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Good morning everyone.
First out of the gate
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/9134072.htm
Thoughts?
Contrariwise, the following article _also_ appeared in today's Inky;
Race clouds the picture for success in economy ** *By Porus P. Cooper* *Inquirer Staff Writer*
At 52d and Spruce Streets in West Philadelphia, Shirley Garrett, owner of the Harvest Vine diner, is in a predicament.
She is losing customers to an eatery that recently opened in a more bustling block just outside the predominantly black and low-income district where her restaurant is located, but she feels hamstrung in drawing new customers herself because few outsiders venture into her neighborhood.
"It is very difficult when only those in your neighborhood are the consumers" and most are poor, said Shirley Randleman, who heads a new neighborhood business association that is trying to help Garrett. Randleman believes racial stereotypes are keeping many visitors away.
At a time when /diversity/ is a corporate buzzword, when the number of black-owned businesses is growing faster than businesses in general, and when laws require government to consider minority firms for contracts, black entrepreneurs continue to list race on the liability side of their balance sheets.
In Chester, Edward Tucker is struggling to find more investors for his three-year-old plastics business. Plasticoncentrates Inc., which produces pigment concentrates to color plastic products, would be growing faster had he managed to raise $1.5 million, rather than about a third of that amount.
An immigrant from Sierra Leone who celebrates America as a land of opportunity, Tucker is conflicted about the issue of race. Growing up in West Africa, he did not feel racially victimized, and one of his mentors in America is a white man.
But, he said, "I often wonder if I was a preppy white whether my access to capital would be slightly different."
Some of the angst might be unique to the region. It's a place that traditionally has been inhospitable to all entrepreneurs, said David Thornburgh, who heads the local division of the Pennsylvania Economy League.
Black entrepreneurship is thriving in Atlanta, for instance, because it has been nurtured by top black academic institutions, such as Morehouse and Spelman Colleges, said John Sibley Butler, who teaches sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of /Entrepreneurship and Self-Help Among Black Americans./
A. Bruce Crawley, who helped found the African American Chamber of Commerce of Philadelphia a decade ago and is president of the advertising firm Crawley Haskins Sloan, believes black political leaders - in a heavily black city - have not been aggressive enough in promoting black businesses.
Doubts among some in the community about the quality of black businesses also hurt, said Floyd W. Alston, who has led a 15-year effort to bring back businesses to Cecil B. Moore Avenue in North Philadelphia.
Crawley said one chamber initiative was to get the region's black churches to use more black contractors as they make expansion plans.
"It's so tragic," he said. Money raised by congregants "goes out the back door to people who are not of our community."
Black enterprise in Philadelphia has a checkered history.
Black shopping districts, such as along 52d Street, are struggling now, but once were vibrant. In the 1950s, the strip "was a place of entertainment and culture, like Bourbon Street," Randleman said.
She operates Philadelphia Beauty Showcase National Historical Museum at 510 S. 52d St., one of the city's more unusual exhibits, featuring barbering, which black Philadelphians once dominated.
Rioting and looting one summer weekend in 1964, part of a season of racial discontent that spilled across the nation that year, dealt a body blow to the thriving, multiracial shopping and entertainment district along Columbia Avenue, now Cecil B. Moore Avenue.
Ironically, the success of the civil-rights movement also hurt neighborhood businesses, as black people began to feel more comfortable shopping at larger downtown stores that used to cater just to white people.
Much earlier, in 19th-century Philadelphia, the races lived closer together, and some black business owners made fortunes. African Americans dominated hairdressing and catering, having many white patrons.
An 1838 register of black tradespeople "in the city of Philadelphia and districts" lists 656 individuals engaged in 57 enterprises, including 8 bakers, 23 blacksmiths, 15 cabinetmakers, 2 chair-bottomers, 5 confectioners, and 98 hairdressers.
There were 19 sailmakers, including James Forten, who at one time employed 40 people, white people as well as black.
But as the numbers of black people grew, so did white racial fears. White people moved away from burgeoning black enclaves in North and West Philadelphia, said Roger Lane, professor of social sciences at Haverford College and author of /William Dorsey's Philadelphia and Ours,/ a chronicle of black urban life. "A lot of black businesses faded as whites stopped patronizing them," Lane said.
Statistics show a national imbalance between black and white businesses.
Between 1992 and 1997, the number of businesses owned by African Americans increased by 25 percent, to nearly 800,000, according to the most recent census data available. That is in line with increases in other minority businesses, but far faster than the 7 percent growth in the number of all U.S. firms.
Over the same period, however, revenue of black firms grew the least of any category, and according to a 1992 Census Bureau survey, fewer than 1 percent of black businesses reported net profit of more than $100,000 - the least of all categories.
Black businesses also are disproportionately sole proprietorships - 90 percent, vs. 73 percent for all businesses, which means they are smaller. In 1997, they reported $86,000 in average receipts vs. $891,000 for all businesses.
Contrary to popular impression, black firms find even government contracts hard to get, Crawley said.
In a city where 43 percent of the residents are black and the black mayor was handily reelected, around 2 percent of municipal business goes to minority firms, he said, citing a city-commissioned study by D.J. Miller & Associates of Atlanta.
The problems go deeper than blatant racism.
Being a black entrepreneur frequently means lacking collateral for a loan or simply being out of the loop of mainstream institutions such as banks, venture capital and trade groups.
"Lack of capital is the main impediment - I mean equity funds, not debt. Debt is not patient enough to help a business grow," said Della Clark, president of the Enterprise Center, a West Philadelphia business incubator where Tucker got his start.
The two banks that focused on black clients, United Bank of Philadelphia and the former Berean Bank, now Advance Bank, are too small to make a sufficient impact, said Alston, a former school board president.
Mainstream banks are reluctant to lend to black people, Alston said. "They don't believe we have the ability to handle money."
Some years ago, even he had great difficulty getting a bank loan for a real estate project on Cecil B. Moore Avenue, he said, even though he was a retired bank executive and his nonprofit group had impeccable credit.
Though not one to cry racism over every business setback, Alston said, "That had to be part of the reason."
In the 1992 Census Bureau survey of business owners, 6.6 percent of black businesses reported obtaining a loan from a banking or commercial-lending institution - the least among minorities and half the 13.7 percent reported by businesses owned by white males.
At the Temple University Small-Business Development Center, director Eustace Kangaju finds himself tempering the ambitions of African American clients who lack capital. "We encourage them to start on a smaller scale."
Samuel J. Patterson, 44, founder of Veridyne Inc., in Broomall, is one who seemingly has made it big.
He has created an information technology firm that does $14 million in business annually, employs 90 people and has offices in three states.
But after 18 years, Patterson is frustrated that he makes virtually all of his money from government - which is mandated to hire minority contractors - and that corporate America seldom takes a look at his company.
"It has nothing to do with my prices, or the quality of service we provide," he says. Both he and a former partner have master's degrees in business administration from the Wharton School. Cream of the crop.
So what is it?
"All of it has to do with who I am. Race, pretty much," he has concluded - reluctantly, he insists. "If I was a white guy, my company would be doing $150 million today."
For more about the 95th annual NAACP Convention, coverage of the centennial of W.E.B. Du Bois’ 'The Philadelphia Negro' and other related items, go to: http://go.philly.com/naacp .
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/Contact staff writer Porus P. Cooper at 215-854-4761 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>./
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