ATLANTIC CITY — Black-owned businesses once dominated the resort.
At its high point, more than 300 of them called the city’s Northside home. Now, the number of Black-owned businesses overall in the city is a fraction of that.
“Today, there’s only four basic businesses that survive integration, and those four basic businesses are the Black barbershop, the Black beauty parlor, the Black church and the Black funeral director,” said Ralph Hunter, an Atlantic City historian and president of the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey.
But a new generation of business owners is trying to increase those numbers.
With support from residents, the city and others in the community, some merchants believe more Black-owned businesses could survive in the city.
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“I wouldn’t have ever thought this would have happened with this many people in this many stores. I’m happy that it actually diversified this way and expanded out to where The Walk actually let smaller businesses come in and compete with major corporations,” said Carson Days, who owns Swapz AC in the Tanger Outlets with his business partner, Matt Akpan. “So that’s actually really, really good because some locations are just horrible.”
The number of Black-owned businesses in the city varies by source. Although there are 15 Black-owned businesses listed on Visit Atlantic City’s Black-Owned Businesses count, Yelp lists only six.
Around the country, there are 161,031 firms with majority Black or African American ownership, up from 124,004 in 2017, according to the latest estimates from the Annual Business Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Science Foundation.
Black-owned firms’ gross revenue increased 43% during that period, from an estimated $127.9 billion in 2017 to $183.3 billion in 2021.
“From the responses I get when people hear that I’m the owner, it’s always positive. It’s like a light to them that there’s more Black-owned business opening in Atlantic City,’’ said Dominic Francis, owner of the Heady2Go smoke shop in the Tanger Outlets. “We always get customers that want to support and show love, and they express how we need more Black-owned business in A.C.”
Days and Francis agreed that more resources, like grants or incentives for owners, and creating more awareness of the Black-owned businesses the city has would boost Black-owned business growth.
Due to technological advances like the internet and social media, Hunter said there’s a greater chance for more Black-owned businesses to succeed.
“There’s lots of new business. It’s the age of technology. There’s a lot of companies that are in all kinds of businesses that relate to the computer age, but the toy store, the car shop, the restaurants or things of that nature, or the restaurants just don’t exist in those areas,” Hunter said.
The city has educational programming that encourages business growth through the Small Business Academy, which teaches residents what it takes to become entrepreneurs, city spokesperson Andrew Kramer said. The city also has held a seminar geared toward Black and minority-owned businesses on how to do business with the city.
“Atlantic City residents have what it takes to become entrepreneurs. While this free program is open to all residents, the hope is future Black and minority business owners take advantage of this opportunity,” Kramer said.
Hunter said many of the businesses that were operational in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s in the Northside no longer exist. He said that part of the city had a total of 31 Black-owned bars and liquor licenses at one point, citing iconic places like Club Harlem.
Sara Spencer Washington, who died at 63 in 1953 in Atlantic City, was a Black millionaire who founded the Apex News & Hair Company in 1919. She parlayed her line of beauty and hair products into international cosmetology schools, which gave thousands of Black women financial independence by helping them to own their own salons.
Club Harlem had three to four shows daily that were almost always booked to the venue’s 3,000-person capacity, before the casinos were even around, Hunter said.
The club also brought entertainers from all over the world to play there, especially African American artists since they weren’t permitted to play at hotels or the Steel Pier prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion and national origin.
“Because integration has taken place in and around the world, cities — not only Atlantic City, but cities like the Southside of Chicago; Gary, Indiana; Detroit; Brooklyn, New Harlem, New York — those businesses don’t exist today. And one of the reasons why they don’t exist is because integration happened and people started moving out of the redline districts, moving into areas that were totally different after Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” said Hunter. “So if you had a series of hundreds of businesses in a redline area, they just don’t exist today in a traditional African American community where they were forced to live.”