Mississippi - Greenville: Harry Bowie and Owen H. Brooks Interviewees [Part 1]

1990-08-23

Dent, Thomas C.

Tom Dent interviews Harry Bowie and Owen H. Clark in Greenville, Mississippi. They talk about Black entrepreneurs. One of the interviewees states that small business owners should work together to buy their goods wholesale. He uses the Vietnamese community as an example of a community with a more successful method of small businesses ownership. Dent reminds the interviewee that Blacks have been very successful in the funeral and insurance businesses. He questions if perhaps racism is still the underlying factor to the failure of Black businesses in certain sectors. Perhaps, Dent muses, Blacks are more successful in markets that Whites do not feel like challenging them. One of the interviewees questions why Asian populations tend to run the corner stores in Black communities. They believe it might be because the Black communities lack the capital, the collective/family mindset and the confidence to get into these markets. They talk about the need to properly invest money in order to further the community and the individual. They brainstorm ways to solve these problems including the creation of co-ops and mandatory savings accounts.

The recording does not have an introduction and the sound quality is not as good as most of the other tapes. The interview was recorded in a restaurant with noises in the background.

African Americans
Business people
Civil rights
Economics
Race and Business

Bowie, Harry
Dent, Thomas C.

Greenville (Ms.)

Tulane University Digital Library

eng

sound recording

DSJ.152.BBrooks.823199011

audiocassette

00:31:21

Box 152, Item 1, Side 1, Tom Dent collection, Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana

www.amistadresearchcenter.org

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