CALLING ATTENTION TO UNSUNG BLACK BUSINESS PIONEERS

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (99) ◽  
pp. 70-71
Keyword(s):  
Black Business

The Black Businessman in the Postwar South: North Carolina, 1865–1880

1989 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Kenzer
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Credit Ratings ◽  
Black Business ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Business History ◽  
Financial Resources ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Economic Opportunities

This article uses the R. G. Dun and Company credit ratings to analyze North Carolina black businessmen and their firms in the fifteen years following the Civil War. When combined with data in local histories and in the federal census, the credit ratings reveal how the postbellum black business community, especially the mulatto population, was significantly shaped by antebellum emancipation. Blacks who shared the advantage of prewar freedom employed their superior financial resources and business experience to dominate their local economies after the war. Further, both as individuals and collectively, blacks used their newly acquired political power to foster economic opportunities in ways hitherto unrecognized by both political and business history scholars.

Contested Terrain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Weems
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Black Business ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
National Bank ◽  
Contested Terrain ◽  
Business Person

This chapter examines the “contested terrain” associated with the founding of Chicago’s Douglass National Bank in 1921. Anthony Overton, one of history’s most prominent African American entrepreneurs, is widely regarded as the founder of the second national bank organized by African Americans. Yet, the evidence indicates that this distinction should go to Pearl W. Chavers, a relatively obscure early twentieth-century black business person. The story of Anthony Overton’s ascent and P.W. Chavers’ descent in the Douglass National Bank’s administrative hierarchy reveals the power of money and influence. It also illuminates the nuances of both group and individual entrepreneur-based strategies for African American economic development.

Robert Sengstacke Abbott, 1868–1940

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Myiti Sengstacke Rice
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Black Business ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Press ◽  
Entrepreneurial Success ◽  
Business People ◽  
American Press ◽  
Successful Business ◽  
Intellectual Leader

From its inception the African American press was a major voice in the African American struggle against violence and discrimination. The unquestioned dean of the black press was Robert Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender. This chapter examines two aspects of Abbott’s life. First, it analyzes how Abbott developed and implemented his vision for building a successful business in an environment hostile to black entrepreneurial success. In doing so he helped lay the foundation of the Chicago network of mutually supporting black business people and demonstrated through his actions their role in the community. Second it illustrates how, through the Defender, Abbott and his paper served as an inspirational and intellectual leader in African American’s struggle for rights in Chicago and throughout the United States.

Black Business Activism in the Great Depression

2019 ◽  
pp. 31-73
Author(s):  
Brandon K. Winford
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Black Community ◽  
Black Business ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
The Great Depression

Chapter 2 pivots away from NC Mutual by more closely examining M&F Bank after its establishment and its survival amid the catastrophic collapse that precipitated the Great Depression decade. The chapter argues that because M&F Bank followed an ethos that engendered a deep commitment to the overall prosperity of the black community, it was in a much better position than most black-owned banks to advocate a return to political participation for the black community. In this way, Durham’s black businesspeople served as stalwart community leaders, which provided a training ground for a younger cadre of well-educated and ready activists. Moreover, they embraced a multidimensional strategy of reciprocity—complicated by gender, class, and intergenerational tensions.

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