Last week, I was trying to make last minute dinner reservations for New Year’s Eve. It was a challenge because I wanted to eat close to Downtown. The only openings I could find were very early like 4 or 5 p.m. This is truly the night eating places and clubs can make a lot of money. After making dozens of phone calls, I got the bright idea that I wanted to eat at a Black restaurant. I called Carmi and they told me they were closing early. That surprised me, so I moved on and ended up at a Station Square restaurant that was not crowded at all.
This little episode made me think about the recent instructions of a Black talk show host on Sirius XM. The host said for Black people to patronize Black businesses. Tell me how to do that in Pittsburgh or in most major cities. You might be able to go to a specialty store to buy records, African artifacts or Shea butter, but if you want to shop and buy Black for necessities like toilet paper and paper towels, where do you go?
This is the same issue we talked about on my talk show from 1994 to 1997. I’m not trying to come down on Black storeowners; I’m just trying to figure out the same thing that I tried to figure out 20 years ago. Case in point, a friend of mine tried to go to a Black-owned store in the Strip District right after Christmas. All the other businesses were open and booming, but when she got to the Black-owned store the doors were locked and no hours were posted in the window.
Those are the things that bother me. Irregular hours, no phone listing and, in some cases, no idea of how to run a business. We always romanticize the Black-owned businesses of yesteryear. You know, those businesses that thrived because we were not allowed to go anywhere else. Right now I’m reading “The Book of Luke” by Luther Campbell. He was really a good businessman, mostly self-taught and he gave his spin on Black businesses like this, “I was breaking the rules of how business worked. Up until that time, Black-owned businesses were allowed to thrive in America as long as they stayed in their place. Black-owned beauty-care companies were allowed to sell beauty products, but only to Blacks. A Black man could own a hotel that served Blacks, but only in Overtown or Harlem. John H. Johnson could print Ebony and Jet for Black readers. But Black companies didn’t serve Whites and they didn’t take business away from Whites: that wasn’t allowed especially in the music industry.”
Here, Campbell is talking about his clubs in Miami and when his records started to cross over to a White audience. Campbell was way more than a part of 2 Live Crew.
I want to buy Black, but I want to buy the things I need and I want good Black restaurants. Chitterlings and champagne anyone?
(Email the columnist at debbienorrell@aol.com)
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