In recent years increasing notice has been taken of the role of the American Negroes in our economy. Leading advertisers, such as Colgate-Palmolive-Peet, General Baking Co., Philip Morris, and numerous others, have awakened to the necessity of nationwide magazine advertising for the patronage of the customers; an increasing number of companies are hiring salesmen; one company even had an advertisement telling of its product's being sponsored by Jackie Robinson put in all the New York subway cars. White business is finally becoming aware of the potentialities of the $8 to $10 billion buying power of the American Negroes.' What share is the businessman himself getting of this sizable segment of the American market? Only a very small part, it is certain. Dr. Joseph A. Pierce, who has done more research on this subject than anyone else, notes that Negro business enterprises with few exceptions fall within the . .. definition of small business.2 Aside from some insurance companies and perhaps a few of the Negro-run banks, there are practically no companies which rate as even medium-sized. Dr. Pierce found that restaurants, beauty parlors, barber shops, grocery stores, cleaners and pressers, shoe repair shops, undertaking establishments, confectionaries, taverns and filling stations accounted for 71 per cent of all businesses in twelve Southern cities studied in 1944-45.3 Dr. Pierce also found that the median annual value of businesses in 1944 for 3,866 enterprises he studied was only $3,261.01, while a little over onethird had a volume of less than $2,500 and only 4.8 per cent did business of over $25,000 a year.4 business is definitely not big business. However, in most cities and towns of both South and North, wherever Negroes are concentrated, there are active colored business communities. One of the most interesting and important of these groups is that of Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta is the largest market in the Southeast. There were in 1940 about 150,000 Negroes in the area and the number has no doubt increased considerably since that time. The city had the largest professional class in the South. The number of proprietors, managers and officials, clerical and sales people was exceeded only by New Orleans among southern cities. On the other hand, a very large number of the workers were engaged in domestic service.'