Martin Looter King, Aunt Jamima got cancelled, how far we have come, an accurate George Floyd statue, what a Jamaican thinks of American blacks and more race memes for Martin Luther King Day!
Many people were still farming even in 1960 albeit many in the South might have been sharecroppers or tenant farmers... There probably would have been black owned grocers etc catering to the black community before Walmart, Amazon etc plus immigrants took over...
"In the 1960s" refers in particular to the period after the Civil Rights Act (no more segregation). the decline of black-owned businesses has been mentioned elsewhere (social history sites), but this might be a start: 'The last thirty years [....] have brought the wholesale collapse of black-owned independent businesses and financial institutions that once anchored black communities across the country....' - https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/03/19/the-decline-of-black-business/
It's an interesting article, but couldn't you remove "black-owned" from your last sentence and still have an accurate description of how things have developed over the past century? The consolidation of all kinds of businesses has helped make a lot of products and services affordable, but certainly has had a cost in reducing the number of independent operators. Have black people been disproportionately affected? And weren't a lot of those small-scale black-owned businesses viable only because colorless people in many cases didn't want black patronage? I really don't know the answer, but the idea that 40% of black adults "had their own businesses" (except maybe in farming areas) is curious.
very good questions. there's been a visible decline in the number of small-scale, independent businesses, the friendly neighbourhood mom-and-pop stores as well as the bakeries, butchers, green-grocers, and so on, many being taken over by big retail chains. 'black-owned' businesses might have been part of that too, equally unable to compete with the big supermarkets. heck, even the local post-office and public libraries have all but disappeared and who can still remember the tobacconist or the milkman.....
"In the 1960s 40% of blacks had their own business."
That's a curious assertion that needs some documentation. Anybody want to go look up the census data?
Many people were still farming even in 1960 albeit many in the South might have been sharecroppers or tenant farmers... There probably would have been black owned grocers etc catering to the black community before Walmart, Amazon etc plus immigrants took over...
"In the 1960s" refers in particular to the period after the Civil Rights Act (no more segregation). the decline of black-owned businesses has been mentioned elsewhere (social history sites), but this might be a start: 'The last thirty years [....] have brought the wholesale collapse of black-owned independent businesses and financial institutions that once anchored black communities across the country....' - https://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/03/19/the-decline-of-black-business/
It's an interesting article, but couldn't you remove "black-owned" from your last sentence and still have an accurate description of how things have developed over the past century? The consolidation of all kinds of businesses has helped make a lot of products and services affordable, but certainly has had a cost in reducing the number of independent operators. Have black people been disproportionately affected? And weren't a lot of those small-scale black-owned businesses viable only because colorless people in many cases didn't want black patronage? I really don't know the answer, but the idea that 40% of black adults "had their own businesses" (except maybe in farming areas) is curious.
very good questions. there's been a visible decline in the number of small-scale, independent businesses, the friendly neighbourhood mom-and-pop stores as well as the bakeries, butchers, green-grocers, and so on, many being taken over by big retail chains. 'black-owned' businesses might have been part of that too, equally unable to compete with the big supermarkets. heck, even the local post-office and public libraries have all but disappeared and who can still remember the tobacconist or the milkman.....