
          Black Women's Economic Development Project
          By Caver, CarolynCarolyn Caver
          Vol. 9, No. 2, 1987, pp. 15-16
          
          One black_woman is having trouble naming her business; another
walks past ten other black_women to get a black_man's opinion; musing
aloud, another says women just don't have the stamina to stand up
under the pressure of business; another wants to get ahead but
continues to hire staff who don't perform. These women are linked by
two r invisible yet powerful threads. Each woman is committed to the
social and economic_development of black Americans, including
themselves. And each faces powerful barriers that block her
success.
          External barriers from a male-dominated power structure conspire to
keep black_women in subservient and secondary positions in our
society. Latest statistics show the median income of white_men to be
$15,401; $6,421 for the white_woman; $8,967 for the black_man and
$5,543 for the black_woman.
          In addition to being detrimental materially, external oppression in
the form of social disapproval, low expectations, and little
encouragement has damaged black_women emotionally, psychologically,
and spiritually. After having her leadership doubted for hundreds of
years, is it a wonder that the black_woman harbors doubts about
herself? In effect, black_women see themselves through the eyes of
whites and black_men: inferior, powerless, less smart, and less
capable, especially in business.
          We have internalized these negative messages. They have become
negative "scripts" guiding our self-defeating actions as blacks and as
women. They have become internal barriers, complementing the external
barriers that created them. The external barriers are real, and we do
not make light of them; however, the Black Women's Leadership and
Economic Development (BWLED) Project believes that internal barriers,
the ones in our own heads, are the real killers.
          The goal of the project is to identify and break down barriers that
stop black_women from operating successful economic ventures and
taking responsibility for our own welfare and that of the black
community. The project provides an avenue for black_women to love and
support each other and, at the same time, challenge each other to
dream, to envision what we want, and then to get it.
          The following example illustrates the great need for the Project. A
black_woman in south Alabama created a catering business. Happy and
excited, she got her business off to a good start. The community
received her and her product well. With the market tested and the
prognosis good, she soon had more callers than she could handle
alone. She asked her husband, who had not been supportive of the
venture, to keep her business books. He said he would, but he didn't
appear to have any real energy or interest. Her business seemed like
heaven, an avenue out of her dead-end agency job to independence--but
within a matter of days it slowed to a trickle. She began to feel torn
between her responsibilities as a wife, mother, and new
entrepreneur. Her initiative to find business declined. When asked
about it, she only says, "My family was not very supportive and I
was being pulled in too many different directions." Today the
business amounts to another unfulfilled dream.
          The above woman is "scripted" both racially and sexually to feel
inferior, powerless, not quite good enough, unable to "know" her own
personal power. She would find support and identification for her
struggle from other women in the BWLED Project as she and they
attempted to understand how internal barriers robbed her of her
dreams, energy, and initiative.
          According to Sophia Bracy Harris, the executive director of FOCAL
(Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama), "Women all over the
country affirm that internal barriers are real and they find the
objectives of the project exciting." Based in Montgomery, FOCAL
provides technical assistance, training, and advocacy for a network of
about ninety 

nunchild-care centers; it is particularly active in
training low-income black_women to take leadership roles in their
communities. Sophia got the initial BWLED Project off the ground in
April 1984, after she attended a workshop sponsored by the National
Black Women's Health Network.
          In working to break down the feelings of inferiority and to help
women see themselves as peers with others and each other, the project
adopted FOCAL's guiding set of concepts and principles:
Vision: seeing and defining what we want;Responsibility: taking leadership and responsibility for our
own lives and the realization of our human potential;Proactive thinking, behavior, and planning: getting away from
the powerless position of reacting, petitioning, rebelling, and
protesting in order to get the powerful to fix things, provide for us,
accept us;Risking: choosing to experience fuller measures of our true
reality;Moral and ethical behavior: choosing a morality that is
consistent with our vision and dreams of a world overflowing with
unity, justice, love, and progress.
          The project's main energy centers on having women declare a vision
(what it is they want). Black women are so accustomed to thinking
about why we can't succeed that when it comes to saying what it is we
want (if no barriers exist), nothing comes. Black women stop
dreaming. This project will see black_women dream again.
          One core project member, Martha Hawkins of Montgomery, recently
shaped and launched a vision: Martha's Home Cooking, a catering
service. Martha says the Project had everything to do with her getting
the nerve to try catering.
          Martha says she was terrified at first; she was concerned about
what people would say if her business failed. She eventually said,
"I'm gonna give it all I got, full-time." Today, twelve months
later, she is amazed that she is paying other people to work for
her. Martha's Home Cooking primarily caters lunches for industrial
sites. With business booming, she says, "I am now scared and
excited all at the same time, and it feels wonderful."
          Some Project members currently envision offering a tutorial
service, running a baking business, owning a house, changing jobs,
running a cooperative.
          The Black Women's Leadership and Economic Development Project
offers training and seminars in selling, marketing and starting
businesses. Its Technical Assistance Resource Team aids and encourages
women to enter into economic_development ventures.
          For more information, write to P.O. Box 214, Montgomery, AL
36101.
          
            Carolyn Caver is coordinator of the Black Women's
Leadership and Economic Development Project. A longer version of this
article originally appeared in Southern
Exposure.
          
        
