It’s not easy being a small business owner. That’s especially true for Black-owned businesses without generational wealth. The US Small Business Administration estimates less than one fifth of Alabama businesses are Black-owned. The numbers are even lower in the cities and counties that make up Alabama’s newly drawn Congressional District two. The APR news team has spent the last nine months looking into the issues surrounding the new District 2. Black business owners there say this election shape their future
It’s Friday and the phone is busy at Banks Memorial Funeral Home in Monroeville. This business is one of three Black-owned mortuaries in town. Owner Carole Banks is a fourth-generation funeral director carrying on the tradition her great grandfather started. But thirteen years ago she split off from the family business. Even with experience, it wasn’t easy.
“I wasn't drawing a paycheck for the first probably 10, 8 to 10 years that we opened the business. Because I was so focused on making sure this business survived,” Banks said.
A few miles away at Monroeville Seafood, 17-year-old D’Angelo Harrison works in his dad’s business after school. He’s worked here since the seventh grade and wants to take over one day. But like Banks, Harrison knows being a minority business owner has its challenges.
“A lot of people don’t see us making it but you know we don’t let these people you know tell us what we cannot do. We just keep our head up and we keep going,” he said.
Monroeville is just a snapshot of the black owned businesses in Alabama’s new Congressional District 2. The new voting map includes part of Mobile County - then stretches east - taking in 12 more counties all the way to the Georgia line. It also includes Montgomery. Though people of color make up almost half the district’s population, census data suggests in many of its rural counties, Black-owned businesses are too few or not visible enough to count. Carole Banks says it wasn’t always that way in Monroeville.
“That was about 15-20 years ago. And from doctors lawyers beauticians Funeral Directors mechanics gas stations grocery stores. We had all of that here,” she observed.
Charles Andrews is Monroeville’s first Black mayor. He says one reason for the recent lack of businesses is brain drain. Kids going off to college then settling elsewhere.
“They go back and they look and they see that there's really no opportunity for them in a rural, Black area,” said the Mayor. “So they leave.”
But Andrews and others who study minority businesses also know the problem in starting and keeping a business goes far deeper than loss of talent. A 2023 Pew Research Center report found in the U.S. the typical white household has more than nine times as much wealth as the typical Black family. Nisa Miranda Director Emerita at the University of Alabama Center for Economic development. She says banks are leery if a customer doesn’t have wealth to back up a loan.
“They’re going to be a lot stricter and a lot hard to convince you deserve a loan,” said Miranda, who adds that District Two’s rural counties have fewer and smaller banks than urban areas. “You’re not going to have the kinds of companies that have so much money to lend that they’re willing to take a risk on someone who is a question mark of whether they going to succeed or not,” she said.
Another risk for minority business owners? Sometimes small can be too small. Data from the US Small Business Administration shows almost all – 97% of Alabama’s Black-owned businesses are sole proprietor. Which means they don’t have employees. During the pandemic, that put many small businesses like Banks Memorial at a disadvantage when it came to getting pandemic assistance says Carole Banks.
“I didn’t qualify,” said Banks. “I didn’t have enough employees or something like that. But, here I am on the front line.”
Without support, it took longer for Banks’ business to recover. There are other obstacles standing in the way of success for Black-owned businesses in the new opportunity district. Lack of access to good broadband, public transportation, childcare, and knowledge of best business practices.
Leavie King wants fledgling Black business owners to understand the ins and outs of starting and keeping a business. A Black business owner himself, King is the project manager for Minority Build a Business Accelerator in Mobile. He developed the program after struggling with his own company.
"So I tell all aspiring entrepreneurs the first thing you need to do is you need to find a mentor,” said King.
The accelerator is a mentor of sorts. Every Tuesday night for 18 weeks, after working their day jobs, students meet to learn about the legal, financial, management, and marketing aspects of business ownership. When they graduate, they’re registered business owners.
Accelerator participant Kenya Coleman is a mom. She’s building a company in the trucking industry where she can work from home. She’s worried about money but says the accelerator has given her the confidence and tools to find funding.
"I'm actually setting up the business plan and setting up my pitch where I can go to a bank or an investor and pitch my business in a professional way,” said Coleman.
The accelerator is a joint effort between Mobile County and the Mobile Area Black Chamber of Commerce. The program is highly popular. In this class, almost 300 people applied for 15 slots. Federal dollars fund the accelerator. Leavie King believes if Democrat Shomari Figures wins November’s congressional race, his focus would be on identifying more of those resources.
“There are so many opportunities on the federal side that would bring funding to minority owned businesses in this District that we just don't even know about,” said Leavie King.
Neither the Figures nor Dobson campaign responded to APR’s request for an interview. But in a recorded Facebook Q&A Figures, who is also a minority business owner, says he wants to leverage federal funding to help small businesses – especially minority owned companies - with access to capital. And he talked about business accelerators.
“I would also like to see the federal government funding programs that actually teaches business owners to be business owners,” said Figures
Republican Caroleene Dobson says she’s in favor of helping small business by rolling back regulations. Here she is in an interview on Alabama Public Television.
“Regulations are killing small businesses throughout this district. Whether you’re talking about construction business or the nursing home business,” Dobson observed.
Whether rural or urban, minority business owners like Carole Banks are paying attention to the candidates. Banks says she wants a representative who will help her build generational wealth. And she wants more women and minorities in the district to have that same opportunity.
“Send us information,” Banks suggested. “Send us some knowledgeable incentives. Send us some grants. Just think about us.”
That kind of help from the federal government could depend on the District 2 election outcome. And turning campaign promises into action.
