A Business Philosophy

Abstract

Running like a theme through these pages is the dilemma of the Negro business man who as a Negro disapproves of racial segregation but as a business man has a vested interest in segregation because it creates a convenient market for his goods and services. This dilemma has led to confusion in the thinking of business people on the importance of race as an aggravating factor in the problems of Negro business and has created conflicting opinions on the broad objectives of Negro business. Among other things it has led to proposals that Negroes should establish a separate and self-sufficient Negro economy. But Negro business cannot, with advantage to itself and to the Negro race, operate as an economic shut-in, because “to adopt economic segregation as a means of solving the economic problems of Negroes bears on its very face g the stamp of futility.”1 Neither can Negro business operate as an economic chameleon, now separate, then semi-separate, and again integrated. The conflicting objectives of such a role can but lead to greater confusion in the mind of the already perplexed Negro business man. Thus the Negro business man, as he faces the future, must decide upon the role that Negro business is to play in the general American economy.