent on the produce run that morning. I started studying the grocery industry and became something of an informal consultant to Karriem. I begged my friends to go to his store, sending out e-blasts every week asking them to join his mailing list and trying to arrange carpools for shopping trips. The first promotional carpool e-blast said, “Did you know Chicago has a new Black-owned full-service grocery store? I’ll show you AND give you a ride there!” I sent it to my EE database as well as those for a number of large Black churches, like St. Sabina, Apostolic Church of God, Salem House of Hope, and my church, Trinity United Church of Christ. My favorite e-blast was entitled “New Whole Foods Store on 47th Street. The freshest produce on the South Side!” When someone opened the e-mail, they’d find a flyer I created for Farmers Best, with pictures of all the great produce. Then right under it: “Well it’s not Whole Foods, but you get the same fresh, top-quality products, and at a greater value to your wallet and your soul. Support this first-class Black business today! Click here for a ride.”

  We were trying so hard, fully leveraging our own networks to get more customers to give Farmers Best a chance. Nothing was working. We felt as if there was some unholy power conspiring against Karriem’s enterprise and, by extension, EE. There were days when I would be the sole customer in the store.

  Because Farmers Best was in a strip mall, it shared the parking lot with other stores, including a Little Caesar’s pizza parlor. One afternoon in May I saw a vision in a toga-clad, sandals-wearing foam mascot: the Little Caesar’s guy.

  I had this “aha” moment. Farmers Best was clean, well stocked, efficient, and had competitively priced products. The reason it was struggling was simple: It lacked effective marketing. We needed to get serious about it.

  Karriem fully embraced the idea and, in fact, had already planned to purchase prime-time radio spots and a full-page ad in the local Black Pages directory. I sat with him in meetings with various ad reps for the two major Black-themed—but not Black-owned—radio stations and helped decide which ads to buy. We’d advertise weekly sales and promote community events at the store with the theme “Farmers Best Springtime Series” as well as a tagline I created: “Live Your Best Life at Farmers Best.” We devised promotions and gave out coupons at the store and online. I wrote the radio ads and press releases, and our PR firm sent them to media outlets. Almost every Friday and Saturday in May and June Karriem set up a tent and decorations, played music, and grilled premium meats and veggies in the parking lot.

  We weren’t leaving anything to chance, and Karriem was really grateful. The harder we worked, the closer our family grew to KB. He started delivering food to the house and including extra fruit and meat that was about to be tossed. We’d barbecue together. He and John would linger over drinks and cigars. Still, anxiety intruded, even in those moments away from the store when we reveled in our friendship.

  “Uncle Karriem is here! Mommy, can I open the door?”

  Cara peered out of the living room window and saw KB’s behemoth Excursio
n pulling up. She was almost four years old now, and it seemed like every hour she came up with a new “big girl” responsibility she wanted to assume.

  “He’s early,” I shouted. “I still have to tidy up downstairs. Girls, go with your dad. John, just keep him up here. Okay?”

  Cara and Cori looked adorable. I’d just fixed their hair, and they were wearing pink tops and denim Capri pants—ensembles I’d purchased at Jordan’s Closets.

  “Yes. Cara, you can open the door,” I said, “but you have to do it with a grown-up. Okay? Never alone. Now go with Daddy!”

  John was looking out the window.

  “Don’t worry, Mag,” he said. “It’ll be a minute. He’s on the phone in the car. You know he lives on that phone. We probably have another hour!” John broke into his impersonation of KB. Impersonations are one of John’s fortes. I swear it’s one of the main reasons I fell in love with him.

  “Now you make sure you get those carts out of the parking lot,” John said in Karriem’s deep, scruffy voice. “If a cart is missing you’re paying for it! And get rid of those bruised mangoes. No bruises. You hear me?”

  The girls were laughing while John paced up and down the foyer imitating KB’s hulking gait and pretending to hold a phone.

  Even I was laughing now, and that’s exactly what John wanted. His anxious wife had been stressing about a guest’s early arrival, and he had to ease that condition. He came over, hugged my waist, and whispered. “You can’t blame the man for being early, right Mag? Would you want to hang around an empty grocery store in which you’d invested everything? Be nice, baby. I know you’re going to yell at him for not calling first, but please don’t. Give the po’ brutha a break.”

  They’d made plans to watch the NBA conference finals. The game started at six, and it was 5:30. I zoomed downstairs to the TV room, still giggling and shaking my head.