Despite obstacles, black entrepreneurs optimistic
Tannette Johnson-Elie
Haywood, 30, owns Vangard Development Group, a company he launched in January with business partner James Jordan. The two young men had dabbled in real estate development separately for five years and decided that they could tackle bigger projects as a team. They see a gold mine of economic opportunity amid the stretches of vacant lots and abandoned properties that dot the central city.
While he says it’s still tough for African-Americans in a city known more for its beer, brats and smokestacks than for racial tolerance, Haywood and other African-Americans have learned to be patient.
“It’s what you make it,” says Haywood, who grew up in the Brewers Hill neighborhood. “There are a lot of challenges that we face as black business owners, but you can’t lose hope.”
African-American entrepreneurs face their share of roadblocks – chief among them lack of access to capital – but it’s the greater good of creating jobs and bringing prosperity to impoverished neighborhoods that drives them. (more…)
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