Black businesses have also been the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the National Bureau of Economic Research reporting in April that 41% of Black-owned businesses in the U.S. had been shuttered, compared to 17% of white-owned businesses. Though Yellow Springs perhaps had a higher than average incidence of Black-owned businesses for a community whose population was mostly white in the 1960s and ’70s, there has been a steady decline in Black-owned businesses since the 1980s. The loss of industry in town, she said, contributed to the decline of not only Black businesses, but Black residents in general. Moreover, shifts in the country after desegregation played a part in the decline of Black-owned businesses — not just in Yellow Springs, but everywhere. Records of many of the village’s Black-owned businesses are preserved in “Blacks in Yellow Springs: A Community Encyclopedia,” which The 365 Project published in 2016.

Source: Ethiopian News March 11, 2022 21:41 UTC