This book surveys historic initiatives supported by American presidents to help African Americans’ quest to participate fully in the American economy. It has been widely assumed that before President Richard Nixon came to office in 1969 seeking to implement his “black capitalism” policy initiative, the U.S. government had demonstrated little or no interest in the affairs of African American businesspeople, a belief that has been reinforced by much of the scholarship related to black business enterprise.²

It is indeed true that for most of American history, governmental bodies (local, state, and national), have not supported black business development. It is...

It is widely assumed that President Richard Nixon’s black capitalism initiative represented the first time that the U.S. government had expressed any interest in assisting African American entrepreneurs.¹ While Nixon’s domestic agenda for black America received widespread publicity and generated considerable discussion and analysis, the evidence indicates that the government’s interest in promoting black business development actually began during the Coolidge administration. Appropriately, the government agency then in charge of this activity was the Commerce Department. Beginning with the appointment of James A. (“Billboard”) Jackson in November 1927, the Commerce Department’s Division of Negro Affairs established the precedent for later...

Notwithstanding the historical significance of James A. Jackson, Eugene Kinckle Jones, and Charles E. Hall, Emmer M. Lancaster was arguably the most important head of the Commerce Department’s Division of Negro Affairs. Lancaster, born on April 7, 1898, in Akron, Ohio, was a lawyer whose background included serving as president of the Akron chapter of the NAACP from 1931 to 1937.¹ His direct involvement with the African American struggle for equality seemingly influenced his actions as the Commerce Department’s adviser on Negro affairs. As his predecessors had done, Lancaster provided black businesspeople with information to help their enterprises grow. In...

Most accounts of the early to mid-1960s related to African American history focus on blacks’ quest for civil rights.¹ Traditionally, this period’s civil rights movement is associated with blacks’ multifaceted battle for unfettered access to public accommodations, employment opportunities, and the voting booth. Then as the decade progressed, the federal government became an increasingly active supporter. While this analysis is basically correct, the relationship between African Americans and the federal government at this time was much more complex. For example, when this period is viewed through the lens of black business and black business development, we can clearly see the...

Richard M. Nixon is generally credited with introducing the notion of black capitalism into the nation’s vocabulary during his 1968 presidential campaign. However, the chief Democratic candidates for the presidency that year, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, had an equally great interest in black economic development. In any case, during the 1968 campaign, the Democratic Party had a variety of opinions as to how the party’s interest in promoting black entrepreneurship should be portrayed. The SBA administrator, Howard J. Samuels, led an extremely ambitious and high-profile effort known as “Project OWN.” Other prominent Democrats suggested...

One of the most turbulent periods in American history occurred in 1968. Besides the growing internal discord related to the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam as well as increasing racial polarization, Americans during this fateful year were being asked to elect a new president. In this setting, candidate Richard Nixon used his “Southern strategy,” which included the use of such racially charged code words as “law and order,” to elicit support from conservative whites. Even so, the “Machiavellian” Nixon simultaneously and secretly conferred with noted black power advocates Floyd McKissick and Roy Innis to help construct his black capitalism initiative....

On March 5, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon signed executive order 11458, which created the Office of Minority Business Enterprise (OMBE) and thus institutionalized his black capitalism campaign slogan.¹ Although OMBE’s subsequent performance on behalf of black and other nonwhite entrepreneurs generated decidedly mixed reviews,² between 1969 and 1972 an explosion of published works related to black capitalism appeared in scholarly journals, business periodicals, and mainstream magazines.³ While many of these publications have gathered dust in recent years,The Review of Black Political EconomyandBlack Enterprisemagazine, both begun in 1970 (during the heyday of black capitalism), remain vital...

Richard Nixon successfully used black capitalism to help defuse domestic urban unrest during his presidency, but his handling of the Watergate Affair was far less skillful. Nonetheless, even though Nixon ultimately left the White House in disgrace on August 8, 1974, his black capitalism initiative remained alive and well. In fact, Gerald R. Ford, Nixon’s successor, continued helping black entrepreneurs in order to attract African American voter support in the presidential election of 1976. Ford’s efforts to reach African American voters were initially coordinated by his chief African American aide, Stanley S. Scott. Scott, who held the position of special...

Jimmy Carter, as had Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, gave high priority to minority business enterprise. Some of the accomplishments of his administration in this realm were doubling federal procurement with minority firms; public law 95-507, which directed businesses that received federal supply and service contracts of more than $500,000 or received construction contracts of more than $1 million to submit subcontracting plans that included “economically disadvantaged businesses”; expanding the Department of Transportation’s Minority Business Resource Center (MBRC), which helped African American and other nonwhite businesses profit from the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976; and enhancing and...

After winning the presidential election of 1980, Ronald Reagan, who ran on a platform of diminishing the role of government in the lives of the American people, moved quickly to dismantle the vestiges of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Nevertheless, his administration’s policy toward black capitalism reveals a more complex scenario. Because of Reagan’s belief in the efficacy of the free-enterprise system, preexisting programs to assist black entrepreneurs remained intact. In fact, in a December 1982 speech announcing a $22 billion plan supporting minority-owned businesses, Reagan announced that during the rest of his administration, the first week in October would be...