Why Do Government Pacts Escape Blacks

By William Reed

Too often, African Americans are undervalued, underestimated and marginalized.  Ironically, this mindset exists even among ourselves.

Big City governments generate over $240 billion in goods and services contracts each year.  Most of the blacks elected to head major municipalities the past 40 years have valued personal political power more than the economic empowerment of African American communities and businesspeople.  Less than 7 percent of the $500 billion spent each year in federal and local government contracts go to minority- and women-owned businesses.  Black-led local governments spend government budgets with the same people, putting blacks at the margins for contracts that could generate cash flow and jobs in their neighborhoods.

Maynard Jackson set the standard among black Mayors in 1974 when he instituted a “controversial” affirmative action program to elevate the percentage of city contracts awarded to minorities in Atlanta to 38.6 percent.  His leadership in a joint venture program brought together white and minority-owned firms to build and staff Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport project.  Jackson’s mayoral administration built the biggest terminal building complex in the world, ahead of schedule, within budget, and simultaneously rewrote book on affirmative action.  Jackson’s airport ventures produced 25 new black millionaires with tens of thousands of employees.

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams is head of another initiative setting standards for our “special interest”.  When Williams’ government authorized building of the new Washington Convention Center, it stipulated that 35 percent of vendors in the $1 billion project be minorities.  At completion, almost $290 million of the center’s contracts went to local and minority-owned businesses.  “We’re about jobs and bringing business to D.C.,” comments Lewis Dawley III, the African American CEO of the Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA).  Williams says: “The use of small and minority businesses symbolizes the commitment of our city to move forward together.”

Billions of dollars are at play in government contracting, as black-run governments to utilize the same suppliers decade after decade.  Purchasers still turn to companies they’ve always worked with, rather than search out new vendors.  Education and introductions are important to help blacks grab greater shares of government business.  An organization in Washington, the Minority Business Coalition (MBC), monitors city programs to increase amounts of procurement dollars going to local, small and minority entrepreneurs.  Similar to business coalitions that brought millions of Hartsfield Airport dollars to Atlanta African Americans, the MBC helped the WCCA connect with D.C.’s predominately black population’s businesses and civic and community leaders throughout the project.  The WCCA says: “In order to ensure that we assisted small businesses in every way possible, we partnered with the MBC to provide the education and information local businesspeople needed to be part of the project.”

Atlanta and D.C.’s actions toward black economic development point up a question for blacks who say voting is important: Should you electing African Americans that don’t “bring home the bacon”?  As major local project go on across the country; do you know what part of this “big ticket” business is going to the black population in those municipalities?  People seeking economic empowerment for their communities must build programs and alliances and break down barriers for blacks in government processes and purchases. 

QUICK REFERENCE

Organizations successful in government procurement and advocacy are: The National Black Chamber of Commerce, 1350 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 825, Washington, DC 20036 – 202.466.6888; and Minority Business Coalition, 6230 3rd Street, N.W., Suite 6, Washington, D.C. 20011 – 202.829.3300.