Small Business Saturday

Lisa Olivia Fitch  |   OW Contributor
Dec 15 2011

Local retailers dream of big yuletide sales

Recycling Black dollars is not a new idea in Los Angeles. From the 1920s through the ’50s, Blacks in the city had Central Avenue as their core shopping district, where the street was lined with small shops, jazz clubs and “colored” hotels. Nowadays, in a more integrated city, scattered pockets of Black businesses are desperately looking for patrons to walk in their doors this holiday season.

David L. Horne, Ph.D.  |   OW Contributing Columnist
Dec 1 2011

Practical Politics

For those of us who decided to be armchair quarterbacks regarding the brutal shopping games of Black Friday and Saturday, the pepper spray clear-out, the all-out fist-fighting, and the gun-toting stall circling moves were brilliant. Clearly, someone had been practicing their consumer moves.

And where were the black stripes to protect the unwary consumers who thought they only had to fight long lines and grabby hands in order to score big discounts at the cash register goalposts?

Cynthia E. Griffin-  |   OW Managing Editor
Nov 24 2011

Local entrepreneurs tap into the American Express program

When you walk into Southern Girl Desserts on Nov. 26, expect a little holiday gift.

This new dessert store is sharing space with the stationery store, Cordially Invited, on the emerging Pico Boulevard retail corridor, and the two entrepreneurial firms are participating in the national Small Business Saturday promotional program.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.