page_title: Black mecca
section_title: Houston
hierarchical_section_title: Black mecca / Emerging / Houston
caption_attribution_description: English: Granville Sawyer Auditorium
context_page_description: A black mecca, in the United States, is a city to which African Americans, particularly singles, professionals, and middle-class families, are drawn to live, due to some or all of the following factors:
  superior economic opportunities for blacks, often as assessed by the presence of a large black upper-middle and upper class
  black businesses and political power in a city
  leading black educational institutions in a city
  a city's leading role in black history, arts, music, food, and other cultures
  harmonious black-white race relations in a city
  Atlanta has been referred to as a black mecca since the 1970s, while New York City's Harlem was referred to as a black mecca during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and still is today.
context_section_description: In 2016, Black Enterprise called Houston the "next great Black business Mecca". The Houston metropolitan area boasts an accomplished and strategically networked community of African American entrepreneurs, executives, and business leaders as any city in the country. Houston also claims one of the most robust and effective business development and advocacy organizations in the country. The Greater Houston Black Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1935 as Houston's first black civic organization and currently led by Chairwoman Courtney Johnson Rose, is the go-to source for business development and strategic partnership opportunities, as well as education, capital, and contacts for entrepreneurs. Mayor Sylvester Turner, the city's second and current black mayor (elected in 2016). It is worth noting that it was during the mayoral term of Lee Brown (1998-2004), Houston's first African American mayor, that the city was named No. 1 on Black Enterprise's list of Top Cities for African Americans to Live, Work, and Play, edging out perennial black business meccas, including Atlanta, Harlem, and Washington, D.C.
caption: Texas Southern University in Houston
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