ABSTRACT

The US Black Arts, Black Power, and Black Consciousness movements of the 1960s and 1970s stimulated diverse creative and entrepreneurial impulses that were inherently political. The self-help, economic philosophy and small business development of the Nation of Islam were, for example, at their height during this period. Black consumerism, the idea of Black capitalism, and the impulse to buy Black were also integral to the tenor of the times. Moreover, everywhere there were Black artists, craftsmen, and craftswomen who produced Afrocentric commodities in the form of dresses, skirts, pants, hats, coats, suits, leather goods, jewelry, recordings, publications, films, games, furniture, cuisine, and the like. These creative impulses pointed to the critical connection between culture, economics, and politics. Political consciousness became cultural consciousness and emerging cultural preferences became economic needs. In other words, in the context of new expressions of political and cultural consciousness, new forms of self-help and consumer markets emerged and converged. Lifestyle change, if rooted in enduring cultural transformations, fueled entrepreneurial development and innovation.1