Integration Opened the Doors, But Why Did We Close Our Own?

There is a question we in the Black community need to ask ourselves, and we need to be mature enough to have the conversation without becoming defensive.

Did integration help us, or did it hurt us?

Let me make something perfectly clear. Integration was necessary. Segregation was immoral. The fight for civil rights was righteous, and the men and women who marched, protested, sacrificed and even died so that we could enjoy equal opportunities deserve our eternal gratitude. But there is another side to that victory that we don't talk about nearly enough.

While integration opened doors that had been closed to us, did we unknowingly begin closing the doors of businesses we had built for ourselves?

Think about it. When we couldn't eat in their restaurants, we opened our own. When we couldn't sleep in their hotels, we built our own. When we couldn't get our hair cut in their barbershops, we supported our own. When we couldn't shop in their stores, we established our own. When we couldn't get loans from their banks, we created financial institutions of our own. When we couldn't depend on their newspapers to tell our stories, we established the Black press.

And when we couldn't count on their institutions to educate our children, we built schools and colleges that produced doctors, lawyers, educators, entrepreneurs and some of the greatest minds this nation has ever known.

We didn't have everything, but we understood something that seems to have gotten lost along the way. We understood the power of having something of our own.

Then came integration.

The doors that had been closed began to open. The restaurants welcomed us. The hotels accepted our reservations. The department stores wanted our business. The institutions that once rejected us began accepting our applications. And somewhere along the way, too many of us began to believe that being accepted into somebody else's establishment was more important than preserving our own.

I am not suggesting that every Black-owned business disappeared because of integration. The economic reality was far more complicated. Discriminatory lending, urban renewal, highway construction, unequal access to capital and generations of economic injustice also contributed to the decline of Black business districts.

But we cannot ignore the role our own spending decisions played, either. We fought for the right to sit at somebody else's lunch counter, but we forgot to support the people who had been feeding us all along. We celebrated the opportunity to shop in somebody else's department store, but we stopped shopping at the businesses that had served our families for generations. We gained access, but in too many instances, we lost ownership. Integration was supposed to expand our opportunities, not diminish our economic independence.

And that brings me to something I believe we must understand if we are ever going to move forward. We should not need segregation to motivate us to support one another. We should not need somebody to tell us where we cannot go before we recognize the importance of building somewhere we can call our own.

We should be spiritually, culturally and economically mature enough to say, "Yes, I can shop over there. Yes, I can eat over there. Yes, I can do business over there. But I am still going to support what belongs to us." Because equality should never require us to surrender our identity, our institutions or our economic power.

And while I’m talking about economics, we need to have another uncomfortable conversation. Our spending habits.

Some of us will stand in line for hours to purchase a pair of shoes that costs more than our monthly car payment. We will spend hundreds of dollars on designer clothing while struggling to pay our utility bills. We will finance lifestyles that our paychecks cannot sustain, all for the privilege of impressing people who may not even know our names.

I once heard unnecessary spending described this way: Buying things you don't need, with money you don't have, to impress people you don't even know.

We have become so consumed with looking successful that sometimes we forget the importance of actually becoming financially secure.

We want the appearance of wealth without practicing the discipline required to build it. We want the designer label, but we don't want to discuss the savings account. We want the luxury automobile, but we don't want to talk about investments. We want our children to wear expensive shoes, but are we equally committed to teaching them about entrepreneurship, financial literacy and ownership?

And perhaps the most troubling part of all is that we will complain about the lack of economic opportunities in our neighborhoods while routinely spending our money everywhere except in those neighborhoods.

There is a popular claim that a dollar circulates for weeks in some ethnic communities but only a few hours in the Black community. Those precise figures have not been reliably established, and we should be careful about repeating them as fact. But we don't need questionable statistics to recognize a legitimate problem.

Too much of the money earned in our communities leaves without creating enough lasting wealth, jobs or ownership opportunities for the people who live there. And that is something we can change.

Not by refusing to do business with people of other races. Not by replacing one form of discrimination with another. And certainly not by pretending that every Black-owned business automatically deserves our patronage regardless of its service or quality.

We change it by becoming intentional. By giving Black-owned businesses a fair opportunity to earn our dollars. By holding those businesses to high standards while helping them grow. By encouraging our young people to become employers instead of limiting their dreams to becoming employees. By teaching our children that ownership matters.

By supporting the Black banker, the Black contractor, the Black farmer, the Black physician, the Black restaurateur, the Black publisher and the young entrepreneur trying to turn an idea into a business. And by understanding that supporting our own does not mean opposing somebody else.

It means recognizing that economic empowerment begins with economic responsibility. We must also stop confusing spending power with economic power.

Just because we can purchase expensive products does not mean we are building wealth. Just because we can afford admission into somebody else's establishment does not mean we have ownership in the establishment. And just because we have a seat at the table does not mean we have a voice in deciding what is served.

That is the difference between access and power. That is the difference between consumption and ownership. That is the difference between being welcomed into an economy and having the resources to help shape it.

Our ancestors understood something profound. Even when they were denied opportunity, they found ways to create it. Even when doors were slammed in their faces, they built doors of their own. They built businesses under circumstances far more difficult than many of us face today.

And while we must never romanticize segregation or forget the tremendous harm it inflicted, we can honor the determination, resourcefulness and economic cooperation that helped our ancestors survive it.

Which leads me back to the original question. Did integration help us or hurt us? I believe integration helped us secure rights and opportunities that should have belonged to us from the beginning. But I also believe we failed, in too many instances, to protect and expand the economic institutions we had already established.

The problem wasn't that integration gave us too much freedom. The problem was that we sometimes failed to use that freedom to strengthen what we owned.

We fought to enter the marketplace, but we must now fight just as passionately to become owners within it. We fought for the right to work anywhere, but we must also create places where others can work. We fought for the right to live anywhere, but we must also invest in the neighborhoods we call home. We fought for a seat at the table, but we must not abandon the responsibility of building tables of our own.

And perhaps that is the lesson we need to pass on to the next generation. Don't just teach our children how to get a job. Teach them how to create one. Don't just teach them how to spend money. Teach them how to invest it. Don't just teach them how to wear somebody else's brand. Teach them how to build their own. Don't just teach them how to celebrate Black History Month. Teach them how to create Black economic history that future generations will celebrate.

Because the ultimate measure of progress is not simply whether we are allowed to walk through somebody else's door. It is whether we have the vision, discipline and determination to build something of our own once we get inside.

And as I close, I want to leave you with this thought. Our ancestors fought for the right to go anywhere. Our responsibility is to make sure our children have the opportunity to own something somewhere.

We don't have to turn back the clock to segregation to rediscover the power of economic unity. We don't have to be excluded to understand the importance of inclusion within our own communities. And we don't have to tear down somebody else's success to build our own.

We simply have to recognize that the freedom to spend our money wherever we choose also comes with the responsibility to consider what our spending makes possible. Because at the end of the day, the question is no longer whether we are allowed to enter their businesses. The question is whether we are willing to build, support and sustain our own.

We fought too long and sacrificed too much to settle for being consumers in an economy where we have the ability to become owners.

So yes, let us celebrate integration. Let us honor those who made it possible. But let us also reclaim the spirit of entrepreneurship, cooperation and ownership that sustained our communities long before those doors were opened. Because integration should have meant the expansion of Black opportunity, not the disintegration of Black ownership.

And remember what Billie Holiday sang: "God bless the child that's got his own."

Well, from where I sit, God bless the people who understand that having their own is not about separating themselves from the world. It's about making sure they have something of value to contribute to it.