Why Black Businesses Have A Hard Time Surviving In America

Why do Black businesses have a hard time surviving in America? Deric Muhammad did a good job trying to explain this problem and to offer some advice to black entrepreneurs. Deric Muhammad breaks it down like this:

Over 300 years of chattel slavery in America totally destroyed Black people’s natural desire to do-for-self. After Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation, Black slaves were declared free, yet were given few opportunities to make a living to feed their families. Many slaves immediately returned to the plantations of their slave masters because they did not know what else to do.

For a long time, slaves were forbidden to read and write. However, the slave master made certain they knew how to count. How else were they to keep up with their daily cotton quotas on the plantation? Many slaves utilized the skills that they mastered as plantation workers and began doing business for themselves. As a matter of fact many slaves had already started businesses and became strong enough economically to purchase freedom for some of their family members. A price was paid before Black people were able to do business in the United States of America.

Yes slavery played a big part in shaping black people mind set to form somewhat of a dependency on white people. But later on, after slavery and during Reconstruction and Jim Crow, black people started businesses and over all a lot of the businesses were successful. One reason is, prior to integration blacks were not welcome in white establishments so they relied on black businesses for their services. So these black businesses strived. But when segregation ended black customer made a mad dash to the white businesses and left the black businesses to struggle. Deric Muhammad goes on to explain:

Our businesses thrived in this country when we understood the urgency of moments in time like “Reconstruction,” the Great Depression and Jim Crow. We knew that if we did not support one another we could not survive. Prior to integration, Whites refused to do business with us.

These days it is difficult to keep a Black business open. According to statistics, Black-owned businesses open and close faster than businesses owned by any other ethnic group in America.

He goes on to talk about some of the problems plaguing black businesses today. He also offers advice on how to correct this problem so black businesses can be competitive in todays market:

I regularly hear horror stories about how hard-working people pay Black contractors to do a job that never gets finished. You sometimes show up at a coffee shop or restaurant and they are closed when they are supposed to be open. Too often, we say that we will have a service completed by a certain date and fail to deliver. Many Black businesses close themselves down.

Now let’s flip the coin to the Black business patron. Too often good Black businesses cringe at doing business with our own people, because we are always looking for “the hook-up.” There are good Black contractors who finish jobs and then are paid with a rubber check! We show up at the Black coffee shop just to use the internet and then go buy a latte from Starbucks. Sometimes Black business owners just give up or move to the suburbs because doing business in the ‘hood, proves to be too challenging.

In all fairness, these business snafus are not only relegated to Black businesses. You can go anywhere in town and find poor customer service. However, if we are to survive during these economically challenging times, we must get back to the basics of nation building and self-development. We must support Black businesses that are serious about doing business and eliminate businesses that poison the water that we all must drink from.

In order to do business, we must show character. We must open and close when we say we will open and close. We must treat the Black customer with the same regard that we would treat a dignitary. It does not matter whether the brother or sister is spending $5 or $5,000. If you treat us like kings and queens, we will return to do business with you once again.