Black Entrepreneurship Quotes

When I started the diamond business, no black person, period, was in it to do what we're trying to do to change the industry. So I like to do things that I see clearly that are in my, you know, scope. And then, I had to figure how I get talented or smart business people around me to execute. That's what I have to do.

Music is one of those businesses in which, if you're talented and hustle hard enough, you can make it - specifically as an entrepreneur. If you look as far back as Berry Gordy, Russell Simmons, Andre Harrell, L.A. Reid, and Sean 'Diddy' Combs, there's a whole lineage of successful black entrepreneurs who have built their own companies from scratch.

People don't know that there were very successful black businessmen in the years of apartheid.

Why should not Africa give to the world its Black Rockefeller, Rothschild and Henry Ford? Now is the opportunity. Now is the chance for every Negro to make every effort toward a commercial, industrial standard that will make us comparable with the successful business men of other races.

Where are the Black businesses? They're not here. The Koreans are here, the Chinese are here, the Arabs are here, the Indians are here. Everybody that wants to make a dollar is making a dollar on our lack of thought to do something for ourselves that was not present in that older generation that came from the South.

One of the key things for me about Madame Walker's life is that she really does represent this first generation out of slavery when black people were reinventing themselves, and as a woman who was the first child in her family born free, she was trying to figure out a way, and she moved from Delta, Louisiana.

I'm one of the people who believes that our losses were greater than our gains. Because before the Civil Rights movement we had entrepreneurship in the black community. Right now, in Harlem, if I wanted to get a shoe repaired, I would have a hard time finding a black shoe repairman. On near about every third corner, you could find a decent black barber, decent black laundry, had restaurants in the neighborhood that were open 24 hours. The food was good at 3 o'clock in the morning as at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

Before Booker T. Washington, we have small business owners but we do not have a philosopher of black entrepreneurship, and that's what Washington was.

By some estimates, 80% of rap music is bought by white youth. And this makes for another irony. The blooming of white alienation has brought us the first generation of black entrepreneurs with wide-open access to the American mainstream.

When you talk about black entrepreneurship, you're talking about addressing the foundation of what's going on with our people when we don't have any financial power. Our basic needs aren't being met in a lot of cases, so there's no way we're going to be able to tap into our potential until we address those bottom-level base needs.

From 1865 to 1965, my race, the black race, was one of the most competitive, entrepreneurial, Christian, moral races in our country. We had the highest percentage of entrepreneurs in the country, the highest percentage of marriage in the country.

Through the years, Madam Walker has certainly become a staple of anything that has to do with black history, women's history and entrepreneurship.

I feel that my advances in the business world will shatter a lot of white myths about black athletes-and give some pride and hope to a lot of young blacks.

African-Americans don't need handouts and donations; we can hire ourselves if white corporate America does business with us in a fair and equitable way.

By 1916, as Madam Walker herself was developing more assertive views on race, she was becoming eager to assume her place alongside Harlem's famous, influential and intriguing residents.