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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations - 2. Nationalist Movements - 3. Business and Professional Organizations
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Chapier 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 815
states.® But on the whole, while Negroes are dissatisfied, their protest has
not turned in a treasonable direction. In fact, it may be said that their pro-
democratic, anti-fascist ideology is at least as strong as that of most white
groups in the United States.®
3. Business and Professional Organizations
The National Negro Business League
y
founded by Booker T. Washing-
ton in 1900, has its purpose defined in the preamble to its constitution:
That through the promotion of commercial achievement the race could be led to a
position of influence in American life and thus pave the way to economic independ-
ence.^®
The League functions as the national center for local business leagues,
Negro chambers of commerce, and similar organizations of Negro business
and professional men and women. Annually it conducts a three-day conven-
tion. Bunche reports about these conventions:
The proceedings of these meetings consist mainly of informal business “life
histories” given by the members, in which they trace the origin, development and
present status of the business with which they are identified. This is in furtherance
of the League’s policy of stimulating and promoting business.^^
It publishes a journal, Negro Businessy and other propaganda material.’-^®
In 1929 the Business League launched The Colored Merchants* Association
(C.M.A.) stores. This was a cooperative endeavor. The idea was to reduce
costs and prices by cooperative buying and group advertising. But few
Negro businesses were attracted, and the Negro consumers were generally
not willing to accept the untested brands sold by the C.M.A. stores instead
of the nationally advertised, standard brands offered by the white chain
stores. The project failed during the depression.
We have discussed and criticized the ideology behind this movement in
the preceding chapter.^ Nothing the present writer has observed in Negro
communities in various parts of America contradicts Bunche’s evaluation:
In terms of its influence on economic betterment of the Negro, the National Negro
Business League has been inconsequential. As a factor in shaping the psychology and
thinking of Negroes, however, it has been vastly important. ... It has pursued the
narrowest type of racial chauvinism, for it has organized, not business, but Negro
of the professional Fascist, Joe McWilliams. (PM [September 15, 1942].) The other
owned the ‘‘Negro News Syndicate” and was supported by the Japanese. {Time magazine,
[September 14, 1942], p. 46.)
^ This is mainly an impression, but it has some substantiation in the various confidential
polls of public opinion now being carried on, and in such small studies as that of Delbert
C. Miller, “Effect of the War Declaration on the National Morale of American College
Students,” The American Sociological Review (October, 1942), pp. 631-644.
®See Chapter 38, Section 10.
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