Saturday, March 23, 2013

Urban Impact -- Black-owned businesses in the state of Alabama generate just 1 percent of corporate revenue

Ever wondered the economic impact, the economic footprint of black America? The actual contributions of a group of people who earned their freedom, were unshackled from the chains of the nefarious Jim Crow, and were awarded the opportunity to advance in private and public employment far beyond their merit via government mandated racial quotas and affirmative action?

Well, in the state of Alabama, we know the answer. 

Even with the world famous Tuskegee University, black owned businesses generate just 1 percent of the corporate revenue in the state of Alabama contribute -- then again, they can't even keep a Walmart open in Tuskegee...
In fact, we can quantify the exact dollar amount black-owned businesses contribute to the economy of the state of Alabama. 

Ready for it?


One percent of corporate revenue in the state of Alabama (the state is roughly 70 percent white and 26 percent black) is generated by black-owned businesses.


Yes. 


One percent. 


Now do you understand why in the 74 percent black city of Birmingham, payday loan, title pawn, and check cashing stores are the only growth industry? [Where is today's A.G. Gaston? Black Birmingham businessman would be worth $300 million in today's money, Al.com, 3-22-13]:

Robert Kelly, founder of Birmingham-based Kelly Construction, vividly remembers the time he was asked to serve as a consultant for a large Birmingham company that wanted a more diversified work force.
“I didn’t see one person who looked like me until I walked into the board room,” said Kelly, who is black. “And that person was cleaning up.”

Half a century after the events of 1963 served as impetus for the dismantling of Jim Crow laws, African Americans still are striving to reach the pinnacles of corporate Alabama and corporate America. In Alabama, African Americans make up 26 percent of the population but own 15 percent of the state’s businesses, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
More striking, black-owned businesses in the state generate just 1 percent of corporate revenue, said Bob Dickerson, executive director of the nonprofit Birmingham Business Resource Center.
While African Americans undoubtedly have made great strides in business in the last half century and Alabama has many accomplished black executives, no one has come close to matching the success of the greatest black entrepreneur in state history, A.G. Gaston, who built his multimillion-dollar business empire under the boot heel of segregation.
Published accounts from the time indicate that Gaston was worth about $40 million, or nearly $300 million in today’s currency. He owned a bank, a business college, about a dozen funeral homes, radio stations, a construction company, an insurance company, a motel and a restaurant, among other businesses. 
Stephen Craft, dean of the Michael E. Stephens College of Business at the University of Montevallo, said the disadvantages with which black entrepreneurs are burdened in Alabama are fundamental, but not insurmountable.
If the state’s biggest corporations more actively seek out minority-owned partners in deals, he said, capital will flow back into black businesses, ultimately creating more opportunities for black entrepreneurs and leveraging a strength that has been underutilized for generations. The state’s economy as a whole would benefit, he said.
“We’ve been competing with one economic hand tied behind our back,” Craft said.
While government contracts typically include a clause mandating a level of minority participation, few businesses can survive on government work alone, Kelly said. For the black business community to advance, there must be partnerships with private industry, he said.
 Actually, black people not only don't have one economic hand tied behind their back, they have a whole army of lawyers working for them in the government - Department of Justice, Department of Labor, and the EEOC) and government-backed agencies (Minority Business Development Agency) whose sole purpose is to help create minority-owned businesses.

In fact, the White House held an "urban business forum" back in March of 2012, where one of Barack Obama's key advisors - Valerie Jarrett - praised the city of Birmingham for having :

"a strong local mayor (William Bell) who believes in helping small businesses grow and thrive, community involvement and a strong educational system."
Birmingham's almost entirely black city council banned new payday loan, title pawn, or check cashing stores from opening in 2011, and the Birmingham City School system is perhaps the worst in the nation.

During that same economic forum, Mayor Bell made it clear that the only way minority businesses can be created in Birmingham (and the state of Alabama) is via federal/state intervention 

[White House offers help for urban businesses at Birmingham forum, Birmingham News, 3-6-12]:


Bell said as mayor he is committed to giving minority businesses the assistance they need to thrive. During the forum, he announced the creation of The Build Birmingham Bonds, a program that will spend $75 million from a new bond issue to boost entrepreneurship and increase the number of minority firms involved in building infrastructure and city-led construction projects.
"We are determined to move Birmingham forward," the mayor said. "This is the beginning of making Birmingham the great city we know it can be."
Chuck Faush, Bell's chief of staff, said the Build Birmingham campaign will be a catalyst for giving minority entrepreneurs the capital and business capacity they need to be successful. Besides partnering with Seedco, a New York-based nonprofit secondary lender, he said the city program wants to work with big banks and other small secondary lenders.
Minority contractors that get work with the city often can't produce the desired results due to lack of cash or manpower, Faush said. "This program will enable minority businesses to be able to do what they say and be successful, which stimulates job growth," he said.
"One economic tied behind their back," is perhaps the best way to describe white business owners/potential entrepreneurs in not just Birmingham and Alabama, but the entire nation when you factor in the federal involvement in propping up minority businesses development -- all with the redistributed tax dollars of white tax payers.

That A.G. Gaston was able to amass a fortune by catering to the black community - during those evil days of segregation - and that not one black individual has replicated his success after the liberation of black people following the Battle of Birmingham (1963) speaks volumes to why the so-called "Magic City" is truly the "Tragic City" since the water hoses of one Bull Connor were turned off.

Recall you read about the historic Fourth Avenue black business district of Birmingham that had fallen into economic ruin following integration.
[Fourth Avenue business district, booming under segregation, still works to rebound 50 years later, Al.com, 3-17-13]:
After more than a decade of despair in the historic district, Birmingham in 1979 elected its first black mayor, Richard Arrington, and the district’s champions found their advocate. Arrington helped to create a land bank, a nonprofit holding company that could buy real estate from its white owners and then sell it to its black tenants or investors, backing the deals with low-interest loans. The same land bank was empowered to award grants in the form of rebates to new landowners who made improvements to storefronts.
Land owners in the district still can qualify for rebates of up to 20 percent of what they spend on exterior improvements. Private investment in the district has totaled $4.5 million since Urban Impact began tracking it in the 1980s, including $300,000 last year. And in its 30-year history, the land bank program has never had a bad loan.
Wow! A whopping average of $150,000 in private investments per year over the course of Urban Impact's 30-year history.

Astonishing, when you realize Urban Impact is a non-profit created with the specific task of only funding black businesses and employing black people in mind:
Urban Impact, Incorporated, was created in 1980 to assist local political and business leaders with their vision to restore the business and cultural vitality of Birmingham’s Black business district, located primarily on 4th Avenue North. Urban Impact exists to preserve the dynamic cultural significance of the Historic 4th Avenue Business District, while promoting business retention and new development opportunities in this segment of the City Center, located in Birmingham’s Civil Rights District.
What's the actual economic foot print of this government-back adventure into racial socalism/favoritism in Birmingham of Urban Impact?:


Economic Development
Urban Impact, Inc. is a technical assistance agency to the merchants and residents that comprise the Historical 4th Avenue Business District. It was assessed by the staff that for every $100,000 the City has funded Urban Impact, $1 million of investment was stimulated in the area by the merchants. During the construction of new commercial properties and the renovation of existing structures, it was determined that:
  1. More than 1,900 construction jobs were created;
  1. 203 jobs were created;
  1. 102 jobs were retained with an average of 85% minority participation during construction
The 4th Avenue Land Bank Program was instrumental in increasing minority ownership by 97 percent. 
Economic Impact Data
Investment Data *
4th Avenue Merchants$ 4,470,475
Property Owners, public & private sector
(UDAG, HUD & COB)
$28,480,000
Federal Courthouse construction$30,000,000
U.S. Office Marshal’s Office construction$10,000,000
Total Investments$72,950,475









You have to be proud of Urban Impact, making such strides in securing federal money to build new government buildings and call it "economic progress."

 Considering black people have been the majority of Birmingham's citizens since the early 1980s, does that mean Urban Impact has seen 85 percent white participation in those construction jobs? 

Of course not -- even when blacks take over a city government and become the numerical majority of the inhabitants of a city, they will always identify themselves as the minority. 

A "minority," mind you, who is responsible with only generating ONE PERCENT of the corporate revenue in the state of Alabama. 

What... what... what in the world would the proud citizens of Alabama do without the economic contributions and innovation provided by the black population? 

Urban Impact, indeed. 

23 comments:

rjp said...

Stephen Craft, dean of the Michael E. Stephens College of Business at the University of Montevallo, said the disadvantages with which black entrepreneurs are burdened in Alabama are fundamental, but not insurmountable. ..... “We’ve been competing with one economic hand tied behind our back,” Craft said.

Bullsh*t!

Minority set asides.
Minority entrepreneur networks.
Minority small business loans.
Minority Business Development Agency.
National Minority Supplier Development Council
Minority-Owned Business Assistance Program
Alabama Minority Business Development Center
8(a) Business Development Program

http://www.sba.gov/content/minority-owned-businesses


Stephen Craft is a f*cking clown. It's the white man who is fighting with one hand tied behind his back. He gets nothing.

Anonymous said...

Taxes be rayciss. Da muddahland ain't got no taxes so we don't be payin' no whitey taxes.

WeMustSecureOurFuture said...

Was this accident at the Birmingham Airport the result of a monority set-aside contractor?

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/03/one_child_dead_after_sign_coll.html#incart_big-photo

Anonymous said...

Ex New Yorker here......The reason for such a low rate of tax revenue from black business owners is because pimps and dope dealers don't pay taxes.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

Taxes be rayciss. Da muddahland ain't got no taxes so we don't be payin' no whitey taxes.

Daz righ muh-fukka! And no more taxin' gold teefs and spinners on mah caddy. Dam str8 I ain't gon' pay no got dam whitey taxes!

/lol off

Bogolyubski said...

Until folks like Stephen Craft are destroyed - completely and totally - it's only going to continue on its present path. The good professor is raking in the dollars in a cushy secure job at the local branch of the cathedral. He could very well be donating to the $PLC, ACLU, etc. (who have massive funding already), while SBPDL folks post anonymously, VDARE can barely pay expenses, etc.

Professor Craft is never going to be YT's friend. He's dedicated to applying that BRA boot to YT's face, because the cathedral says YT deserves it. Until enough white folks awaken to the fact that Professor Craft is an enemy soldier, stop believing the notions of "morality" which emanate from places like the University of Montevallo, stop going into debt to send their offspring to such indoctrination centers (which also serve as groid hunting grounds), and bring the entire rotten tower of shit down, the BRA boot will continue to be stamped into our face.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, so like many other segments of black society, black businesses contribute little and take much.

Anonymous said...

This illustrates how much more must be done to overcome the legacy of slavery and James Crow so that all African Americans can fully share the bounties of this nation that they helped to build.

Shlomo Steinberg, PhD.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, I wonder if the sign that fell on and killed a 10 year old child was installed by a minority contractor in Birmingham?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/large-airport-sign-falls-family-kills-boy/story?id=18797015#.UU5BbHChDzI

Anonymous said...


I hope you are being sarcastic

Anonymous said...

The don't pay taxes so their money is off the books. Then they qualify for EBT, TANF, WIC, and all kinds of freebies,

White Mom in Turdville

Anonymous said...

This is about Detroit, but still:

http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/4184/found_46-year-old_film_that_shows_a_crowded_detroit_from_a_chopper

Days gone by...

Caiden said...

Wow didn't have a chance to read the article yet but let's be honest, black owned businesses get set asides, probable subsidies, plus tax breaks.

Blacks have such low IQs and so lazy that they need white people to prop up their fake businesses.

Why do blacks thing they could survive without humans? I've seen on youtube one chimp claim there are pictures of 'airplanes' in some fabled negro city meaning she thinks blacks invented aircraft before humans. This is how retarded the average negro is. I can't believe whites still don't see they are subhumans.

Anonymous said...

I saw the "minority set aside" racket first hand in Cleveland, Ohio with the construction of the "Gateway Project". I was good friends with a construction manager for the project and he said that all the minority firms he saw work on the project were set up to extract money from the YT taxpayers.
He said the work was so bad much of it had to be RIPPED OUT and redone by YT contractors. Some of the minority contractors I knew personally, including a lawyer, tried to cash in on this and later went to jail and lost his law license. Different breed of cat a different breed of cat.

Anonymous said...

Gaston didn't make his money under the boot heel of segregation, he made his money because of it. Segregation offered semi-closed markets for blacks with ambition. Wikipedia, BTW, says he got his start selling lunches and loans, at 25%, to his fellow coal miners. He was a loan shark.

Anonymous said...

I believe right about now it is the correct time to mention de turrrible lebacy ub de slabery.

I'll begin the discussion:

Slabery.

Please continue.


Anonymous said...

I once read a story about a town in Alabama where the black people complained that the whitey areas received all the infrastructure improvements~ roads were paved, sidewalks were installed, streetlights existed etc and it was all maintained in good condition whereas their area was "neglected."
For me, that story was the epitomy of the black mentality i.e. "We don't pay no taxes fo' dat stuff but we's expectin' to hab ever'thang dem white peoples has!"
Naturally, the black idiots concluded that it was due to racism (while expecting white tax dollars to pay for them to have what the evil whitey's had) absent any investment of their own.
Simply put, they expect to have everything everyone else has while expecting someone else to pay for it. It's the same routine with EBT cards- "we don't earn da money to hab a steak dinner but we expects to hab it anyway! You gots to pay fo' it! I ain't eatin' off no damn dollar menu!"
The idea of earning it seems to be an alien concept. They simply observe the differences in outcome through a lens of jealousy, envy and resentment and expect others to compensate them for their failures.
They deserve nothing and are owed nothing.


Anonymous said...

Do you think that the Washington Post included hispanics in the white category to beef up numbers?

Californian said...

If all the public and private moneys spent on black business development actually paid off in thriving black businesses and communities, then there might be a point to them. But as PK again demonstrates, the moneys go down a rat hole. In the end, taxpayers have to bail out black-governed cities which have run themselves into the ground (both economically and literally, see Detroit).

It's a bad investment, but one which the law requires.

That's the dilemma. No matter how much money is spent, no matter how many programs are implemented, no matter how many government diktats are handed down from on high, blacks still can not make it work. And because of this failure, scapegoats have to be found. So white people are blamed. And then hustled for more programs. Or are victimized by black criminal violence and rioting.

I suppose we can ask why blacks can not make it work. The legacy of "racism-segregation-apartheid-oh-my?" Median IQs? Too much government? Lack of long term thinking? The liberal plantation? Who knows?

This country is long past the point where any of that matters. Every level of government is in the red. The middle class is collapsing. Too many cities have been laid waste by BRA. It ain't gonna get any better.

Blacks have to be able to contribute to an economic revival.

Will they?

Or will it be more of the downward spiral?

As the saying goes, "We pay off on results, not excuses."

(By the way, "thanks" to rjp for listing the various rackets used to finance BRA.)

rjp said...

Do you know what kills me?

Look at the numbers Urban Impact puts forth:

Economic Development
Urban Impact, Inc. is a technical assistance agency to the merchants and residents that comprise the Historical 4th Avenue Business District. It was assessed by the staff that for every $100,000 the City has funded Urban Impact, $1 million of investment was stimulated in the area by the merchants. During the construction of new commercial properties and the renovation of existing structures, it was determined that:
More than 1,900 construction jobs were created;
203 jobs were created;
102 jobs were retained with an average of 85% minority participation during construction
The 4th Avenue Land Bank Program was instrumental in increasing minority ownership by 97 percent.
Economic Impact Data
Investment Data *
4th Avenue Merchants $ 4,470,475
Property Owners, public & private sector
(UDAG, HUD & COB) $28,480,000
Federal Courthouse construction $30,000,000
U.S. Office Marshal’s Office construction $10,000,000
Total Investments $72,950,475


Urban Impact is taking credit for:

Federal Courthouse construction $30,000,000
U.S. Office Marshal’s Office construction $10,000,000

$40,000,000 of the total "investment" of $72,950,475 (55%) was Federal government construction projects that would likely not have been necessary in Whitopia, but were deemed necessary all across America anyways back in the 1990s because of one incident, OKC.

Let it be said that black people claiming credit for a necessary increase in the judicial and law enforcement presence in America is the legacy of black people.

rjp said...

You know, based on the Occupy Wall Street concept, it could be said that niggers are the 1%.

They literally contribute 1% to the betterment of the state of Alabama.

26 percent of the population owns 15 percent of the state’s businesses yet contribute only 1% to the economy.

This is stuff out of comic books.

Either these are the shittiest run businesses in the country, or a bunch of money is going straight into the owner's pocket, no taxes paid.

World_War_Me said...

Anonymous @ March 23, 2013 at 4:59 PM said: "Hmmm, I wonder if the sign that fell on and killed a 10 year old child was installed by a minority contractor in Birmingham?"

I live 50 miles south from Birmingham, and when I saw this on the local news, I thought the exact same thing!

Anonymous said...

Typical white people, "they want our tax dollars to support their business" how the fuck did America came to be? Because white people worked so hard, please don't make me laugh. You assholes used slavery to create an entire system and had hundreds of years to perfect that system and now you want us to believe that we have an equal chance at the "American dream". When have black people ever made laws to discriminate against white people? You all sound crazy. I wish death upon all you racist bastards for your blatant acts against people of color. There are just as many good, hardworking black people as there are white if not more and your lack of morals is unbelievable. All of you can kill yourselves.