■1
if.
iL I
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number 15
(USPS 091-380)
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1985
TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913
PRICE: 30 CENTS
M// Business Community Solve
The Big Three: Capital, Marketing, R&D?
Farrakhan To Speak In Durham
gister Louis Farrakhan, the national spokesman of the Nation of
will speak at White Rock Baptist Church, 3400 Fayetteville St.,
imlFriday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m. The economic program call
VER” (People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth)
e (fussed. Doors will open at 6 p.m. Admission is free and
10 the public.
he Torch Shines for
Blacks, Too:
/hy Blacks Should Support
i Liberty Centennial Campaign
^ By James S. Haskins
m 1 Guest Columnust
^Jlack American leaders have chosen not to support the na-
iideiampaign to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island for
i&nial celebration of the statue in 1986, arguing that blacks
rnmjpart of the original promise symbolized by these national
imegts. Ellis Island, they point out, was not the point of entry for
'Americans, who came through the back doors of America — the
raaikets of New Orleans and Savannah. The Statue of Liberty?
pajtn saying among blacks is that the Statue of Liberty has
Is had her back to us,
thorn denying that there is a basis for this kind of thinking, it is
ttant to point out that blacks do indeed have a stake in these sym-
gtaerica’s opportunity. The original idea for a statue of liberty
atncably bound up with Afro American history: This gift by
X to the United States followed two earlier, and less ambitious,
atations from that country to honor our nation’s commitment to
16m. h] 1860, after the radical abolitionist John Brown and his •
stns were executed for leading a raid on the U.S. arsenal at
let’s Ferry, Va., French author Victor Hugo took up a collection
ij hficcun ryinei: and presented a gold medal to Brown’s widow.
|l,aficr Ab aham Lincoln was assassinated, the people of France
nied a gold medal to Mrs. L incoln. Part of the inscription on that
11 read: “He saved th.c Union without veiling the statue of
V I'erliaps inspired by tiiat phrase, and by the abolition of
a lesult of .he Civil War, French historian Edouard de
1^, chainnan of the French Anti-slavery Society, and sculptor
tncFAuguste Bartholdi proposed that the people of France pre-
■Whe people of the United States an actual statue of liberty. At
lime, the people of France had more faith in us than we had in
ilvesi
f majority of Afro Americans were already here in 1886, when
:§uewas officially dedicated, and at that time, although slavery
leenjegally abolished, they enjoyed few of the liberties for which
tattle stood; in fact, in the South, they had been virtually re-
*e(l.iBut in the years since, new Afro Americans — Haitians,
litiljans, Alricans and the wretched refuse of other black coun-
iteeming shores — have been accepted into this country along
.Caoiasion, Asian and Latin American immigrants, though not in
numbers and not necessarily with the same outstretched
- Inflew York, their point of entry may have been Kennedy In-
tional Airport rather than Ellis Island, but if on a clear day they
“tStatue of Liberty in the harbor below, they felt the same swell-
jf nope as the shipbound immigrants from Europe, for they had
seeking the same opportunity. And it was those immigrants
Eniope, together with their sons and daughters, who helped to
I promise symbolized by the Statue of Liberty to black
“s and allowed her bright torch to shine on the darker
American identity is, by definition, hyphenated. It is the source
TSfcngth as a people that we have been capable of reworking
JEhous national identities into a new one, of subsuming our old
anoprejudices to a respect for a polyglot, if not a melting pot,
mi*political expedience does not explain why black
,^2* have in the last one hundred years progressed from a
iJ^Populaiion with virtually no representation to a minority
L—” members of Congress, over 100 mayors, and a
UFaidate for the presidency in the last election. Only a
humanism and convictions of moral equality deeply
'ite ' tl” ‘^o’orican psyche can account for this journey out of
Ve til freedom lighting the way. The Statue of Liber-
isj m' u ^ *l™Uolizes, has weathered many storms, but the
[the * survived. In restoring the statue, Americans
mtlik renewing their commitment to the con-
'riy, and as Americans who have at last won freedom of op-
By Milton Jordan
Three basic problems frustrate
significant economic develop
ment and growth by African
Americans, and those problems
are the same old headaches that
have plagued these efforts from
time immemorial.
They are:
* Money
* Selling
Having your company at the
right point in the right economic
trend at the right time.
In business parlance, you call
these problems capital,
marketing, and research and
development.
These problems are highly
recognized and often discussed.
“The majqr item needed by
blacks in business is capital,”
declares Joseph Cason, executive
director of the Roanoke Valley
Business League. “White
businesses don’t have the same
problems we do formulating
capital, and therefore we ap--
proach the discussion
differently.”
The approach generally
amounts to political and social
efforts to generate “grant”
capital, or capital acquisition
through various government pro
grams.
But a Durham businessman
believes those efforts are doomed
for failure.
“We are going to have to begin
pooling resources and creating
capital on at least three levels,’,’
said Frank Anderson, president
of Custom Molders, a plastics in
jection molding manufacturer.
“We seriously need some high
risk, start-up capital. We need a
pool of money for capital infu
sions when a business has started
well, is in good shape, but needs
capital to exploit a business op
portunity. We also need a venture
capital pool to be used when peo
ple want to go bigger, want to
generate some growth, either
through public offerings or
private placements.”
Simply said, if African
Americans want to have a solid
economic base, featuring strong,
growing and powerful businesses,
then a higher percentage of
available money will have to be
redirected to economic develop
ment.
African Americans, by and
large, are not poor, the tradi
tional civil rights litany not
withstanding.
As a group, African Americans
earn and spend more than $175
billion annually. Businesses own
ed by African Americans, listed
in the 1984 “Top 100” by Black
Enterprise Magazine earned more
than $2.39 billion last year.
And while those figures cer
tainly don’t make African
Americans rich by this nation’s
standards, they are far from be
ing poor overall, as well...^
So why isn’t a larger snare of
that money dedieated to capital
formation?
“I think, quite frankly,” said
Carl P. Webb, owner of Adver
tising Communications, Inc., a
three-year-old “print studio,”
that too many of our older
leaders are afraid to change,
afraid to let new ideas, new
growth take place. And unless
we’re able to do that then we’re
going to miss out on a significant
share of the economic pie.” “
And so the operative word for
African American owned
businesses as far as capital is con
cerned is “CHANGE.”
Publisher Earl Graves, writing
in the June 1984 issue of Black
Enterprise, summed up the mat
ter this way: “Over the past two
years, the BE Board of
Economists has examined financ-
(Continued On Page 3)
Elks Hold Oratorical Contest
Bull City Lodge No. 317 and Salome Temple No.
704, IBPOE of W held their annual oratorical con
test on Sunday afternoon, April 14. First place win
ner was Jerome C. Coleman, a sophomore at Nor
thern High School, who will represent the lodge in
the regional competition to be held in Henderson on
April 28. Pictured above (l-r) are: Dt. Lula Jenkins,
Bro. Charles Joyner, Miss Jennifer Renee Elliot, a
runner-up, Dt. Eldonia Bass and Bro. Thomas
Walker.
For Carl Webb, Quality And Service
Provides Big Business Success
Webb goes on to say that
African Americans in Durham
need to foster and develop new
ideas, new strategies, new ap
proaches to being in business,
and fulfilling the needs in the
marketplace here.
His company, described as a
“print studio,” fills a very im
portant marketplace need, posi
tioned as it is to serve both large
and small firms in the area.
On the large firm side of the
ledger, some of Webb’s clients in-
By Milton Jordan
In many ways, Carl P. Webb,
president of Advertising Com
munications, Inc., thinks and
talks like a typical businessman.
“When I started this
business,” he said, “I recognized
a void in the Research Triangle
marketplace. I set up to fill that
void, by letting the marketplace
tell me what I should be doing,
rather than by trying to force
something that 1 wanted to do in
to the marketplace where it
wouldn’t fit.”
In addition:
“Our company plays by the
same rules that any other com
pany in this field plays by,”
Webb said. “We are competing
on the same levels. It is almost
merely coincidental that 1 am
black, and this is a black-owned
business.”
Yet, in other ways, Webb, a
Durham native, a Hillside High
School graduate and young en
trepreneur, is a passionate
crusader for more aggressiveness
and an improved sense of ex
cellence among African
Americans, especially in the
business world.
“I’m afraid that black Durham
is not getting its share of the
business in this rapidly growing
Research Triangle area,” Webb
says. “And at the rate we’re go
ing, unless we change significant
ly, we aren’t going to get our
share of the opportunities and
profits from that growth.”
portunity under the laws of the land, we blacks could ask for no better
way to assert our equal right to celebrate that idea than to join in the
campaign to refurbish its most famous symbol.
Jim Haskins is a member of the National Education Advisory Com-
mittee of the Statue of Liberly-Ellis Island Commission and vice
chairman of the foundation’s Southeast campaign. He is a professor
of English al the University of Florida. Contributions may be sent to
The Statue of Liberty, P.O. Box 724022, Atlanta, GA 30339.)
elude IBM, Glaxo Phar
maceuticals, Union Carbide, the
Environmental Protection Agen
cy, Westinghouse' and Federal
Pacific.
“We have a strong base in the
Research Triangle Park, said
Webb, who studied at the Art In
stitute of Atlanta and worked
there before returning home
j about three years ago to establish
his business. “About 75”/o of our
business comes from the
Research Triangle Park.”
With large firms. Advertising
Communications, Inc. works
closely with in-hquse advertising
and public relations departments
to produce typesetting, layout
and design services for a wide
variety of printing projects.
For example, with IBM,
Webb’s firm produces a company
newsletter for employees.
Siteline. Webb, and his nine-
member staff, set the copy,
design each issue of the publica-
(Continued On Page 5)
WEBB AND STAFF — Carl Webb, president and owner of Adver
tising Commnnications, Inc. discuss a project with his staff. The
three-year-oid “print studio” works with a number of major ciients in
the Research Triangle Park, as well as several smaller clients in
Durham. (Photo by Mayfield)