Lecture: Black History Month—The Empowerment Experiment
Fri, February 25, 2011 • 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM • Student Union Theater, UT campus
Dr. Maggie Anderson and her husband John on CBS News with Harry Smith
Maggie Anderson will be speaking about her forthcoming book, Our Black Year: A Tale of Buying Black in America's Racially Divided Economy.
Our Black Year chronicles the Andersons experience after they embarked on a year-long public pledge to "buy black," which she called The Empowerment Experiment (EE). It was Jan. 1, 2009, when the Chicago suburban black middle-class family started their experiment.
They discovered that blacks refused to support black businesses, while others condemned their efforts to buy black as racist.
“One problem is that black consumers — unlike consumers of other ethnicities — choose not to support black-owned businesses," she says. "Moreover, most of the businesses in black communities are owned by outsiders."
Anderson will emphasize the extent to which The Empowerment Experiment resulted in a movement that inspired and found support from business owners, consumers, academics, professional and activist organizations. It has also led to a landmark study conducted by Chicago’s Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
She has a J.D. (1998) and MBA (2001) from the University of Chicago.
This event is free and open to the public.
Convenor: Prof. Juliet E.K. Walker
Founder/Director: Center for Black Business History, Entrepreneurship, and Technology
Download the event flyer (PDF, 1MB)
Sponsored by: History Dept.; Center for Black Business History, Entrepreneurship, and Technology; IC2 Institute, Warfield Center for African American Studies; African African Diaspora Studies Dept.
