In the fall of 1929, the CMA had been working on a new and profitable strategy for buying, selling, and advertising for its independently owned member stores. And the CMA expanded into Harlem where 50 stores joined the cooperation. The NNBL next established a Harlem headquarters at 2814 8th Avenue and went about developing a free lecture series on solutions to common problems facing grocery merchants. The lectures occurred at it’s Harlem headquarters. The New York Amsterdam News published a story that said, African-Americans spent some $2 billion for groceries per year. The CMA sought to control that revenue for the interest of black patrons. African Americans had been agitating and petitioning to advance their interest for a long time; the NNBL through the CMA focused on business ownership as a method to achieve that goal. The NNBL had hired Carl Dipman, editor of the Progressive Grocer, serve as a consultant on ways to improve CMA stores. The Progressive Grocer served as the leading trade journal for the grocery store industry. It assisted the CMA in modeling member stores “according to modern scientific methods.” Progressive staff members had created a model grocery store in North Carolina and now one Harlem for store owners new to the CMA cooperative. CMA managers who employed the Progressive Grocer’s plan experienced a 40 to 100% increase in store revenue.
Tell others about this blog and share a link
