National Negro Business League
Courtesy of The New York Public Library
In 1900, Booker T. Washington founded the National Negro Business League (NNBL) to promote, teach, and pass on entrepreneurial development skills to African Americans. He organized and held annual NNBL meetings around the country. In an address at the 1912 annual NNBL meeting, Washington said in a speech to the general assembly, “now is the time. . . for us as a race to prove. . . [w]e have the ability and the inclination to do our part in owning, developing, manufacturing, and trading in the natural resources of this country. . . From our ownership of the soil comes independence, self-support, happiness and real manhood rights. . . If other races can attain prosperity by securing riches on a large-scale from our seas, lakes and rivers in the form of fish and other sea foods, thousands of Negroes can do the same thing.”
