Sup­port­ing Black Busi­nesses

…For Dum­mies

By : Popoai Tanu­vasa-Lole

Back­ground

The seg­re­ga­tion of African Amer­i­cans from higher pay­ing jobs and home own­er­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties is a huge rea­son for to­day’s racial wealth gap. Jim Crow-era prac­tices like this, in ad­di­tion to redlin­ing and job dis­crim­i­na­tion, have ul­ti­mately pre­vented wealth build­ing within the Black com­mu­nity. 

This brings us to the 1935 So­cial Se­cu­rity Act. This law cre­ated the So­cial Se­cu­rity pro­gram as well as in­sur­ance against un­em­ploy­ment. How­ever, this pol­icy did not af­ford cov­er­age to do­mes­tic and agri­cul­tural work­ers, many of whom were African Amer­i­can, and its re­quire­ments for res­i­dency and pay­roll in­for­ma­tion also ex­cluded the large num­ber of African Amer­i­cans work­ing me­nial, “off the books” jobs and mi­grat­ing North at the time. 

Why Should You Care

Poli­cies like this have ex­isted for years and have con­tributed to the dis­pro­por­tion in gen­er­a­tional wealth among cit­i­zens of the United States. Sup­port Black Busi­nesses means to com­bat racial in­jus­tice. The so-called “Amer­i­can Dream” is only for the few. Many peo­ple think that to suc­ceed you need to grind and work hard for what you have in or­der to suc­ceed. But cer­tain bar­ri­ers pre­vent cer­tain peo­ple from do­ing just that.

31 per­cent of Black-owned busi­nesses re­ceive the fund­ing they’ve ap­plied for and COVID-19 has only ex­as­per­ated is­sues for Black busi­nesses across the U.S. 40 per­cent of Black-owned busi­nesses have closed since lock­down, with many be­ing sys­tem­at­i­cally shut out from re­ceiv­ing fed­eral as­sis­tance dur­ing the pan­demic. 

Black Lives Mat­ter

With the BLM move­ment catch­ing fire within the United States, you may won­der how to get in­volved. Some peo­ple are great at or­ga­niz­ing and bring­ing peo­ple to­gether. Many pre­fer to protest. And oth­ers cre­ate art that re­flects the emo­tions and im­pact of so­cial in­jus­tice within racial and eth­nic com­mu­ni­ties. How­ever, this may not be an op­tion for some peo­ple. Well, an easy and con­ve­nient way to sup­port the cause is to sup­port your lo­cal Black-owned busi­ness.

Some great Black-owned busi­nesses to sup­port in the St.Louis Area in­clude; 

1. Pharoah’s Donuts 
2. C. Oliver Cof­fee & Flower Bar
3. Sweet Art Bak­ery

Dis­claimer: as this se­ries con­tin­ues we will high­light many other Black-owned busi­nesses in St.Louis as well.