Les Lester's Chronicle, Message Board

Les Lester's Chronicle, Message Board
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The thriving Black Businesses in the Jim Crow South

Posted by Maestro on 1/29/2025, 8:49 am

Below, a link to a fantastic Smithsonian article on Black entrepreneurs during the years of the Jim Crow South. While historians focus on The Great Migration, this article tells the story of the successful Black entrepreneurs who stayed settled in the South and owned banks, insurance agencies and retail stores. And check out the many images of their businesses. It's a shame that we know so little of these once thriving Black communities.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-black-americans-south-boldly-defied-jim-crow-build-business-empires-their-own-180984901/

Re: The thriving Black Businesses in the Jim Crow South

Posted by theone on 1/29/2025, 9:57 am, in reply to "The thriving Black Businesses in the Jim Crow South"

""It's a shame that we know so little of these once thriving Black communities"""

Thats right, just like the not well known story of Miami's first Black millionaire in the video below. Dana Albert Dorsey, a black man, was a millionaire in Miami, Fla, during Jim Crow. He was really too much, amazing how not one KKK destroyed him in Florida.

Link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE3Zivwt0wQ/?igsh=a203bnVjMzA3a3hj

Re: The thriving Black Businesses in the Jim Crow South

Posted by gm on 1/30/2025, 11:30 am, in reply to "Re: The thriving Black Businesses in the Jim Crow South"

Very depressing because there were lots of voices warning Dr King and the Civil Rights leaders about focusing too much on integration, and they turned out to be very prophetic on that score.

There is a whole generation of Black folks who know zilch about
that era of self-determination & self-sufficiency in the AA community.
The Black middle class then was much like the Asian middle class today - it was about entrepreneurship & business ownership. As a matter of fact, during that Jim Crow period AAs owned more land & real estate than today. Unbelievable!

Yea, of course, we were pushed into self-sufficiency because of apartheid etc., but still....

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