Content area
Full text
ABSTRACT
The African American is met daily by challenges to the more full development of their economic potentials. These challenges are presented in many forms such as capital inadequacy, market share size, historical antecedents, national economic health, and white racism. For many urban communities, these factors are critical to the full development opportunities of African Americans. In this study, the authors investigated those factors that are most essential in determining the potential for African American economic development in Jackson, Mississippi. The findings demonstrate that capital, opportunity, and race are critical determinants. Research methodology employed interviews, secondary published sources, and census information.
INTRODUCTION
Every facet of the American scene is concerned about economic development. As the nation engages the twenty-first century, the economic welfare of all citizens increases in attention. Experiencing the peaks and toughs of economic cycles, cities and individuals have become more watchful of the impacts of economic development. State governments have created economic development policies and administrative offices to attract development, expand existing businesses, and educated citizens for more competitive jobs. All cities have as a central focus of their comprehensive plans economic development proposals that are designed to make local markets favorably competitive with area communities. As the nation grays, senior citizens demand more security to ensure a safe, comfortable elderly retirement. Women will become the majority of the American work force early in the new century. With the increase in immigrants from the South and Asia, tensions for jobs and business ownership for low paid, semi-skilled jobs and neighborhood businesses ownership have serious local consequences. Ethnic and racial groups also have been central in the development of the American capitalist enterprise. No less so has the African American community been concerned about economic development; especially since as Americans, they have experienced the greatest barriers to individual and group development.
It was the cities that fueled most the economic development spirit and early efforts of economic development in the nation. In colonial times, it was the cities that competed for new businesses. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, again cities were in the forefront leading the production of products and employment of labor. In the middle and latter part of the twentieth century, cities continued their bulwark of incentives...