Black business can learn from gay entrepreneurs

This was an interesting column from Laura Washington in today's Sun-Times. She says that the black community can learn a little something from the role of business in gay activism. Well the gay community certainly has been active and vocal although I'll be honest when I say that I may not always agree with them. I will not get into that here.

I still like this column though. Washington starts with the recent Gay Pride parade and the attention it has gotten as well as the people who attend or on floats in the parade then ties it in with how blacks should learn from this. Check this out...

Speaking of money, the gay pride movement is a model for African-American activism.

Indeed, the Pride Parade is an annual showcase of the ferocious flexing of gay economic muscle. It demonstrates the ability of gay leadership to turn a somewhat apolitical constituency into a consequential force.

Art Johnston is an owner of Sidetrack, one of the nation's biggest gay watering holes. Johnston, a major donor to gay causes, says his business community has been a potent force in pushing for rights for their patrons.

It started in the 1970s in gay bars.

"During the period of AIDS, we had to rely on each other because no one else was paying attention," he recalls. Members of the neighborhood's Tavern Guild "stood in [bar] doors with tin cups" and helped raise $200,000 for a community center on North Sheffield.

"There is no question that gay-owned businesses are the critical heart" of funding gay-centered civil rights groups and nonprofits, Johnston said. Groups like Open Hand, which serves AIDS patients, and activist groups like Equality Illinois and ACT-UP were nourished by the largess of gay entrepreneurs, he notes, by "paying the bills and keeping the doors open."

It's a model that should be marketed in America's African diaspora. Black businesses were part of the 1960s civil rights struggles, but they were overshadowed by the preachers and activists. We have a lot to learn from gays. For decades, Chicago's Boys Town has been an engine for civil rights.

Chicago's Bronzeville offers the same promise. Bronzeville, historically the city's epicenter of black cultural, economic and political empowerment, has been to Chicago what Harlem is to New York City. According to a recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau, Chicago is second only to New York when it comes to black business ownership.

Chicago is home to 39,424 African-American-owned firms. After all, it's black-owned businesses who hire black workers. The time is right for Bronzeville to re-emerge as a black mecca.

I've driven through the Bronzeville neighborhood. The real estate will prove to be too expensive at some point. It would be nice if the well to do blacks could come back and reclaim that area and be apart of the emerging gentification. Perhaps it should again become a black mecca. Most importantly we won't lose a piece of black history to those who might not care as much about it.