The Final Call

A weekend of Buying Black and Building Black!

By Final Call News | Last updated: Feb 9, 2016 - 8:39:11 PM

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CHICAGO—The Chicago Justice Or Else! Local Organizing Committee put together a Saturday night of music, culture and capital at Salaam Restaurant. The evening at the Nation of Islam restaurant included music, song, hip hop and a buyers’ bazaar and food as part of the effort to Live Black, Be Black, Buy Black, Love Black in rebuilding the Black community. The Jan. 30 event allowed for a wide variety of often impromptu performances with a lively spirit of love and unity.

The next day, dozens of Black business owners, entrepreneurs and vendors filled the grand ball room at Salaam Restaurant for a Buy Black Expo giving Chicago residents the opportunity to support Black businesses and learn about economic empowerment. Sponsored by Bean Soup Times, Afrika Enterprises Consulting and P.R., BRIJ Fund and TheBlackMall.com, it was an afternoon and evening full of comradery, valuable information and networking opportunities. The program also included: vendor promos, presentations on generational wealth building, real estate ownership and investment and information on social entrepreneurism!

Various ‘Buy Black’, ‘Support Black Business’ movements are gaining momentum nationwide. Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan has also called for Blacks to increase patronage and support of Black-owned businesses. 

“Did you know six cents of every dollar is all we spend with Black Businesses”? he pointed out during a lecture titled, “How Blacks Became a Consumer Nation: What We Must Do To Change and Why”.  According to one study made by the Gazelle Index, a national quarterly survey of CEOs of high performing small businesses and businesses owned by diverse groups, if Blacks double what they spend to 12 cents, that alone would create nearly 600,000 additional jobs for Black workers, and would reduce the Black unemployment rate by more than three points (from 13.8 percent to 10.6 percent), the Minister explained. “Don’t tell me we don’t have the power.  We just have never used it wisely.”

Photos by Haroon Rajaee and Richard B. Muhammad