Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 3 September 1998 — Page 6

The Muncie Times, September 3,1998, Page 6

TO BE EQUAL

SBA signs $1.4 billion pact to help black small businesses

The cheering over America’s prolonged period of economic good news as focused largely on figures at the top end of the economic ladder- the booming salaries of the players of high stakes finance, the new millionaires created by the astonishing rise of the stock market, and the billion -dollar mergers and acquisitions made possible in part because some companies are so flush with cash. But there are other business statistics that may be worth an even greater cheer. Those statistics have to do with small businesses. They underscore how fundamental a building block that sector is to the American economic structure-and how important it is to black America’s quest for economic strength. According to the Federal Small Business Administration (SBA), interest in owning or starting a small business has never been greater: Each year since 1995 had brought a record in the number of new businesses established. And over a longer period since 1992, the number of new businesses has increased by 49 percent. Those figures are important because small businesses employ 53 percent of America’s private sector work force. They are central to job creation- to employment. In 1995, for example, small businesses were responsible for an estimated 75 percent of the 2.5 million new jobs created that year. Contrary to popular opinion, a significant slice of black America has caught that entrepreneurial spirit.

too. The federal agency said that from the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the number of businesses owned by African-Americans rose 46 percent, from about 424,000 to nearly 621,000. (Hispanic Americans, white women, Native Americans, and Asian Americans have also shown strong gains in this area). Now the Small Business Administration and the National Urban League are moving together to substantially boost that number. Recently the SBA and the NUL signed am agreement under which the federal agency will deliver #1.4 billion worth of loan assistance to small business firms owned by African-Ameri-cans by the year 2000. Aida Alvarez, the dynamic administrator of the agency, and I signed the agreement before nearly three score top officials from the Small Business Administration and the Urban League at our headquarters in Manhattan. The signing, coming just 10 days before the Urban League’s 1998 Annual Conference got underway in Philadelphia, put a dramatic exclamation point on the gathering’s theme: Economic Power: Leveling the Playing Field.” This new initiative means that SBA officials and lead-

ers of the Urban League affiliates in 30 cities across the country will work closely to provide African-Ameri-can business owners with greater access to capital, the latest technology, research on their line of business and developing opportunities to increase their scope. That in turn, will enable them to play a more prominent role in the AfricanAmerican economy, and in the increasing the economic vitality of their local communities and black America as a whole. This process, part of the

SBA’s vigorous effort to expand the scope of business development by white women and people of color, also gives our affiliates added support to aid blackowned businesses. Many of them, from San Diego to Knoxville, Tenn. To Rochester, N.Y. have long been in the thick of such efforts. Now, said James Compton, head of the Chicago Urban League and one of our most accomplished veterans, the SBA’s backing will help black-owned businesses “grow in sectors in which they remain small, under-represented, and even non-existent”- thus enabling them to follow a well-trod path to upward mobility. “Every other racial or ethnic group that moved from poverty to prosperity in this country,” Compton went on, “has done so through the availability of jobs within their own neighborhoods.

followed by the start-up and expansion .of businesses owned and operated by members of that group. This is also a path that AfricanAmericans wish to follow and indeed must follow.” Administrator Alvarez told those assembled that the $1.4 billion loan assistance figure wasn’t set lightly. “We have calculated it as a goal to be met, and we will do it.” “Yes, this is a very ambitious goal. But it’s an achievable goal. We and the National Urban League have a mission that we sharecreating economic development that leads to personal empowerment. “This is the time. If we do it now, we will have missed an opportunity not likely to comepur way again.” Hugh B. Price is president of the National Urban League based in New York City.

MIGHTY MEN CONFERENCE SEPTEMBER 11 ■ 13,1998 Faith Center for All Nations 600 S. Blaine Street • Muncie, IN 47302 Pastor Rick Hawkins, Family Praise Center San Antonio, Texas Friday/Saturday night at 7 p.m. Sunday morning at 10:30 a.m. SATURDAY SEMINAR LUNCHEON — 9 a.m. -12:30 p.m.

Registration Fee: $25 Includes: Handbook, Workbook and Lunch

For information and transportation call (765) 282-1915 Sponsored by Men Workers for Christ