Why It’s Important For You to Support Black-owned Businesses

This past year marked the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, when white rioters looted and burned the Greenwood District, which was a prosperous African-American area known as “Black Wall Street.” This has been called “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history."

Sadly, this historical event is just one of many examples of Black business/property owners being targeted by either hostile individuals or government policy.

Over the course of American history, opportunities for Black Americans to build wealth have been thwarted, time and time again.

In the 1850s, New York City used eminent domain to destroy Seneca Village, a thriving community of black property owners, on land that later became Central Park.

After Emancipation, freed slaves were given no money to start new lives, despite the promise of “40 acres and a mule.” The government decided to instead compensate former slave OWNERS for the loss of their free labor.

Victims of lynching were often successful black business owners who posed a threat to white economic interests, a phenomenon documented by the journalist Ida B. Wells.

During this era, many southern states passed laws and/or new constitutions to disenfranchise Black people through poll taxes, literacy tests and other devices.

After World War II, the GI Bill helped veterans buy homes, but black people were effectively excluded from its benefits.

These are just a few examples. Post-emancipation, there were MANY more concerted efforts towards ensuring Black people could not prosper and build generational wealth. As you can see, a lot of those efforts were carried out against Black business/property owners.

As a result of this, racial wealth gap in the U.S. is stark: As of 2016, a white family’s median net worth was $171,000, while a black family’s was $17,600, according to the Survey of Consumer Finances.

What’s exhausting is that this is only ONE of the MANY facets of systemic racism against Black people.

This is why it’s SO important to support Black-owned businesses. You’d be doing a small part in helping to undo the effects of generational injustices against Black people.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.