The Empowerment Experiment

The Empowerment Experiment (formerly the Ebony Experiment), was co-founded by John and Maggie Anderson of Oak Park, Illinois. Steven Rogers, director of the Kellogg Entrepreneurial Practice Center at Northwestern University's Graduate School of Management, serves as an Executive Advisor to the experiment, which is a year-long study designed to find out what happens when people buy things only from black owned businesses.[1]

Some participants who are committed to this movement have been willing to drive substantially longer distances than what they had driven before the movement started, in order to purchase goods from black owned businesses.[2] Directories such as The Internet Black Pages, Support Black Owned, and Black Business Women Online make it possible to purchase black goods online.

Praise

Lawrence Hamer, associate professor of marketing at DePaul University, praised the experiment as "brave and courageous," and said the rationale for it was "exactly right."[2]

James E. Clingman, who writes frequently about African-American economic empowerment, and also teaches a class on black entrepreneurship at the University of Cincinnati, said, "I'd rather have more black businesses than black politicians."[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Their year of buying black, Chicago Sun Times, December 20, 2008.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Oak Park couple travel far and wide to buy only from black-owned businesses, The Chicago Tribune, March 9, 2009

External links