Black Entrepreneurs Historical Exhibit

We have a brand new exhibit at the Federal Reserve Underground, a rented space on Jokaydia SLurl http://slurl.com/secondlife/jokaydia/161/245/22, and organizer Oothoon Ogg would love to get feedback from others interested in education and black history in SL. She is in the process of designing a program for the exhibit and would like to get a sense from other people how easy it is to grasp the content, how interesting is it, what is missing, and any general comments. My friend Jaque Quijote did this lovely build, and it is a smaller version of an exhibit in RL that has just opened at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and will soon open in a second location at the Museum of African American History in Boston. his exhibition focuses on enterprising black entrepreneurs of the 18th and 19th centuries in New England.

Since the Colonial era African Americans have contributed to the economic development of this country. They have engaged in small-scale and large-scale commercial enterprises -- ranging from home-based businesses and small shops to regional, national, and international companies. Like their mainstream counterparts, African Americans have developed products, selected markets, created economic networks, invested strategically, and sought to balance risks and rewards, costs and profits.
In America blacks built on African economic traditions in the context of the New World economy. Many had participated as producers, brokers, traders, and merchants in the complex market economies of West and Central Africa before their involuntary arrival on American shores. Blacks seized opportunities to create enterprises and to participate in the commercial life of a developing nation. Despite challenges posed by slavery and racism, African Americans' entrepreneurial activity has been sustained in America for almost five centuries, from the agrarian economy of the seventeenth century to the contemporary post-industrial economy.

This exhibit introduces visitors to such significant figures as Harriet Jacobs, who was one of the first published African American authors in the United States (her semi-biographical novel is listed on a brief list of suggestions for further reading and sources that the creator of the exhibit used), and Paul Cuffe, a philanthropist and investor who began as a sailor and merchant. The exhibit is visually rich and distinctive, as well as informative and inspiring in these difficult economic times. It is a powerful reminder of the long history that African Americans have of uniting their pursuit of freedom with the pursuit of financial security, not simply for the betterment of the individual, but for the betterment of the black community, and of the country as a whole.