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Is entrepreneurship a key for exiting poverty for many African Americans?
During the inaugural of Black Business Month in August, participating consumers will patronize an African-American-owned business each day and 15 governors will single out Distinguished Black Businesses in their states for special honors.
At least they will if John William Templeton has anything to say about it. Templeton, founder of BlackMoney.com, a Web site that reports on business equity for African-Americans, told UPI that he started the month to reduce the "black business blind spot" by bringing the African-American community's attention to the importance of business.
But there seems to be a Black Business Month blind spot, too. So far Nevada is the only state to issue a proclamation declaring the month, although Templeton told UPI that he was working on getting proclamations from Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana.
Templeton said he is making progress in promoting the month, however. He is planning to hold an "innovation contest" this month with 2,400 African-American-owned information technology firms, with the winners to be recommended for financial donations.
BlackMoney.com will publish a list of 31 Exemplary Black Businesses this month, and Templeton is contacting fifteen governors whose states were identified as friendly to black business to nominate Distinguished Black Businesses to be featured as well.
BookCart Activity: Our model BookCart collection includes a new BookCart titled "Black Business and Entrepreneurship." The BookCart includes many current articles as well as websites that focus on the problems and promise of Black capitalism as a means of more African Americans moving into the middle class in the U.S.
You can copy this BookCart (learn how) and nearly 600 other models from the ProQuest collection.
Click on ProQuest Carts > SS-Economics and Business > Black Business and Entrepreneurship. This and other ProQuest models contains essential questions for critical thinking that help students resolve real life issues by combining selected articles and websites with guided critical thinking and writing.
History Study Center Activity: The lack of a significant presence of Black Enterprises in the U.S. can be attributed to the unique and continuing methods of discrimination against African Americans.
The gap in education resources and quality and the impact of welfare in the disintegration of many families has in many ways deterred African Americans from this significant strategy in achieving greater wealth and entry into the middle class. Learning more about the current struggles of African Americans can help students to understand why there isn't more Black Enterprise, and how that can change for the positive in the future.
Type "Black Power: Race and race relations 1968-" in the Search box and click GO. Students should select three resources that address two of the following: education, voting, economic opportunity, civil rights.
Students should answer the following essential questions in about 200-250 words:
- What are some of the important factors in starting a business?
- What advantages would other Americans have to start businesses that many African Americans lack?
- How would the type of discrimination you selected impact the initiative to start a Black business?
- What type of resources and support would African Americans need to start small businesses?
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