New Haven Independent

“The pioneers are getting old and I don’t see anyone coming behind,” said Hill Alderwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks (pictured), addressing the Greater New Haven Business and Professional Association on Sunday afternoon.

The GNHBPA, an organization of African-American businesspeople and entrepreneurs, held its annual Business Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Sunday. The four inductees were chosen for their success in their respective professions and for their contributions to the city. Accepting their plaques in front of an audience gathered in a function room at the Community Outreach Center, several of the honorees took the opportunity to draw attention to the lack of minority-owned businesses in New Haven and to the lack of young black entrepreneurs.

“I don’t see any youth here,” said Brooks, looking out into an audience containing few faces under 30 years old. “It’s all people that have been treading this path for a long time.”

Brooks was accepting an award on behalf of Cornell Scott, the President and CEO of Hill Health Center, who could not attend the ceremony. She explained that she was troubled by a lack of young people interested in becoming business leaders in the African-American community. Brooks said that she was following up on remarks made by the afternoon’s first honoree, Melvenia Hylton.

“When I look around I’m very sad because there’s not many of us left,” Hylton (pictured with her husband) had said, referring to the dwindling number of black-owned beauty supply stores. Hylton is the owner of Beauty Plus, on Chapel Street. “We have lost control of our market,” she continued. Hylton said that she often tells young people, “You cannot let other people come into our community and target our market.”

In his remarks, Reginald Mayo, New Haven’s superintendent of schools and third to be inducted on Sunday, picked up the theme of youth involvement.

“It has bothered me over the years that more minorities haven’t gone into business,” he said. He explained that that’s why he helped to start New Haven’s new business-oriented magnet school, the Metropolitan Business High School. He hopes the program will inspire more minority young people to enter into business.

Metropolitan Business now has about 200 students in a leased space on Blake Street. A permanent home for the school is under construction on Water Street, with room for 550 students.

“The biggest problem is that young people don’t believe in themselves,” continued Mayo (at right in picture, receiving his award from Brian Perkins, president of the New Haven School Board), speaking over murmurs of agreement from the audience. He encouraged the crowd of businesspeople to praise youth for all their accomplishments.

“Pat ‘em on the back!” Mayo said. “We need to continue working with our kids and they will all be like you guys one day.”

The afternoon’s fourth inductee was Wesley Thorpe Sr., the executive director of Emergency Shelter Management Services homeless shelter.

In his closing remarks, GNHBPA president Cornell Wright decried the inequality that exists in New Haven, where a world-class university stands alongside poor minority communities. “On one side of New Haven we’re at the pinnacle of the world,” he said, “and within a block, it’s looking like the Third World.”

A Sea Change

Asked after the ceremony about reasons for the lack of young people involved with his organization, Wright (pictured at the podium) speculated that young people, plugged into the internet’s social networking sites, have “more of an electronic organization” these days than an organization that involves actual meetings and gatherings. “We’re in a sea change in regards to organizational dynamics,” he said. He said the GNHBPA is working on improving its website and has ongoing outreach programs to connect with more young people.

Wright called the challenge of connecting to the youth “a problem that most organizations are having.”

Brooks agreed. “It’s seems that that’s across the board,” she said. “The new generation just aren’t taking hold.” She pointed to the new business magnet school as a step in the right direction. “We need to give them something that they can grab hold of,” she said, “so they can have a dream in mind.”

There is a lack of business role models for African-American youth, explained Hylton. “When young people look in our community they see very few minority entrepreneurs.”

Asked why she thought there are so few minority entrepreneurs, Hylton responded that “the resources are not there when we’re going to start a business as they are for other groups.” She said that it had been very difficult for her to get a loan when she was starting her business. Many banks either turned her down or offered loans that were too small. One bank offered her a $25,000 loan, which was barely enough for her to cover her stock alone. “That’s only enough money to make you fail, not to help you succeed,” she said.

What is needed, said Hylton, is to educate young people about the resources available to them. One of those resources is the GNHBPA, which helped Hylton to get the loan she needed to start her business.

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