Article by:
Shaundell Newsome
“One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of
material prosperity.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
According to the Small Business Administration Black Entrepreneurship is rising across the country. Black businesses that employ America’s workforce is slightly increasing from previous years. This is progress towards Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Dream” from his famous speech on the steps of the nation’s Capital in 1963.
Home ownership and entrepreneurship are two ways that African Americans can eradicate poverty and forever change the course of wealth in their family. We are not just talking about money. We are talking about a mindset. The process of homeownership forces a person to think about credit, cash, banking, and assets. This same process is a prerequisite for success as a small business. In fact, I would argue that the better a person gets at the home buying and real estate game, the better they will be at building capacity with a company to become an employer. Why is being an employer more advantageous to Black economic development than simply owning a sole proprietorship? Employers have a better advantage when it comes to government contracting opportunities. Employers develop a workforce that spends money in the community. Employers typically breed other entrepreneurs to build businesses because of the mentorship provided in small businesses with employees. It’s more intimate. The budding entrepreneurs in small companies can blossom by experiencing and shadowing the owner. All these factors have been true for my firm, Sumnu Marketing for the past seventeen years.
In 2018, Black owners in the United States owned 3,239,551 businesses. Black-owned businesses employed 1,188,819 workers or approximately 3.6% of Black businesses were employers. Currently there are over 26,000 Black owned small businesses in Nevada with only 820 as employers. That’s approximately 3.2% of Black owned companies employing Nevadans.
The bottom line is that if African Americans want to participate in the “vast ocean of material prosperity” we must “build businesses that build our community” as former Urban Chamber of Commerce Las Vegas President, Ken Evans would say.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Shaundell Newsome is a three-time SBA Nevada award winner in three different decades. He’s the founder and Visionary for Sumnu Marketing, SBA Nevada Family-Owned Small Business of the Year 2015. He continues to serve on board and committees for economic development and small business interests nationally and locally.