A black business man who I have known and admired for a number
of years has been very successful in his business endeavors.
He has enjoyed exceptional prosperity and being the type of
person he is, he [romised himself to share his prosperity with
the rest of the community.
One of the things he did was to sponsor a large, annual, all
day party for all senior citizens in the greater community.
He supplied everything, a good meal, soft drinks, several live
bands and, other entertainment and, he paid for this out of
his own pocket.
He did this once yearly almost totally without fanfare.
After about ten years he purchased a large hall in response to
complaints from the black community that they had no black
owned establishment in the community where they could hold
their affairs.
Mr. B (as we will call him) spent thousands repairing the
place, cleaning it, installing a large stage and installing a
restaurant.
What he had was not an elaborate setup but he had a
willingness to keep improving it and he probably had more than
a couple of hundred thousand dollars at risk.
After he opened the place he booked very few affairs there
other than the ones which he sponsored and a few other
promotions of his own.
The people who had begged for a place in the community in
which to hold their affairs, continued to hold their affairs
in the ballrooms of the large corporate owned hotels, and
didn't even give consideration to his place.
The worst offender was the local N.A.A.C.P., who are
officially, at least, supposed to support black owned
business.
When the president of the national organization came to speak
at their annual Freedom Fund Banquet one year, they ignored
Mr. B's establishment and instead, again gave their money to
the dominant population.
I couldn't help thinking how pleased the national organization
would have been to know that this Freedom Fund Banquet was
being held in a large black owned establishment and catered by
a black caterer (something that doesn't happen often in the
national black community).
The excuse was that they had an arrangement with the
corporate owned establishment.
If they had an arrangement with the hotel, it probably was one
which was renewed each year and would have been easy to
cancel in the time frame I was aware of (moree than one
year).
Mr. B. sold his place after 3 or 4 years.
He confided to me later that he was simply "burned out."
He said that he would probably resume having affairs for
seniors but, he thought he'd take a few years off.
As of this writing he has not restarted having these affairs.
Do you blame him?