Minority-owned business

“ This includes up-to-date information regarding market opportunities, increased capital for business expansion, advice and experience in business management, and recognition of the quality goods and services minority-owned firms can provide.
Commerce in America is at a watershed: to achieve economic security, we must eliminate old ways of doing business and initiate practices that are inclusive. Discriminatory and exclusionary practices have no place in our Nation. Ours has always been a society comprised of minorities; diversity is our strength. ”

“ We have reorganized the Office of Minority Business into the Minority Business Development Administration in the Department of Commerce. MBDA has already proven to be a major factor in assisting minority businesses to achieve equitable competitive positions in the marketplace.
The Federal government's procurement from minority-owned firms has nearly tripled since I took office. Federal deposits in minority-owned banks have more than doubled and minority ownership of radio and television stations has nearly doubled. ”

“ By improving the availability of capital sources for business starts and expansions in the minority community, by increasing access to state-of-the-art information resources for minority business owners, by promoting the minority entrepreneur's entrance into new domestic and international markets, and by opening all doors to economic progress for minority citizens, all of American society will benefit. ”

“ But for minority entrepreneurs, the path has not always been free of obstacles. Sometimes held back by economic, social, and educational disadvantages, too often denied opportunities because of racial and ethnic prejudice, many minority men and women have had to struggle for equal access to the capital, tools, training, and services they need to build and maintain successful businesses. ”

“ Recognizing the contributions that minority enterprises make to the social and economic fabric of our Nation, we must continue to remove any barriers that prevent talented men and women of every racial and ethnic background from participating fully in America's economic mainstream. Working in partnership, government and private industry must ensure that minority-owned firms have equal access to capital, technical assistance, new markets, and opportunities for growth. We must attract new entrepreneurs to the marketplace and encourage existing firms to expand. ”

“ Every individual has a contribution to make and deserves to participate fully in the public and private sectors of the United States, without regard to racial or ethnic origin.
Minority business development is an essential element in helping to enable every American to become a full participant in the economic life of our country. Minority entrepreneurs often face tremendous odds on the road to success. ”

“ These efforts will help to ensure that America's growing number of minority entrepreneurs are equipped to succeed.
Strong and successful minority enterprises benefit us all. The goods and services produced by minority-owned firms create jobs, spark community reinvestment and neighborhood pride, and increase America's productivity. With their imagination, innovative spirit, and willingness to take risks, minority entrepreneurs have made important contributions to the remarkable growth of our economy during the past 5 years. ”

“ To help provide sustainable outreach to minority enterprises, my Administration is working with the National Urban League to create an entrepreneurship network to further expand minority business ownership. ”

“ Minority businesses are an essential part of a society in which personal initiative is encouraged and in which opportunity is within the reach of all of our citizens. Significant increases in minority business ownership are providing an engine for economic growth and helping more of our citizens succeed. ”

“ Those qualities are exemplified by minority entrepreneurs, who have long been recognized for their determination to overcome obstacles and to create better lives for themselves and for their children. This week, we salute the more than 1 million minority business owners across the United States for helping to build a stronger America. These hardworking men and women are contributing to the economic development of their communities, and they are creating jobs and opportunities for their neighbors. ”

“ Ownership of one's own business is an aspiration held by many Americans. Minority Americans share fully in this aspiration. The success of minority business enterprise demonstrates that hard work and individual determination can serve as a powerful engine for social mobility and economic progress. ”

“ The case before us does not involve the power of the Congress to pass a law compelling privately owned businesses to refrain from discrimination on the basis of race and to trade with all if they trade with any. We express no views as to the power of Congress, acting under one or another provision of the Constitution, to prevent racial discrimination in the operation of privately owned businesses, nor upon any particular form of legislation to that end. ”

“ What a battle the Negro business man has to fight can be surmised when to the fact of a narrow patronage from his own people, who have the small purchasing power of their low-paid occupations, is added the severe competition of white firms with larger capital, with more extended credit and larger business experience, that vie with him for even this limited field. ”

“ It is a general cry all over the country that coloured people pass by the doors of our merchants and trade with any other concerns—Jews, Dagoes, Polacks, and what not. This is a very unfortunate fact which stands before us as a living shame. The very people who preach “race union, race support, race enterprise,” are often the first to pass our own mercantile establishments by. The only places where coloured men can prosper in business are where our people are driven out of other people’s places of business and actually forced to patronise our own. ”

“ And with the unemployment rates of our minority citizens showing improvement as well, this means we are producing more jobs for those Americans who have too often been excluded from the mainstream of our society. But more remains to be done, and we will need to look to minority businesspeople to become a cornerstone of an urban renaissance, creating even more jobs where we most need them. Minority business development is one place where a small investment can yield tremendous dividends. ”

“ As we enter an era of greatly expanded opportunities in economic growth and development, it is appropriate that we encourage minority business owners by recognizing their tremendous contributions toward the continued economic development of our Nation. ”

“ More frequent than whites (probably in tenfold proportion) sustained by the charitable provisions of our laws, they are altogether a burden on the community. Pursuing no course of regular business, and negligent of everything like economy and husbandry, they are as a part of the community, supported by the productive industry of others. ”

“ Legalized discrimination—where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or the fire department—meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. ”

“ Whereas those discriminatory government actions, among other government policies that have had racially disparate impacts, have disproportionately barred African Americans and other people of color from building wealth, thus limiting potential capital and exacerbating the racial wealth gap ”

“ Where there is no opportunity for private enterprise, how is there any assurance that the claims of small minorities of the people to have articles produced, for which there is no wide demand, will be respected? ”

“ By such protective measures we may so shield ourselves from attack, that if any should wish to destroy us they must first destroy what they have themselves built. This means much: but who so thoughtless as to suppose that ownership of land and home, or business interests or even municipal or other corporate franchises,—with the knowledge needed to maintain them—are of themselves enough! Who so weak as to trust in mere segregation, that if we only stay on our side of a high board fence we will be let alone! ”

“ However, more and more we are coming to realize that political freedom without industrial opportunities means but little. Democracy must also mean industrial opportunity, and social democracy, as well as political democracy. But the industrial opportunity which the Negro demands is not even the same as is demanded by his more fortunate white-skinned brother. While his fellow-human beings demand a larger voice in industry and business, and a greater share of the product, the Negro is still meekly begging for his inalienable right to participate in industry, to help extend and build it up. ”

“ The vital questions of politics, industry, corporations, and monopoly which menace the country, unless rightly answered, cut across the lines of nationality. The German farmer, manufacturer, wage-earner, merchant, capitalist, and monopolist may all unite to elect a popular German to office, but they do not unite to give a corporation a monopoly. The same is true of other nationalities. Wherever the referendum has been fairly tested, in Chicago, Detroit, Oregon, and elsewhere, the sound judgment of all races has prevailed over bias, prejudice, or racial jealousy. ”

“ White labor began to see that it would be better to lift the Negro up to the same scale with itself, by admitting him into their organization, than to seek his debasement. If Negroes were in a condition to work for fifty cents per day and would do so, and capital would employ them, then white men must accept the same terms or get no work! ”

“ Although these friends of the Negroes and the Negroes themselves had during these years been boldly asserting their rights and demanding to be elevated, they had been [Pg 196] losing ground, sinking into meaner occupations and less lucrative employments. He believed that the day was not far when every desirable business in the city would be entirely monopolized by the whites because of the rapid influx of foreigners who had to labor or serve and knew how to toil to advantage, to the extent that they could make their labor more valuable than that of the people of color. ”

“ About the Afro-American in politics and in business, Editor Turner says truthfully: "When the negro in America begins business for himself, and accumulates wealth and intelligence, the race problem then will be solved. Business must be first and politics last." ”

“ Suppose, just before the race-course is finished, the majority become a minority and the work is stopped—has the new majority the right to destroy the property and accumulate a new fund for a different purpose? ”

“ The New York Globe says:
“The Negro has been told to smile and look pleasant as his political rights have been taken from him. The argument has been that if he did not make a fuss over voting the race prejudice of his white fellow citizen would abate—that he would be given a freer chance to work, to acquire property, to become of material weight in the community. But, North as well as South, doors of industry are being shut against the Negro. The economic tragedy of the educated Negro who aspires to good things is pitiful. ”

“ The organized minorities of the past dissolved when their end was obtained. They had a specific rather than a general purpose. Usually it was a moral purpose, the prohibition of alcoholic drinks, or political justice for woman. Never until recently did a minority raise the economic interests of one section of society against those of the rest of society and promise to keep on raising them. The farm bloc is the first permanent economic minority to organize itself effectively for political action. ”

“ This is the duty of the nation to the Negro. I have always been a protectionist, but if every cotton mill is to be run by immigrants from across the sea, while our sons and daughters, who are black and poor, but to the manner born—true and patriotic American citizens—are to be refused employment in the factories of this country, I would advise the Negroes to vote for whatever party may represent low tariff or free trade for all fabricated material. ”

“ For the Negro ownership of land and home is not only an important factor, in his domestic life, for as taxpayer, there is a mutuality of interest between himself and other members of the body politic, business and trade seek him, it impels reverence for the law, and protection of the public peace. His own liability to outrage becomes [Pg 187] small. His character for credit increases in the ratio of his holdings, and while manhood suffrage is the professed but often disavowed legacy for all born beneath the flag, his rights of citizenship are more often accorded. ”

“ The overall object of the economic boycott has been to discourage all persons sympathetic to the idea of integration. Because of their generally inferior economic status, Negroes are especially vulnerable to such pressures. In areas where the boycott has been invoked any Negro who did not support segregation could expect to find business and personal credit withheld, home mortgages and installment loans denied, employment terminated or refused, rental quarters barred to him, and business and professional patronage withdrawn. ”

“ Of the other 279 firms, 81, or 29.7 per cent, reported no white customers; 92, or 33.3 per cent, reported that less than 10 per cent of their customers were white. Thus 63 per cent of the Negro business firms have to depend upon the small purchasing power of their own people for the trade with which to build up their enterprises. ”