Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in America’s Racially Divided Economy

” In the Asian American community a dollar circulates for 28 days, in the Jewish community a dollar circulates for 19 days, In the black community a dollar is gone in hours.”

“We were called racists, the N word, go back to Africa, horrible things said about my children and my family, horrible indictments on black people, saying that the reasons our businesses fail are because we’re not cut out to be entrepreneurs and we should just be happy with where we are in America.”

Maggie and John Anderson were successful African American professionals raising two daughters in a tiny suburb of Chicago. But they felt uneasy over their good fortune. Most African Americans live in economically starved neighborhoods. Black wealth is about one tenth of white wealth, and black businesses lag behind businesses of all other racial groups in every measure of success. One problem is that black consumers—unlike consumers of other ethnicities— choose not to support black-owned businesses. At the same time, most of the businesses in their communities are owned by outsiders.

(Be apart of the Empowerment Experiment, click on the following link, buy the book: Our Black Year at http://eefortomorrow.com/EE_Book.html)

On January 1, 2009 the Andersons embarked on a year-long public pledge to “buy black.” They thought that by taking a stand, the black community would be mobilized to exert its economic might. They thought that by exposing the issues, Americans of all races would see that economically empowering black neighborhoods benefits society as a whole. Instead, blacks refused to support their own, and others condemned their experiment. Drawing on economic research and social history as well as her personal story, Maggie Anderson shows why the black economy continues to suffer and issues a call to action to all of us to do our part to reverse this trend.

Click on the link below to  listen to Maggie Anderson tell her families experience on thier year of buying black in an interview with NPR’s Michelle Martin (  Great interview, great insight!):

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=147193252&m=147193245

More with Maggie Anderson:

Be apart of the Empowerment Experiment, click on the following link:  http://eefortomorrow.com/EE_Home.html

Puchase thebook “Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in America’s Racially Divided Economy”  today at :http://eefortomorrow.com/EE_Book.html

JSAIS: Thanks to the Anderson family for their commitment to our  community.  Awareness induces change……..Thank you.

Fam please post a list of all the black owned businesses in your community, be sure to include the city and state.  Thank you.

WAKE UP!