Our Black Year

by Maggie Anderson

  • George Fraser, believe it or not, there are no words to describe how grateful I am for you and FraserNet. You found us during a tough time along our journey, and you lifted us up, carried us out, and nursed us through the hate, the apathy, the frustration, the ignorance, and the confusion. Thank you for showing me that the path will definitely be as prosperous as it is now painful. Looking forward to our Victory Party, my bad, brilliant brother.

  • Brother Norm Bond! Or should I say, the Honorable Chairman of the National Alliance of Market Developers? You showed me that we all get what we deserve. Thank you for putting up with me. Thanks so much for all the advice, listening to my rants, keeping me close even when I pulled away, and for teaching me that everyone cannot make it to the Promised Land.

  • Uncle Jim Clingman, professor, author, activist, loyal friend. You were my confidant, my teacher, and my truth compass. Thank you for showing me that being righteous is more important than being right. If—no—when we see the victory, it won’t matter if you are not right there by my side.

  • My dear Dr. Juliet Walker, there is no one who knows my heart and truly understands why I do this like you do. Thank you for representing the sisters like us—smart, sophisticated, strong, soulful, and not shutting up for no-damn-body! We both know that God brought us together to continue what Mima started. I adore you, cherish you, and wait for the chance to redeem all the limitless love.

  • To Randy Fling, COO of Steed Media and Rolling Out magazine, the official media partner for EE’s national tour, I offer my infinite gratitude, forever friendship, and heartfelt love for never asking me why, just when, where, and how much. Thank you for taking my mind away from how janky, broke-down, and bootleg it all is sometimes as well as showing me how glorious and victorious it will be.

  • Karriem. Thank you for everything, every little and big thing you did and gave, and for doing, fighting, and giving out of love. Don’t give up. We are one. I will always be here for you, my Knight in Shining EE Armor.

  • My mentor and dear friend, Kevin Ross, you taught me how to be a leader, to believe in myself, to surround myself with quality people, and how to listen. You gave me my first break, my first chance to rumble with the big boys. Thank you for your love, friendship, and for preparing me for this journey. And thank you for joining the team and offering your wisdom, leadership, spirit of excellence, and judicious insights into this project.

  I have been blessed to have the support of several other business and community leaders whom I’ve grown very accustomed to leaning on. My new friends, I promise you this: You will never feel like you wasted your time on me. I will give you my all and all I have is yours. I love you so very deeply and fully for living up to your duty as members of the Talented Tenth. Thank you for standing up for the rest . . .

  Emmett Vaughn, director, Diverse Business Empowerment, Exelon Corporation, and 2008 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Minority Economic Development by the US Department of Commerce; Jackie Mayfield, CEO and founder, Compro Tax; Peggy Morris, Lakei Forest Cosby, and every member of Sisters for Sisters Network, Inc.; Meagan and Darrius Peace, owners of Hayah Cosmetics and founders of the Magic City Black Expo; Tony Billinger, director of supplier diversity, Office Max; Michael Blake, White House liaison to the African American community and minority business; Vicky Hsi, supplier diversity lead, Kraft Foods; Carla Hunter Ramsey, director of supplier diversity, National Grid; Kenny Loyd, president and owner, South Coast Paper; Ron Busby, CEO and founder, US Black Chamber of Commerce; Don Bowen, chief program officer, National Urban League; Terry Clark, vice president, Entrepreneurship and Business Development, National Urban League; Paul and Sheena Jones, owners of JTE Spirits and founders of the Association of Black Alcoholic Beverage Companies; Marlon Hill, partner, Delancy Hill law firm; Marva Allen, CEO of Hue Man Bookstore and CEO of the Power of One (Harlem’s “buy local” program); Dr. Pamela Jolly, CEO of Torch Enterprises; Regina Dyson, creator of Heritage Hues interiors and paints; Selena Cuffe, owner of Heritage Link Brands; Mike Hill, CEO and founder, the Atlanta Metro Black Chamber of Commerce; Devin Robinson, associate professor of economics, Oglethorpe University, author of Rebuilding the Black Infrastructure , and leader of the movement to reclaim the Black hair care industry; Mike Armstrong, SVP and GM, BET International; Lori Hall Armstrong, chief activation officer, Verbify Consulting Firm; Michael Bowlds, CEO and founder, Mountaintop Marketing; Chuck Debow, director, National Black Chamber of Commerce; Andre Hughes, partner, Accenture, and CEO of Powered by Action; Ron Childs, vice president, Flowers Communications Group; Dr. Georgianne Thomas and Alvelyn Sanders, owners of Georgianne’s Skin Treats; Dr. Moe Anderson, DDS, CEO and founder, Austin Black Newcomers Association; Pastor Otis Moss, senior pastor, Trinity United Church of Christ; Ed Swailes, president, The Syndicate; Derryl Reed, owner, Smokin’ Joe Sauces; Chike Akua, CEO, Imani Enterprises, and author of A Treasure Within: Stories of Remembrance and Rediscovery; Tracye Dee Hinton, former owner, WineStyles South Loop; Nicole Jones, former owner, Sensual Steps Shoe Salon and now CEO, To The Nines; Grammy winner Kandi Burruss, owner, TAGS Boutique; Peaches Chin, co-owner, TAGS Boutique; Robin Douglass, CEO and founder, African American Chamber of Commerce of Westchester and Rockland Counties; Nickey Jefferson, professor of economics, Tuskegee University; the DeBriano family, founders, Tag Team Marketing and the Black Business Network; Mike Norman, CEO and founder, SoChange; Kenny Johnson, CEO and founder, The Richmond Group; Ian Robinson, director of marketing, Fort Washington River Tours; Farrah Gray, owner, Farrah Gray Publishing and author of Reallionaire; Michelle Goldsborough, CEO and founder, Parents Empowerment Group; Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, member of world-famous girl group TLC; Mell and Angie Monroe, proprietors, Welcome Inn Manor; Yvette Moyo, founder, Real Men Cook and Real Men Cook Charities; Donna Bellinger, president, Chicago chapter of the National Alliance of Market Developers; Jonathan Swain, owner, Kimbark Liquors; Fred Zeno, owner, Compro Tax Central; Ken Smykle, CEO and founder, Target Market News; and Nicole and Andre Dandridge, owners, the Dandridge law firm.

  Each and every one of you has a precious place in my heart and I look forward to working with you in furthering this movement.

  I am indebted to all those organizations, universities, business owners, and community groups that invited me to speak, honored my family, hosted a fund-raiser, or otherwise enabled me to share EE in the community. You are the backbone of this new and important movement. Thank you for linking arms with us.

  I cannot thank enough the team of researchers at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. You all did a phenomenal job on the study. Trust me: That’s a major compliment coming from an alum of the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business. Sometimes people forget that EE was always about the study, the experiment, the knowledge, and the science, and that we were just the test subjects, the guinea pigs. Thane Gautier, Dwetri Addy, Ajamu Baker, Arielle Deane, Stephanie Dorsey, and Susan Edwards, I thank you for keeping EE pure and true. While here I want to express gratitude for Deborah Johnson Hall, owner of JAM Research, who worked on capturing the empowerment experiments of other families across the country. And I cannot forget Marrion Johnson and Aisha Kazeem of Northwestern University for volunteering your time and sharing your brilliant young minds with EE. You all represent the academic foundation of EE, and I look forward to your help measuring, monitoring, and tracking the progress of EE en masse.

  I want to thank and send a huge hug to my entire book team. Sometimes I think getting this book done was tougher than conducting the experiment, so I am very fortunate and happy that I had such a talented, committed, professional, and caring team to help me through. Your respect, compassion, hard work, true understanding of, and genuine interest in this endeavor mean so much to me. Jessica, Mindy, Kirby, Julie, Susan, and Ted again, thank you for asking the tough questions, challenging me, exercising my brain, testing my talents, and really bringing out the best in me. I feel good putting our baby in your gifted h
ands.

  I want to give a quick shout out to the mainstream media that covered EE. You didn’t have to and may not have wanted to, but you made this happen, and you did it in a balanced, objective, open-minded way. Thank you for enabling the discussion we dreamed of and for presenting EE to the world.

  To all those truth seekers and truth speakers in the Black media who reported on EE, I thank you for telling our story and keeping it alive even after the experiment. Thank you for converting our li’l project into a major movement. Maybe the revolution should be televised.

  I am so very grateful for every one of you who took the time to visit our website, send an e-mail, read the newsletter, forward info about EE to your friends, join our Facebook Fan Group “Fans of The Empowerment Experiment,” become a member of the EE nation by registering on the website at www.EEforTomorrow.com, donate to the EE Foundation, come out to our events, or to hear me speak. They may seem like little things to you, but they mean everything to me and my family. You are our fuel. EE is nothing without you. It’s not about the Andersons anymore—it’s about all of us. Thank you, and please stay involved and excited.

  And finally, to all my soldiers and scholars, my fighters and dreamers, whether I know you or not, who are out there struggling for a better life for our kids, a better legacy for our community, and a better America for us all, I send strength, love, faith, and a fist in the air. I know you are giving your lives to this for the same reason I do . . . and that’s because you know we can do more and we deserve more. We had it before and we will bring it all back. Y’all know what I mean.

  From Ted Gregory:

  Abiding gratitude to the Caramel Hurricane for her courage, integrity, passion, and grace; to Kirby Kim for his thoughtful initiative; to Mindy Werner and Lindsay Jones for their keen vision; to Jessica Campbell and all the folks at PublicAffairs for their important work; to my mom for her heart; to the kids for tolerating Distracted Dad Syndrome; and to Terri, my true love.

  Appendix 1

  Over the course of our adventure John and I discovered an enormous amount of illuminating information as well as numerous organizations that are working on issues related to Black economic empowerment. Here are some of the highlights.

  Books

  Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation, by Clarence B. Jones and Stuart Connelly (2011, Palgrave Macmillan)

  Blackonomic$: The Way to Psychological and Economic Freedom for African Americans, by James Clingman (2000, Milligan Books)

  Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century, by Robert E. Weems Jr. (1998, New York University Press)

  Encyclopedia of African American Business, edited by Jessie Carney Smith (2006, Greenwood Press)

  Encyclopedia of African American Business History, edited by Juliet E. K. Walker (1999, Greenwood Press)

  The History of Black Business in America: Capitalism, Race, Entrepreneurship, by Juliet E. K. Walker (1998, Macmillan Library Reference USA; 2003, revised, St. Martin’s Press)

  The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville, by Derek S. Hyra (2008, University of Chicago Press)

  Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black-, Asian-, and White-Owned Businesses in the United States, by Robert W. Fairlie and Alicia M. Robb (2010, The MIT Press)

  Success Runs in Our Race: The Complete Guide to Effective Networking in the African-American Community, by George Fraser (1996, Quill)

  Talking Dollars and Making Sense: A Wealth Building Guide for African-Americans, by Brooke Stephens (1997, McGraw-Hill)

  Academic Institutions

  Columbia University’s Center on African American Politics and Society (http://iserp.columbia.edu/research-initiatives/centers/center-african-american-politics-and-society)

  Morehouse College Entrepreneurship Center (http://www.morehouse.edu/centers/entrepreneurship/index.html)

  North Carolina A & T State University Center for Entrepreneurship and E-Business (http://www.ncat.edu/~iceeb/)

  Temple University’s Center for African American Research and Public Policy (http://www.temple.edu/caarpp/index.htm)

  Tuskegee University’s Cooperative Extension Program (http://www.tuskegee.edu/about_us/outreach/cooperative_extension.aspx)

  University of Texas’s Center for Black Business History, Entrepreneurship and Technology (http://www.utexas.edu/research/centerblackbusiness/about_center.htm)

  Ford Motor Company is partnering with Babson College, the leading academic institution for entrepreneurship, and a number of other historic Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to create programs for Black entrepreneurship. Known as the HBCU Entrepreneurship Consortium, these institutions include Clark Atlanta University (Atlanta, Georgia), Grambling State University (Grambling, Louisiana), Jackson State University (Jackson, Mississippi), Morehouse College (Atlanta, Georgia), North Carolina A&T (Greensboro, North Carolina), and Southern University (Baton Rouge, Louisiana).

  Organizations

  100 Black Men of America, Inc. (http://www.100blackmen.org/home.aspx)

  Black Business Network (http://www.blackbusinessnetwork.com/)

  Black Shopping Channel (http://www.blackshoppingchannel.com/)

  FraserNet (http://www.frasernet.com/)

  Houston Citizens Chamber of Commerce Economic Empowerment Initiative (http://www.hccoc.org/index.html)

  iZania (http://www.izania.com/)

  Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (http://www.jointcenter.org/about)

  National Alliance of Market Developers (http://www.namdntl.org/)

  National Association of Investment Companies (http://www.naicvc.com/)

  National Black Chamber of Commerce (http://www.nationalbcc.org/)

  National Black MBA Association (http://www.nbmbaa.org/home.aspx?PageID=637&)

  National Council of Negro Women (http://www.ncnw.org/about/index.htm)

  National Minority Supplier Development Council (http://www.nmsdc.org/nmsdc/)

  National Urban League (http://www.nul.org/)

  Powered by Action (http://www.poweredbyaction.org/)

  Rainbow PUSH Coalition (http://www.rainbowpush.org/)

  Recycling Black Dollars (www.rbdmedia.net)

  United States Black Chamber of Commerce (http://usbci.org/)

  Directories of Black-Owned Businesses

  The Empowerment Experiment Foundation is in the process of building a national interactive directory of quality Black businesses to help facilitate our goal of proving the power of self-help economics. Stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, here are some other resources.

  http://www.blackbusinesslist.com/

  http://blackdoctor.org/ (doctors)

  http://www.blackexperts.com/ (various professionals, experts, speakers)

  http://www.blacknla.com/business.asp (Los Angeles area)

  http://www.blackownednewyork.com/ (New York area)

  http://blackpages.com/

  http://www.bmoreblack.com/ (Baltimore area)

  http://www.bmoreblack.com/ (Pittsburgh area)

  http://www.gpsblack.com/

  http://www.kcsoul.com/business-directory/ (Kansas City area)

  http://www.myblacknetworks.com/

  http://www.nabhood.net/ (hotels)

  http://www.nareb.com/ (real estate agents)

  http://reverse90.com/ (Philadelphia area)

  http://shushmedeals.com/ (for women)

  http://www.supportblackowned.org/

  http://www.theblackbusinessdirectory.com/ (Philadelphia area)

  Maggie’s Tips for Buying Black the EE Way

  1. Begin with the “low hanging fruit.” Make it easy on yourself: Jump-start your new lifestyle by altering your spending habits on what is most convenient. Subscribe to a Black newspaper or magazine, support Black designers at the department stores, buy Black-made products at mass retailers and grocery stores, open an account at a Black-owned bank, buy gift cards at a Black-owned McDonald’s or Burger King.

&nb
sp; 2. Take baby steps. Do this so you won’t give up if your first attempt to “buy Black” does not go as planned. Start with some product, place, or person you know. That first good experience will be the impetus to start living differently. You cannot fly into flying.

  3. Use a Black company for a service you need on a regular basis. Once you find a Black dry cleaner, mechanic, or bank, become a repeat customer. Now $1,200 is going to a Black business this year, just from making a simple switch. Have a portion or all of your paycheck deposited directly into a Black bank or credit union. They’re FDIC insured too! Now your money is helping to grow a Black investment or community bank.

  4. It’s not a test—it’s a relationship. As with every major brand or company you support, from Wal-mart to your optometrist, there will be good and bad experiences with your new Black companies. Don’t make those entrepreneurs overcome hurdles and maintain standards you do not impose on the big companies. Don’t treat them with suspicion, expecting them to fail you. It’s your new Black dry cleaner, a role model for your community that you choose to support because he helps sustain the neighborhood economically and is inclined to employ Black people. If the service or product costs a little more, pay it. Consider it an investment in the growth of a Black company. It speaks to your commitment and willingness to sacrifice.

  5. Buying Black at the mass retailers. We have to support the Black manufacturers and distributors whose products are already in the stores. The mass retailers all have websites and 800 numbers. They also have diversity or supplier diversity executives. Ask them to stock Black-made products and to use Black vendors. We all have to do this. What if one such executive got twenty calls in one day?

  6. Shop online. On websites like www.blackbusinessnetwork.com, www.izania.com, and www.blackshoppingchannel.com, you can find a wide range of goods and services. You will not find everything, but my guess is you will find something you assumed you could not. My detergent, NuWash, is better than Tide, but it’s not in Publix or Kmart—yet. I found it at www.BlackBusinessNetwork.com. Compro Tax (www.Comprotax.net) does not have thousands of outlets like Jackson Hewitt and H & R Block, but the products and reward you get from supporting it are beyond compare. More resources can be found on our website, www.EEforTomorrow.com.