Campaign set to get underway

Since founding Lamik Beauty in 2004, Kim Roxie has greatly relied on African-American shoppers to support her Houston-based enterprise.

“We wouldn’t be in business if it weren’t for conscious shoppers,” she said this week.

Now, in an effort to build more such support for more of its business community, the Greater Houston Black Chamber is launching a yearlong campaign to encourage people to shop at black-owned businesses. The effort includes a #HouBuyBlack hashtag to promote more than 500 vetted businesses in a variety of industries. Participating companies can also be found in the chamber’s new Buy Black directory online and in print.

Things kick off this weekend.

“There was an outcry

for this,” chamber vice chair Joi Beasley said.

Last year, Roxie suggested to the chamber something along the lines of Small Business Saturday to help with the effort. Better yet, she said, the group could take a page from “Our Black Year,” in which author Maggie Anderson recounts her experience frequenting only businesses owned by African-Americans.

“I knew we could do something like that here at home,” Roxie said.

On Thursday night, Anderson, CEO of the Empowerment Experiment Foundation, will keynote the Greater Houston Black Chamber’s annual Black Leadership Forum.

The chamber cites statistics showing what is at stake: African-Americans control $1.1 trillion in U.S. buying power, but only 2 cents of every dollar an African-American spends in the U.S. goes to blackowned businesses.

Anderson, who now tours the country promoting buy-black initiatives like the one getting under way in Houston, said more than statistics need to change.

“I know, because I see it, how great our businesses are and how much they defy every negative force or stereotype,” Anderson said by email. “I am a part of a movement, just like my ancestors and elders were, taking a stand, linking arms with good people who care, and together we are proving our love for our people and our history.”

Anderson acknowledged that many in the African-American community may feel there are greater issues — crime, poverty and gentrification — but she said supporting black-owned businesses can combat AfricanAmerican unemployment and raise up a local community in the long run.

“If you are black and you care about your community, you should have an account at a black-owned bank and get your hair and beauty products from black firms,” she wrote. “You do it because it’s right, natural, you are supposed to.”

For Anderson and Roxie, the Greater Houston Black Chamber’s leadership role in launching the local Buy Black initiative adds a level of professionalism to the effort.

It also gives Roxie a chance to meet one of her idols.

“Maggie is like a rock star to me,” she said. “It’ll be like meeting Beyoncé or Oprah.”