1982 Ad

In BLACK ENTERPRISE's June 1982 Annual Report on Black Business, the combined revenues of the BE 100 just missed the $2 billion barrier, with $1.9 billion in 1981 sales. The following year, they broke through with $2.17 billion in sales, at 14% increase.

Breaking that numerical barrier was particularly significant, given the circumstances. First, this accomplishment reflected the rapid growth of the BE 100. Only four years earlier, the nation's largest black-owned businesses had broken the $1 billion sales mark. The companies on the first list, published in 1972, had sales of $473.4 million.

Second, the businesses struggled in the grip of a debilitating economic recession. These conditions forced the top three companies on the list--Los Angeles' Motown

Industries, Atlanta's H.J. Russell Construction Co. and Chicago's Johnson Publishing Co., each with more than $100 million in sales--to pursue various strategies to stay in the black. Their respective strategies--keeping abreast of technological innovations, consolidating assets and shutting down unprofitable operations--have a ring of familiarity to the survivors of what would be the next severe economic downturn, nearly a decade later.

That the BE 100 was able to advance in the face of such harsh economic conditions is a testament to the durability and resourcefulness of black entrepreneurs.

1982-1983

* June 1982--The tenth anniversary of the BE 100 list. The combined sales of the companies represented were $1.9 billion. No. 1 on the list: Motown Industries, with sales of $91.7 million. The nation's largest black-owned auto dealership was Atlanta-based Robinson Cadillac Pontiac Inc., No. 32 on the BE 100 with sales of $16.3 million.

* 1982--The Boston Bank of Commerce was founded under the leadership of CEO Juan Cofied. By the end of its first year, the institution was the 34th largest black-owned bank in the nation, with $11.4 million in assets.

* January 1983--Businessman Sonny Wright purchased the controlling interest in People's National Bank of Commerce. Located in the black community of Liberty City, the institution was the first black-owned bank in Miami and had assets of $14 million.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Earl G. Graves Publishing Co., Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning