Why Do Black Businesses Fail?

1. Watch video clips about Attorney Maggie Anderson’s year of striving to only buy black products. “My Black Year” covered on PBS News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77j_lB8TXig According to the clip(s), why aren’t there many businesses in African-American neighborhoods? And why, according to the clip(s) do they fail? 2. Why do you think that African-Americans are not that successful? Why did I show you this clip to start the course? The name of this course is called The Legal Environments of Business. The law of “separate but equal” and then our efforts at integration help to define who we are. And who are we? Some would say that African-Americans are afraid to buy from other African-Americans, and perhaps justifiably. And some would say that mainstream business, financial, and legal communities establish and ratify those notions of African-American inferiority. We are going to learn about the legal process partly through the lenses how we got here. Feel free to explore these other videos and Attorney Maggie Anderson’s book: Maggie Anderson at TedGrandRapids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFBEoIQutSc Maggie at the Beginning of the Experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XhZD1o_vNg Anderson, Maggie, Our Black Year: One Family’s Quest to Buy Black in America’s Racially Divided Economy, USA, PublicAffairs: 2013.