The Black-Owned Business Collective (BOBC) is currently a facebook group that focuses on informing the community of, you guessed it, Black owned businesses. The group is full of both business owners and consumers looking to connect with one another. The BOBC spawned from the global community announcement to Blackout on Monday, September 8th and then every Friday, if not everyday. To Blackout is to only shop at or with Black owned businesses to start funneling our money back into our communities. Black people have a large amount of spending power, but we do not collectively use it to uplift us as a whole. We get paid and typically shop at big name brandt stores instead of with each other. A major complaint from those who wanted to Blackout was that they didn’t know of any Black owned businesses in their area or online, thus the BOBC was born. There is a growing list, located under the group’s Files, of businesses not only in the states but abroad as well as online only. They have discovered Black owned grocers, toiletry distributors, spring water, gas station, motor oil, sneaker and shoe brands, and a slew of restaurants, clothing and apparel, and skin, hair, and healthcare products just to list a few. The BOBC survives on community participation and guidance from the admins. The group is strict about only posting Black-owned businesses and information related to it. Unrelated posts are deleted and repeat offenders are removed from the group. The admins feel that if you are looking to purchase a mattress, but when you arrive at the mattress store, you see nothing but basketballs, you will walk out. The group works similarly. The name of the group boasts what people expect to see when they go to the group’s page. If there are Multi Level Marketing schemes, businesses not owned by Blacks or a bunch of motivational memes, those looking to join as well as those actively participating will lose interest. This is not a movement where we can afford to lose steam. We commend the group’s active participants as they continuously post new businesses and the list is updated weekly. We also commend those who silently browse the group and shop the businesses posted as that is equally as important as discovering businesses to share with the collective. If you know of a Black owned business, join the group at www.facebook.com/groups/blackbusinesscollective and post it in the group. The admins will add it to the list and be on the lookout for the group’s website launch in 2015!
