National Negro Business League
The National Negro Business League (NNBL) was an American organization founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900 by Booker T. Washington, with the support of Andrew Carnegie. The mission and main goal of the National Negro Business League was "to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro." It was recognized as "composed of negro men and women who have achieved success along business lines".[1]
in 1966, the National Negro Business League was renamed and reincorporated in Washington D.C. as the National Business League.
Organizational history
Establishment
The National Negro Business League (NNBL) was established in Boston, Massachusetts in 1900 by Booker T. Washington. The effort was supported by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
The organization was formally incorporated in 1901 in New York, and established 320 chapters across the United States. In May of 1913, a respected Black journalist, Ralph Waldo Tyler was elected as the first National Organizer of the NNBL. Tyler's role was to travel throughout the Southern United States and document the state of negro businesses and encourage enrollment in the NNBL [1].
The League included Negro small- business owners, doctors, farmers, other professionals, craftsmen, etc. Its goal was to allow business to put economic development at the forefront of getting African-American equality in the United States. Booker T. Washington felt that there was a need for African Americans to build an economic network and allow that to be a catalyst for change and social improvement. Also, extant press releases indicate that "the League organized the National Negro Business Service to 'help . . the Negro business men of the country solve their merchandising and advertising problems,' promoted advertising in Negro newspapers and magazines, and 'influenced . . . national advertisers to use Negro publications in reaching this importantly valuable group of people with its tremendous purchasing power.'"[2]
Footnotes
Further reading
- Kenneth Hamilton (ed.), A Guide to the Records of the National Negro Business League. Bethesda, MD: University Publications of America, 1995.
- National Negro Business League, Proceedings of the National Negro Business League: Its First Meeting, Held in Boston, Massachusetts, August 23 and 24, 1900. Boston: J.E. Hamm, Publisher, 1901.
- Kevern J. Verney, The Art of the Possible: Booker T. Washington and Black Leadership in the United States, 1881-1925. New York: Routledge, 2002.
- Cary D. Wintz (ed.), African American Political Thought, 1890-1930: Washington, DuBois, Garvey, and Randolph. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1996.
External links
- Joseph Bernardo, "National Negro Business League (1900 - )," Black Past, www.blackpast.org/
- Library of Congress, "National Negro Business League," American Memory, www.memory.loc.gov/
- Richard Wormer, "National Negro Business League," The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow: Jim Crow Stories, www.pbs.org/
