Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century
Are African Americans better off now . . . ?This seemingly inevitable question has only one frustrating but accurate answer: Yes and no. Weems, a history professor at the University of Missouri^-Columbia, explores the conundrum by tracing a century's change in African Americans' lives and finances as a special case in the consumerization of American society. After two chapters on the first 60 years of this century, Weems sketches the history of African American consumer activism (through the 1964 Civil Rights Act) and moves on to four chapters on the past four decades. Weems' unique contribution may be interviews with members and former members of a group of black marketing and public relations specialists, the National Association of Market Developers, who have had an inside view of corporate America's ethnic marketing campaigns. African Americans today clearly have a wider range of consumer choices, Weems shows, but a more "integrated" market has often destroyed successful black businesses; new ideas are needed to ensure that African Americans' buying power helps improve infrastructure and activity in their own communities.Mary Carroll--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.