Black Owned: A Documentary About Small Business and Community

Published by admin on

The Youth Visions at Chatham Academy After School Matters program created a documentary about the black-owned businesses on 75th street in Chicago.Featured businesses include Soul Vegetarian Restaurant, Brown Sugar Bakery, Authentic Cooking Catering and KMT Health Food Stores.

Be sure to follow and like us!

2 Comments

Orlando Coombs · February 20, 2017 at 1:34 PM

I think that this is amazing. I’m glad to see that 63 of the 75 businesses on 75th street are black owned, that’s powerful. Chicago has a lot of black owned businesses despite many problems in the community. Most of these black owned businesses in Chicago on 75th street have been there for decades. And then Bronzeville is another hub of black owned businesses in Chicago. Chinese got Chinatown, Greeks got Greektown, East Indians got Indiantown, Russians got Ukrainian Village, Mexicans got Little Village, and we got Bronzeville. Over the last number of years there has been a resurgence in black entrepreneurship in Chicago. But the problem is, the majority of these businesses are restaurants, bakeries, barbershops, greasy spoons, and hair salons. We need to get beyond that. We need more African Americans in technology businesses, oil and petroleum businesses, natural gas and green energy, structural engineering, herbal medicines, medicinal marijuana, organic farming, and private schools. Yes, private schools as an alternative to the public school system that’s failing black children miserably. I wanna see black folks in Chicago and across America doing all the above and more. And don’t tell me that black folks can’t do it and don’t have the resources cause we already got black people doing it. Technology businesses: Worldwide Technologies in St Louis, the top black owned business in America for about 10 years in a row. Oil and Petroleum: There is an Ethiopian brother who owns over 100 gas stations in the DMV and New York area. Natural Gas and Green Energy: There is a black owned biotech firm in Fresno, California doing that now. Structural Engineering: Moody Construction in Columbus Ohio doing that now. Atlanta got tons of them. Herbal Medicines and Marijuana I don’t know of any black companies involved in that but I know some are out there and I’ll get back to y’all on that. Organic Farming: Afrikatown in Oakland and I know of several others around the country doing that, black people doing that. Private Schools: There are some black private schools in America, a few of them in Los Angeles, DC, Baltimore, and a few in Northern California. But it needs to be more, much more. There are 2.6 million black owned businesses in America today. There needs to be 46 million or more, one black owned business for every black person in America. Cause Asians got more businesses per capital than every other cultural or ethnic group in America, 10 percent of Asians in America are in business, Chicago’s Chinatown got 10 banks, 70 restaurants, and countless other businesses. You couldn’t open up a business there in Chinatown cause them cats would buy from you, you wouldn’t last two weeks. And on top of that, they wouldn’t even hire y’all, because they don’t know you,don’t wanna know you. And y’all are some damn fools for continuing to let them come in your neighborhood and take all your dollars. Then y’all sit there crying and whining like a bunch of dogs whimpering on a nail, crying but ain’t doing shit about it. I don’t feel sorry for y’all. Who you give your money too is who you give your power too. You can keep giving all your power to those immigrants from wherever you don’t like you, don’t respect you, and won’t give you a job when your current job lets your ass go and keep bitchin and crying or you can start supporting more of your own people’s businesses, circulating your dollars, and building up your community. But if you choose the latter, I don’t wanna hear your bitchin.

Orlando Coombs · February 20, 2017 at 2:02 PM

KMT Health Food Store, I hope y’all supporting that.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *