Black Economic Empowerment: The National Negro Business League
Part of Archives Unbound from Gale Primary Sources, this collection is sourced from the Library of Congress. The collection is comprised of the National Negro Business League files, part of the Booker T. Washington Papers. The National Negro Business League was founded by Booker T. Washington who “believed that solutions to the problem of racial discrimination were primarily economic, and that bringing African Americans into the middle class was the key. In 1900, he established the League “to promote the commercial and financial development of the Negro,” and headed it until his death.”
The League included small African American business owners, doctors, farmers, craftsmen, and other professionals. Its goal was to allow businesses to put economic development at the forefront of getting African-American equality in America.
Researchers can search by keyword within the Black Economic Empowerment: The National Negro Business League collection or choose to browse via the “View all the documents in this collection” option. Among the files are the League’s annual report with lists of elected officer’s names as well as the names and locations of members, and includes reporting about the annual convention.
There are 227 manuscript collections, some examples are: Boys Clubs, County Fairs, Rural Schools 1910, Land Ownership in Macon County 1908, and Corn Clubs 1914.
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Image of text from National Negro Business League Annual Report August 1914 . Photo of the Jesup Wagon is from manuscript folder “Photographs”