ABSTRACT
Small firms owned by persons of African or Asian ancestry – as well as those of Hispanic heritage – are popularly known in the United States as minority- owned businesses (MBEs). Historically, MBEs have been uninvolved in the contracting and procurement activities of government agencies and authorities, yet this changed rapidly in the 1970s as the political power of African American voters was demonstrated in municipal elections in many of America’s largest cities. While the majority of the population in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1973 was African American, black- owned firms received less than a tenth of 1 per cent of the city’s procurement contracts in that year. Yet 1973 was noteworthy because of the election of Atlanta’s first African American mayor, and soon after, Atlanta enacted a preferential procurement programme designed to expand the presence of MBEs in public- sector contracting. During the first full year of the city’s new procurement programme, the MBE share of procurement spending rose to nearly 20 per cent (Boston, 1999).
